uncertain_dume | An Empire Outpost in the Bryx Sector, A Galaxy Far, Far Away, Thursday Evening

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An Empire Outpost in the Bryx Sector, A Galaxy Far, Far Away, Thursday Evening

It was supposed to be a milk run. In and out, no problem. Hera's sources had tipped her in on the location of a large shipment of bacta and other assorted medical supplies, which they were to come in, pick up, and then drop off on Wobani for a group of escapees from one of the Empire's labor camps. Hera would drop Kanan off, he'd make his way in on foot to secure the payload, and within an hour or two, the cargo would be on the ship, on the way to a group of people who could make far better use of it than the Imps could.

In theory. And Kanan had even managed to make it most of the way in, taking out a small trooper patrol and then helping himself to some of their gear. It was much easier to get in and out of an Empire's loading area when you were dressed for success, after all.

He... hadn't been banking on there being only one crate of cargo in the warehouse.

He extra hadn't been banking on it being accompanied by a half-dozen Rodians wearing shock collars, also awaiting transport to somewhere most certainly unpleasant.

After a quick, hushed conversation with the nervous captives, Kanan sighed and reached for his comm.

"Hey, Hera? How many people can we comfortably fit on the Ghost, anyway?"

[OOC: For she what is piloting the getaway vehicle!]

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Hera gunned it, slipped over the closest hill, and brought the Ghost down onto the landing pad. "Ready when you are! Chopper, how close are those patrols?"

The Rodians were running. Kanan was running. The hover-lift was... not going as quickly as anybody would like, because it was a hover-lift. It was made for heft, not speed.

"Sithspit," Kanan was muttering as he waved the five he'd been marching toward the Ghost, turning and making a break for the lift. "You. Off. Run."

The Rodian who had been driving the thing didn't need to be told twice. He was down and running for the ship as well, and Kanan was up and onto the lift in his place, driving toward the Ghost at as close to a breakneck speed as he could manage. Not far off, the sound of armored bootfalls hitting the landing pad could be heard, and a moment later, blaster fire.

... It seemed to be giving Kanan a fairly wide berth, all things considered. He was going to chalk that one up to the unparalleled training that the Empire's troops recieved with their guns.

Hera opened the cargo hatch and lowered the ramp. "Everybody on and brace yourselves," she called back through the intercom, keeping an eye on the converging patrols.

From atop his... painfully slow hover-lift, Kanan was taking shots at the incoming troopers, now. Picking them off one-by-one where he could. Starting to wonder why the hell they weren't shooting at him.

He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Hera! How long can you hold out? These damn lifts are not made for speed."

"We've got about a minute if I stretch it," she warned. "If it'll take longer, leave the bacta."

They had another cargo to worry about now, and Kanan himself was more important, too.

Kanan grit his teeth a little, considered the cargo he was hauling, and shook his head, no.

"I don't think it's bacta," he muttered to himself. "Give me forty seconds. If I'm not on the ship by then, I'll leave the cargo, but we're firing on it before we go."

The blaster fire continued, all pointed toward the Ghost in hopes of incapacitating her.

"What?" Hera asked. Then she scowled at the shots. "Don't you fire on my ship." She brought up the rear gun and swiveled it around to fire back. She didn't have much of a view from here, but she could offer a bit of distraction and deterrent.

And really, a distraction was the best thing Hera could have given him, because there was no way that loader was going to go any faster than it was doing without a little bit of cheating.

Not that he was using the Force in any sort of overt, obvious way. Holding up one hand and giving the whole haul a boost could just as easily mean that people lost track of time in the heat of the crossfire. Either way, Kanan was aboard well within that minute, and hanging out the loading bay door, taking a few more shots with his stolen blaster rifle for good measure.

"Hera, go. And go fast."

"Best speed there is." She closed the ramp and lifted just above the tops of the buildings before gunning it into a straight shot away from the installation. She marked the locations of the patrol ships and banked into one sharp turn, then shot up at a steep angle before bringing it around again.

Kanan was already pointing at their living cargo as he started running into the ship.

"You three, secure whatever the hell is in that crate! This is going to be a rough flight. You, can you shoot? Good, you take the left turret, I'm grabbing the right. Whatever we just made off with, I have a feeling the Imperials are going to want it back."

He skipped to the side to avoid Chopper as he leapt into the turret, not so much as bothering with the rungs of the ladder on the way.

"How quickly can we get into hyperspace, Hera? I have a feeling we're going to want to."

"Just as soon as we -" She was about to say 'leave the atmosphere' when the system alerted her to something big. "Just as soon as we get out of the range of that star destroyer!"

This was not good.

"Why the HELL is there a star destroyer?!"

That did explain Kanan's bad feeling, at least. His brow furrowed as a swarm of TIE fighters started pouring out of what was essentially a city fortress and a flying promise of death all in one.

"Okay, new plan. Hera, let me handle the shooting, you just do what you do best!"

And it explained why the patrols had been so touchy.

"On it!" She spun and dove, trying to get as much distance as possible. "Don't think it's related to us, just bad timing," she added. Not that it mattered that much at the moment, but it was at least some consolation.

"Bad timing that's gonna get us killed," Kanan shot back as he took aim at the incoming TIEs and let loose with a volley of shots. The Rodian in the other turret was doing so just as enthusiastically; clearly these guys were prisoners for a reason. Kanan could absolutely live with having them on his team right now. "You ever outrun a destroyer before?"

"Oh, please." Hera rolled her eyes, spun the ship, and shot up between two TIEs, letting them blow each other up. "It won't get us killed, and it's not like destroyers are fast. And I think these guys just failed inspection."

Formations existed for a reason.

Just for that, a few more TIEs were launching from the ship. Apparently the Ghost had just gone from being a minor annoyance to a slightly larger issue. Or, at the very least, a slightly more expensive one.

"Okay, and what about those guys?"

He paused in his shooting just long enough to yank the helmet off his head and toss it out of his way, and then jumped back into the game by taking out another fighter as the Rodian in the other turret took out two more when they made a pass overhead.

"Those guys are a bit more of a problem," Hera admitted. "Hard to get a hyperspace trajectory while I can't stay on course."

She dodged a few that were staying in formation, spiraled to give both her gunners a chance at them, and dove.

"Well, then keep doing what you're doing," Kanan replied, picking off a few more. "Get us those clean shots. They're going to try to herd us into the range of the destroyer's weapons, and if that happens, we're toast."

Not that he didn't think Hera already knew that, but--

Kanan hissed between his teeth at a string of cursing coming from their other turret after another sweep from the TIEs, and then a hollered report that one of his guns was down and he was down to half capacity.

"I know!" Hera yelled back to Kanan, and then to the Rodian, "Which one? Chopper, get to work on it."

Chopper blatted an annoyed sound, but went to work on it. Meanwhile, Hera increased the shields to the front and did a spiral roll that ended with heading decidedly away from the destroyer - and straight through a bank of TIEs.

"You have got to be kidding me," Kanan yelled, but leaned into his own gun and started firing away, thankful that, at the very least, TIEs didn't have shielding and the Ghost's guns were leaps and bounds better than the rock-shooter on the Expedient had been. Another two fighters went down, one of them careening into a third, and almost, almost clearing a place for them to break through, if not for another four swarming in. "How many kriffing fighters can one destroyer carry?!"

Many, Kanan. Many.

Hey, Hera trusted you, Kanan! And the Ghost.

"Too many!" she shot back.

She did a quick check. "There's a storm over the northeastern continent. If we can get into the clouds, we stand a good chance of losing them." Especially if the TIEs were as shoddily maintained as they were shielded. Hey, she could hope.

"Hold on back there," she said through the intercom. "It may get a bit bumpy."

"We're all gonna die," Kanan muttered under his breath, shooting another TIE down as he did so. "Whatever was in that cargo had better be worth it!"

He was answered by four Rodians all yelling over one another as they attempted to secure the crate, the fifth yelling about more fighters incoming. Just what they needed, really.

Hera weaved as she dove, evading all but a few glancing blows that the shields absorbed before she hit atmosphere. Then, as promised, things got bumpy. Fortunately, the TIEs weren't doing any better, and most of their shots went wild. Unfortunately, she had to put more concentration into just keeping control.

She could do it, though. She doubted the Imperial pilots could.

Somewhere in the cargo hold, Kanan was pretty certain he could hear one of the Rodians praying.

Hell, he was tempted to start reciting the code, himself. One of the TIEs managed to get a lucky shot in, and Kanan regretted removing his stolen helmet as a rain of sparks flew up from his controls. He swore under his breath.

"Hera, I've lost my guns," and now he was sliding back down the ladder, hanging on to the rungs for dear life. "Chopper, how are you doing with that other one?"

Chopper yelled binary profanity at him, then pointedly told Hera how the repairs were going.

"Sixty percent back on that gun; looks like that's all we'll have until we land. Chopper, get on the other one!"

Hera flew deeper into the storm. One of the TIEs hit a rough patch, dropped abruptly, and snapped a vane, limping down to avoid a crash; two others peeled off.

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