The sun glowed brightly over the desert planet, but no warmth came from it, at least not in Will’s opinion.
What the hell have I done… first day back on the job and my wingman’s already stuck under a pile of scrap. And worse yet, I have no clue if he’s dead or alive. Will looked up at the small pile, relatively speaking compared to the others, that had collected after the pod came to a rest at the foot of the larger mound of metal. Apparently, the pod had skidded down the side of the mountain of scrap, and caused an avalanche affect, causing other pieces of scrap to fall along in its wake. The pieces ended up piling on top of the pod after it came to a stop at the foot of the slope.
Maybe I should be glad it didn’t get skewed on one of many sticks like a meatball. Well… how to get him out of there. He started to clear away a few pieces, then realized it was going to take forever by himself. Going over to the viewport, or where he thought the viewport should be, he shoved away a piece, and revealed a corner of it. Peering inside, Will was able to barely make out the silhouette of a man inside, unconscious. The glare of the back light prevented him from seeing any detail.
Okay, so he’s in there. Now, to get him out. “Dee-Ar, do you copy?” Will keyed his comm. No reply. He repeated the statement into the comm. Once again, the only reply he received from the other side was static.
Damned thing’s either broken, or my comm is broken. Twisting the frequencies a bit, Will adjusted to an alternate one used by Nazgul. “This is Nazgul five. Does anyone copy?” Without knowing who might be listening in on the comm frequencies, Will was stuck using his flight number. “I repeat, this is Nazgul five. Nazgul one, come in. Nazgul eleven? Twelve? Anyone?”
Nothing.
Okay, so I know the problem is on my end. Either that… or everyone else’s is broken, which I seriously, and highly, doubt. Yea, there’s no way Shazam’s or Arturo’s would be broken… right? Unless they got theirs taken away somehow, which is not entirely impossible at this point. And then there’s the case with Hunter… He looked like he had a pretty smooth landing… So his should be working right? Well, apparently not. Alright I’m convinced. I’m not at fault here, all theirs are broken. Soooo, not my fault. Will collected his thoughts, then tucked the comm back into a pocket.
Now, back to the task at hand, to get DR out of there…Will turned to the left, nope, no friendlies that way; to the right, no friends that way either, except some droids. Walking up to one, Will said, “Hello there.” The droid turned around, then turned back to its work.
Ouch, that hurt. I was just ignored by a droid… a Droid! Will sighed, then started to head back to his own pod.
Maybe that droid I accidentally
shot, will of some assistance. Standing over the limp body of the droid, Will looked at it, then at the head.
Which piece am I supposed to prod? The head or the body? Heck, don’t have the time, I’ll do both. Fortunately, the extra energy had already dissipated from the body, and the droid “woke” from the prodding.
“Oh, it’s you again. Thank you. What happened?” the protocol droid asked innocently.
“Um, I’m not sure, I think my weapon misfired. It must’ve been damaged from the crash. Listen, I was wondering if you’d be able to give me a hand…”
“I am sorry, you are not my master.”
“Yes, but aren’t you a protocol droid? Isn’t it your mandate to help others? Besides, I saved your butt back there. I could’ve just left you to be scraped like everything else here, but noooo, I risked my neck to help you.”
Not to mention half the things I just said were lies. “I see. In that case…”
“Yeah, what do you say, my friend?” Will finished the sentence with a extra cheerful note, hoping the droid bought it.
“I shall help you this once…”
“Great. Here, let me carry that for ya. Must be hard to walk without a head.” Will said as he picked up the droid’s head and proceeded back to DR’s crashed pod.
Once at the crash site, the droid looked at the pile, from Will’s hands, and said, “that is what you need help with.”
“Yep.”
“Come, we will need help…”
With the help of a few more scrapper droids, or rather just the scrapper droids, they were able to clear off the wreckage of the fighter fairly fast. Not that he had a sense of time in any reference. To Will, just sitting there on the side, watching, waiting, as piece by piece the debris were moved away in front of him, became agonizingly slow moments of his life. To him, they seemed to move in slow motion, while his thoughts raced ahead, and through the infinite number of scenarios and outcomes that had occurred, occurring, and could occur that day.
Will made periodical checks around the pod, to make sure there weren’t any structural damages that could, somehow, blow it up or something. On one pass, he noticed that the man inside stirred a bit. After bashing a metal stick against the hull a couple of times, the ringing must’ve gotten to him. The pilot waved his arms around frantically trying to stop the sound, but was unable to move his body due to the safety straps that still held him to the seat, unfortunately. He did, however, manage to unbuckle himself from the harness. After the first few seconds, they both realized there was no way for them to communicate with one another; the pod was completely soundproof. Will tried to make some hand gestures that meant to say he’s going to get him out… DR didn’t get it, and Will gave up trying to talk to, for all he was concerned, a deaf person, and went back to working on the issue on hand.
Will was caught off guard when the transport pulled up behind him. The busy sounds of the junk yard had completely drowned out the hum of the vehicle until it came to a complete stop behind him with a distinct change in the sound output. Honestly, he didn’t expect company. And Will hated surprises. For all he knew, the rest of Nazgul, excluding DR, were either KIA or MIA, and will remain that way until he can somehow reestablish communications with them.
When Will noticed the sound, or lack of, behind him, the first reaction was to turn around to confront the new arrivals. The first thing he saw a big furry ball of a Wookiee on a roof, and he did not recall taking off, or arriving at Sarek with a Wookiee as a squadron mate. It was a no brainer for him to come to the conclusion that, with the Imperial vehicle, these guys were from the local Imperial Outpost. So his second reaction was… shoot it. With a practiced smoothness that only professional smugglers, and those who dealt in the company of, possessed, Will drew his dual blasters from the side, even from his crouched position above the pod, and squeezed off two shots from each pistol before the Wookiee roll off the other side of the roof, out of view. Noting his exposed position above the pod, Will, too, jumped off the top with ease, and proceeded to reload his blasters.
He heard another hatch open on the vehicle, and prepped himself to be shot at. To his surprise, it was Hunter that stood next to the door, yelling at him to stand down. Will didn’t reply. He took a peek around the corner, and then exhaled. It was Hunter alright.
After he walked over to Will, Will said, “It’s good to see that you haven’t died on me yet. Thought you were a goner when you didn’t reply to my attempt at communication.”
“Yeah, there seems to be some sort of jamming going on here. I can’t reach anyone else either. Want to give me a sit-rep?”
Will looked at the Warrant Officer for a sec, then said, “As you probably guessed, I crashed over here in the junkyard, so far, it’s provided pretty good cover for me from any wandering eyes. I befriended a droid, and we are currently in the process of trying to get DR, here, out of his stupid pod. The hatch is stuck.” Will finished is quick report, and then chanced, “What about your side?”
“Like you, I crash landed, took out a couple bastards with me on the way down. Heh. Ran into Ruwe here, Petty Officer, ex-Nazgul. Went MIA a couple missions back. We went and jacked a transport from our neighborhood friendly Imperial Outpost. And picked up Rocket along the way here.”
“Well, first things first, we should get DR out of there. He could be running out of air any time now.”
After Ruwe got DR out, at Will’s expense of his inability to effectively process thoughts at the moments immediately prior to their arrival, they all took a seat on the inside of the vehicle.
“So, Hunter, what’s our course of action now?” Will asked.
“Well.” He said, pondering for a moment before continuing on as if it was the first time he had thought about the current situation. “Our mission is most likely all shot to hell now. Not only did we fail to complete the mission, we’ve got ourselves into quite a bind, actually a number of binds. I have no idea where the rest of my squadron is, save for you guys. So we’ll have to find them. But we have no means of getting a message to them. And on top of it all, we have no way to getting off this God forsaken planet. Just about everyone’s ships have either crashed, or blown up. So to sum it all up, we’re pretty screwed.”
Will scratched his chin, then concluded, “yep, sounds about right. But you haven’t answered my question.”
“I guess the ultimate goal here, for us at this point, would be to get off the planet. But before we do that, we’ll need to regroup with everyone else. So our best bet would be to head into the city. And the only way for us to get there, is through the processing plant. But we can’t do that without first establishing some sort of communication with them. If we’re lucky, they will all have found each other in the city; if not, they’re all scattered to hell like we were a while ago. “
“Now, you said there’s some sort of jamming going on here, since neither yours nor mine works. Truth be told, I almost thought of just chucking it. Didn’t even think of the possibility that it might not have been broken after all. So, I’m guessing that’s our primary goal right now. You guys have any idea how to proceed and how we’re doing on weaponry?”
“We don’t have much in sense of weapon or ammo. So far, you are probably the heaviest armed here. The rest of us have a couple of DL-44s and a couple of E-11s to go around. And as for directions, Ruwe probably knows best. He’s been living out here for a while, so he knows his way around pretty well.”
“Alright, let’s go. I’ll take point. Rocket, you bring up the rear. We’ll have to collect ammo and weapon along the way. Although I hope we won’t have to. For everyone’s sake. ” Will said to everyone while preparing to get up.
“I thought I was the SC here, why are you taking point?”
“You want to stick your head out there first? Be my guest.”
“Maybe later.”
The group of humans exited the vehicle that was now parked to the side of the loading bay to the plant, and moved on on foot, with a Wookiee that stuck out like a sore thumb. The loading bay was quite large, about the size of a hanger bay at least, from what Will could tell. Rails lead from outside to the insides of the complex, where the material that were carried on the carts would obviously be processed. The problem was, the entire opening was protected by some kind of force field. And as far as Will could see, the only things allowed in were the carts.
“Shouldn’t we move in smaller groups? I mean, five is a pretty large group, easy to be detected right? A smaller group can go in, get whatever done, then come back out. The rest can sit and watch their backs.” Hunter piped up.
“Yeah, and who’s gonna come get you when we exit on the other side of the plant? Not to mention the squadron is already pretty damned split up. We’re moving as a team, together, and that’s the end of it. Not trying to undermine your authority as the commander here Hunter. But you’re not exactly thinking clearly in my opinion. Ruwe, you think we can slip in somehow using the rail system?”
“[Yeah, but there’s another scanner not far into the plant. It detects what kind of materials are in the carts then directs the cart to the appropriate dumpster. It’s best if we don’t have to go through it.]”
“What if we do?”
“[Trust me, you don’t.]”
“Alright, then how much time do we have until the cart goes through the second screen?”
“[Twenty seconds? Maybe thirty? I’ve never needed that much time to get off the cart.]”
“Right. We’ll split into two groups for this. The carts will likely be semi full, so I doubt all five of us will fit into a cart together. DR, Rocket, with me. Hunter, go with Ruwe. You’re up first. Look sharp guys, once through the first barrier we got twenty seconds to clear the cart. Unless you want something very unpleasant to happen to you. Move out. Keep close to me.”
Will moved along the wall with DR and Rocket close behind him. When the next cart approached, they sprinted to it, and then pulled themselves into the cart. Going through the magnetic barriers never used to concern Will. He did it all the time, going in and out of the hanger bays in a fighter. But this, this was something new. And he wasn’t sure it was 100% safe. Plus there’s the uncertainty that something might go very wrong. As the cart sailed through the barrier, Will had a slight feeling, a six sense, as an image of his insides all lined up and then were distorted by the barrier. Without looking, he closed his eyes and jumped out. His feet hit the ground slight later than anticipated, and his knees buckled out of reflex, and pushed himself into a roll.
“Well, that wasn’t too bad.” Will shook off the fall lightly and looked around. Hunter was rubbing an elbow, while DR was busy getting out of the way from the next incoming cart. Ruwe was already on his knees securing the perimeter.
“Damned thing singed my flight suit.” Hunter whined.
“Everybody in one piece? Good, let’s go.” Will asked without expecting an answer, and as a joke directed at Hunter, who he guess couldn’t feel an arm at the minute. “Ruwe, you know where we might find said jamming device?”
- OOC:
- WC: 2608