OOC:

For background on who the heck Elnine and Spilfer are, read the Prologue, it's not necessary unless you want to know, and it would help some to know what the heck we are here for.  It adds to (actually multiplies!) the awesomeness of the eventual surprises.  Work together on IRC folks, #Wildcard channel.  Let's have fun.

Leaving behind the rather expensive picket from Riqimo's pockets, Wildcard was now confronted by a planetless star system.  Garbage orbitted around the small sun where worlds should be.

“Ahh,” sighed Spilfer, “Paradise!”

“Indeed..” Riq muttered, still a little touchy that he gave up over 4000 credits as an 'admission' fee.

The outdated technology of thousands of worlds drifted in precise orbit around a massive wreck of some kind.  To Eline, the enormous wreck floating in the center of the system resembled a huge, metallic slice of dricklefruit pie ala mode – one that had been through a heated space battle and lost.  Judging by the mass alone, Riq thought it could easily be a major chunk of an Imperial Star Destroyer or space station of some kind, but none of its outer surface had survived to identify it.  It was a monstrous honeycomb of broken corridors, deck supports, and conduits.  Spilfer shouted, excitedly pointing to the massive wreck, “There is object of our quest!”

The entire ship was silent for about a minute until Arnaut gave a whistle.  Riq blinked twice before being the first to actually speak, “Umm, it's... a bit... large..”

Spilfer turned to Riq with a slight confusion before chuckling in his Squib-laugh, “No, no! Quest-Object in Big-Thing!”

“Oh, in that case,” Riq gave a sigh, there was no way they would have been able to tow that thing out of the system, let alone get it out without the Ugors noticing, “Do you have an idea on how to get aboard then?  The Ugor patrol around this heap seems... heavy...  In fact it is the only evidence I see of organized patrols...”

“From the styled black holes emblazoned on the side, I'd say that this thing probably has some religious significance to the Ugors... We might as well break into a Cathedral, and don't say it Arn.”  Riq glanced at the Squad Leader.  They had actually done the latter on a classified mission, but this looked a bit more complex.

“We could blast our way in,” Darr suggested.

“If you could get our weapon systems online first, and can get past the six warships, plus whatever else is out there not on patrol, it might work,” their pilot shrugged sarcastically.

“The old Hide-In-the-Garbage trick?” a random trooper suggested, Riq didn't catch whom.

“Eh,” Riq winced, “the Ugors are garbage experts, I rather not take that chance.”

Snipes, with a hint of alcohol on his breath, suggested something crazy enough to just work, “Stage a collision of some garbage, have it propel towards them, they'll have to clean it up.”

Riqimo nodded, “Our tractor beams are still operational, we could do that... nice idea Snipes.”

With some luck and preparation, two large chucks of garbage were orchestrated to collide with some basic physics calculations, sending the larger flying towards the center of the warships, using this distraction to its full potential their shuttle flew towards the titanic chunk of debris.

On one side of the wreckage they found a recessed emergency airlock, which used to face onto some non-pressurized area of the structure.  That area, whatever it was, now gone with the rest of the ship, left the remaining structure's airlock open to deep space.  And shortly after being spotted, was now the docking point of the shuttle.

Sliding on his Stormtrooper helmet, Riqimo gave the orders on the comm, “We'll be entering here, remember that our suits will have four hours of air supply.  If we don't find what we need by then, we'll have to return to here to restock our air.  Spilfer here will remain on the ship and monitor our helmet camera feeds to let us know when we see this 'Quest Object' that we're seeking.”

With that, Riqimo was the first out the airlock and into the airlock, which strangely had enough gravity to keep his feet firmly on the floor as if he was on a planet.  Several bits of Stormtrooper armor was strewn throughout the cooridor.  Some of the armor, however, was still packed with spray-on shipping foam.  A weapons locker on one of the walls was smashed open, spilling the remains of several Imperial-Issue bkaster rifles across the bent floor.

“Well, this was apparently once the Empire's,” Darr stated the obvious over the open channel as the remaining troops piled out and grouped into their squads.

“Darr, you'll stick with Raiders, I'll go with the Wraiths.  Iron Horse will also stick with me for a while until we find a split in the corridors.” Riqimo pointed down two halls, the smaller for the Raiders, and the larger hall, obviously the main corridor, for his larger group.

Just as everyone was about to move, a dozen distorted, metallic shapes clambered silently into view.  Riqimo recognized most of them as standard droids, but some were so twisted and bent to be unrecognizable.  At the lead was a dented and scarred interrogation robot – a black and chrome sphere of hateful technology.  A squad of bent and broken mouse droids slid into view along the floor, most of which had small blasters mounted upon them.

“These are the droids... that survived this place..” Riqimo muttered over the comm, “Take up defensive positions just in case.”

As everyone slid into cover or took firing positions Riqimo sighed when he realized why he hadn't heard the droids coming, there was no sound save for the comm system.  He was in vacuum after all...

One of the mouse droids quickly fired a bolt of red energy at him, which Riq narrowly avoided and rolled to cover behind a storage footlocker.  The platoon returned fire as soon as Riq was out of the field of view, destroying most of the mouse droids, but allowing the droid carrying the interrogation droid to escape.

“All clear,” Riq popped his head up when his torchlight revealed that they had all disappeared into holes in the ship.  “Keep your eyes out for more of these... they seem to be the only things on this ship.  So let's be thankful for that much at least.”

Holding his rifle at ready his motioned for Kanderin to take point while Riqimo was immediately behind him with the rest of Wraith, and with Iron Horse holding the rear.  It was going to be an interesting exploration mission.  Maybe they'd learn what the heck this wreckage was.

OOC:

Sorry about the delay there.  But I promise you fun plot twists in this thing.  Sadly I can only average an hour or so on the computer lately with RL running as it is, so try not to go too fast folks

And what this place is, and what the quest object is... they're both...

wait for it...

















wait for it...

















wait for it...

















wait for it...

















Surprises!
(God I'm mean )

Seriously though, be patient, it will ALL be revealed to be pure awesomeness, or at least fun-ness.

"Oh great!" Koll shouted, bearing down and taking potshots at the various droids coming forward. These things were tough and hard to kill, granted you consider blwoing up a droid "killing" it. Koll would worry about the semantics of it later. He checked his thermal detonators at his belt. Four, like he always carried, dangled nicely in reach. He picked one up and launched it forward. "Frag out!" he shouted. Forgetting his basic space-physics classes, he lobbed the grenade, and it began to fly. Straight up into the cieling of the corridor, that is. "Sithspit!" Koll shouted, returning his attention to the battlefield.

Suddenly, a shock rocked the battlefield. The grenade, by pure chance, had drifted into the duct the droids had started coming out of. The explosion blew out the top and bottom of the duct, causing some of the duct to come careening down on to the droids. It landed on maybe two of them, by Koll's estimation, but that still left about twenty more.

Koll had given up on trying to destroy the droids with just his own fire. He joined others trying to fell the things. Arms, legs, heads, all mechanical, flew in every which direction from the already decrepit droids. Koll reloaded his third clip that fight and fired a few more shots with both pistols at a one legged droid's foot. As it took its next hop forward, he landed on a stub and fell to the ground. Both Wraith and Iron Horse fell fire on it. Someone from the crowd threw another grenade, faring a bit better than Koll. "Sir?" Koll shouted in his comlink.

"What, Private?" both Riq and Arnaut returned at the same time.

"I think this mission more than sucks!"

OOC:

Meanwhile, with Raiders Squad…

“Alright, watch out for more of those things.” Rannik said, walking slowly down the hallway with his A280 raised before him, “Don’t shoot unless your spotted or I give the order.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve got it.” Snipes said, likewise moving ahead cautiously. The group crept down the corridor, stepping over thick wires that snaked across the floor. There was a flash of sparks ahead on one of the walls, causing them to halt and train their sights on it, before recognizing it as a loose wire.

“Not jumpy at all, are we.” Rogueboy said with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. Darr-Rann grinned under his helmet as he shook his head.

“Those droids could come from anywhere; we’ve got to be careful.” The Sergeant Major said, halting the squad for a moment. He looked around the hallway, scanning for enemies, before taking a second to look back at the squad following him, feeling a sudden longing for his days as squad leader. He nodded to snipes, and then continued forward.

As they proceeded, a clicking sound rang out through the hallway from around an upcoming corner. He held up his hand. Snipes waved ahead Private Kry, who moved up along the wall. When he reached the corner he withdrew a small wire camera, holding it around the edge so that the squad could see. Droids, all armed, stood waiting for them.

“Alright… hit them hard around the corner. Your weapons free.” Rannik said, readying his own weapon. They paused just for a  second, then ran forward.

Blaster fire tore through the air, droids quickly falling under the onslaught. Those that were fortunate enough to have survived the initial attack fell back, returning their own fire. Raiders held their ground, keeping up the attack until every droid lay shattered and burnt.

“Good work.” Darr-Rann said. He clicked on his radio, “Riq, we’ve just encountered another group of droids. We wasted them, but this time they were stationed in the hallway waiting for us. Be careful – the droids at least are definitely alert to our presence by now.”

“Rodger that.” The platoon commander replied, “Keep in contact.” He turned off his radio. Gesturing to the squad again, he moved forward, stepping over the shattered husks of droids. If their enemy was alert already, this would be a much harder mission to carry out. He was pondering the situation when suddenly he heard Rogueboy yell out to him. “Darr, look out!”

He hesitated half a second before leaping aside. A shattered droid at his feet fired at him, just missing his head as he moved out of the way. The squad opened fire n the droid, causing it to immolate as it’s plating was torn open. It fired for a few seconds longer, burning holes in the ceiling, before finally coming to a halt.

Darr-Rann breathed deeply, and nodded his thanks. I’m too rusty. If Rogue hadn’t spotted that thing, it would had killed me. He buried his worries down again, waving for the squad to continue.

Every corner was a nightmare, a nightmare coming to life. If RK hadn’t known any better he could have swore he was dreaming, but after the previous fight it was as if he had been pinched, confirming he was definitely wide awake.

“Riq, by any chance are we in some demented Tomb for Robots, and the ‘Quest artifact’ is… oh I don’t know, the only way we can put these robots at peace?” RK was trying his best to lighten the situation; even though he knew that fear was already spreading throughout the group.

“Yea, were just happy jolly artifact hunters, who kill robots, makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?” Koll snapped.

“Sorry, I ever asked.”

The next few moments were silence. Every step was another risk, and they knew it. RK half-expected to see a ghost or another bunch of robots jump out at them, blood dripping from their mouth and hands. It never happened, but the fear still clung. RK tried his best to keep calm, but it was becoming more difficult to fight it off.

“Hold it.” Koll’s voice came, startling them all. 

“What is---” Jenn asked, her voice cut off by Koll.

“Something moved.”

RK pulled his blaster up, leveling it towards the area that Koll was looking. He kept himself calm, and let his body move on instinct. Nothing had jumped out yet, but he was starting to re-consider his ghost theory.

“Are you sure you saw something, or was it your mind and fear playing trick on you?” Helena asked.

“I swore I saw something, and it was white.” Koll replied, his head still stuck on the place in front of him.

Crap, it’s worse than I thought, we also have Stormtroopers; so dead robots that can move, and ghosttroopers, what’s next? RK grinned at the thought. It was amusing, but at the same time a little demented.

“Alright, let’s move on, just keep your eye’s open.” Riq moved ahead, making his way slowly down the corridor. The rest of the squad wasn’t so sure, but they eventually followed suit.

Traveling down the latest corridor was largely uneventful, a few mouse droids scurried away into holes before the squads were able to fire a clean shot.  Only the sound of their breathing within the helmet filled their ears, the lovely vacuum preventing any noise to hint what may lay ahead.

Breaking the near silence, Riqimo flicked on his comm for the two squads, “Anyone here think they can slice open that door?  Or at least force it open?”  He motioned to a heavy blast door with the standard Imperial symbol for restricted area.

RK of Wraith, a combat engineer volunteered and quickly went to carefully playing around with the controls.  Within two minutes he had the door opening, and the squads were immediately pimmelled with all manner of debris.  A strange and powerful gust of wind pushed them all back as they struggled to look beyond the hail with weapons ready.

Riq caught a light gleam off a shiny metal helmet, his eyes quickly focused into the darkness on the spot and saw a tall dark figure standing framed in a doorway on the other side, its cloak whipping in the unnatural wind of a pressurized chamber escaping into vacuum...

Riq had never seen the figure in person before but he knew who it was, legends were shared about this sinister figure and only word could sum it all up... Vader.

Several green troopers instinctively shot at the figure as soon as the saw it, and the cloaked figure seemed to sway aggressively like a snake to strike in response.  One lucky shot however hit the helmet which rolled off and slid downwards towards Riq's feet.

“It's just a spare helmet and cloak of Vader...” Riq barely hid the surprise in his voice, “This wreckage is apparently more important that we thought it was...”

“You're telling me,” Arn whistled through the comm, just as surprised as all of them.

“Spifler, is this the... quest object?” Riqimo made sure to turn his head down so his camera feed showed the helmet.

“No! Bigger! Lighter!” Spilfer sounded like he was fidgeting with something on the other side, hopefully not one of the key components of the ship.

Turning back to the local frequency Riqimo waved his squad onward, “This isn't what Spilfer wants.  Something both bigger and lighter.”  He glanced back down the hallway they were traveling down earlier before entering this chamber, “And apparently we got a three way split up ahead as well, so I think it's time to split Wraith and Iron Horse up a bit.  We'll maintain regular radio checkups, every 20 minutes.”

The Horses nodded and Gio led them down the left corridor.  Riq let Arn choose the direction for his squad, which was straight ahead rather than a right turn.

“You know be nice if they left the lights on for us,” Kand sarcastically suggested as he thought he caught something out of the corner of his eye for the third time, “The darkness makes it too hard to see things.”

Riq shrugged, “Make do with the torchlight on your rifle, odds are the droids that are here salvaged as many of the power generators as possible to keep themselves running, and I doubt they need the light anyways.”

Kand returned the shrug, “At least they could be better hosts for their guests.”

The squad shared a laugh as they began a door breach maneuver to a blast door that was blocking their path down the hallway.  Apparently it closed in attempt to keep the pressurized atmosphere on the other side.

OOC:

Spooky surprise number one... check... and many more to come   And Raiders, do something!

Hiss The door was finally open. RK was the first to step through the newly opened door, his body trembling with each step towards the inside. Once past the doorway he froze and frantically looked around, making sure nothing was lurking in the shadows.

“Coasts---GAH!” Something dropped out of the sky and landed on top of RK. He immediately started to move around frantically, lashing out with his arm to get whatever it was off. He could hear the laughter of the squad in the comm.; Yet , he continued to thrash about.

“Calm down RK, its just some Zero-g armor.” Riq said, barely holding back laughter long enough to even speak.

“Oh.” RK grinned underneath his helmet and pulled the attacking armor off, letting go limp on the ground.

After a few more moments of laughing, they proceeded. RK took up the rear just in case any more surprises were to come he wouldn’t be the one getting caught up in them. I swear that thing was haunted. RK thought, trying to shake the night mare.

-_-_-

The Zero-g kept limp on the ground, a harmless piece of equipment, unless in the wrong hands. However, the figure standing above it had other plans for this equipment, after all this was its home and someone had invaded it. 

He picked up the armor and slipped it over his metallic body. The only thing missing was the helmet, but luckily there was a stray helmet lying on the ground. He quickly picked it up and placed it on its head. Die…..

-_-_-

RK kept getting the feeling someone was following him, but he knew nothing was there. Besides every time he looked he just saw another one of his squad mates behind him. It was no big deal; at least he hoped.

“Are we getting any closer to this ‘Quest thing’” Kand’s voice came over the channel.

“Don’t know, depends on what it is.” Riq replied. His eyes were peeled in front of him the whole time.

“It can’t be much longer, this thing’s not that big, is it?” RK asked. He was still looking behind him frantically, but still seeing one of his squad mates. 

“We’ll get there when we get there.” Arnaut said. It seemed that his nerves were starting to calm, but there was still and edge of fear.
They continued their trek through the hallway. It was hard to see, even with the lighting coming from the squad’s blasters. However, it seemed that their nerves had become calm, even RK had stopped looking behind him. 

“Alright, just to make sure nobody got left behind.” Arnaut spun and started counting heads. He counted eight people, including Riq. “Good, we have eight people, meaning everyone’s accounted for.”

RK wasn’t so sure though, didn’t they have seven people originally? He counted for himself, but coming out with seven, it wasn’t a big mistake, but something was out of order. What… could… no. RK slowly turned around, but never got the chance to complete his look. Something hit him, hard, making him go down. He hit the ground, hard.

Pain seared through his body, making it hard to move. The attacker was already making it way through the rest of the squad. RK was able to move his head upward to see his squad mates firing at the intruder; every blast missing its mark.

“Stupid Di’kut.” RK mumbled as he pushed himself up. The pain from him being rattled inside his suit made it difficult, but he did. The next few minutes were a blur for him as he pulled his blaster up and aimed it directly at the Intruder who was now firing back. “Die!!!”  He knew the words were in vein since nobody could hear them, but it was worth it. He shot three blasts, finally bringing the armor down.

“I told you that thing was haunted!” RK said through the comm.

It took a while for them all to regain their composure, but finally Koll spoke up. “It’s just a robot in the suit RK.”

RK didn’t even respond he just moved his way past the rest of the squad and started making his way the rest of the way down the hall.

There was something about space wrecks that gave Dante the creeps. He didn't know if it was the tomb-like silence, or the signs that the ships had once been bustling with life, but he'd always hated these EVA actions. The droids only made the parallel with a certain other mission even worse.

The droids had stopped coming, which should have been a relief. Instead, the sudden change only added to the tension the RAIDERS felt. Even Darr seemed slightly nervous, moving his A-280 to the left and right as he walked. The Raiders pushed their way through partially collapsed rooms and service corridors, always on the alert for movement. The area they were in was surprisingly well lit and apparently free of droids, but no one felt reassured.

Abruptly, Darr held up his hand, stopping the group. With his free hand, the Sergeant Major gestured at the area ahead. The clean, light grey of the corridor was abruptly replaced by charred black metal and a pile of debris that blocked off any further passage. It was clear that there was no way for the RAIDERS to go any futher do the corridor.

There was a loud beep, and the entire squad spun as one. They remained frozen in that position for several seconds, their rifles trained on the source of the noise.

"Just a kriffing sensor."

It wasn't clear who had said it but it didn't matter. The squad relaxed slightly, and the troopers lowered their rifles. The doorseal had automatically hissed open at their approach, and continued to stay open as Darr slowly moved towards the portal. The area beyond was dark, but seemed to be empty of droids.

There was a shriek of static from Dante's helmet com, followed a moment later by the voice of the Platoon Commander.

"Lieutenant Riqimo to RAIDERS squad, acknowledge."

"We hear you, Lieutenant." Darr replied.

"The Wraiths ran into an unknown contact. It appears to be highly resiliant to our weaponry, and tried to ambush us. It fled for reasons we aren't sure of, and it might be headed in your direction."

"Understood. We'll deal with it if it shows up."

"Be very cautious. This thing can tear through our armour as though it was flimsy. Doc out."

There was a buzz, and the room was silent once more. Dante caught himself looking nervously at the shadows, and tappped the side of his helmet, a habit he slipped into whenever he was nervous. Several of the other Raiders also seemed to be ill at ease, shuffling from foot to foot or pointing their weapons at random. Darr gestured at the room to the left, and the RAIDERS filed in one by one.

This part of the ship was much more similar to the area where they'd first entered: the lights here were flickering or deactivated and there were parts of stormtrooper armour scattered across the floor. Dante knelt, picking up a fragment of a breastplate. Unlike the almost pristine parts they'd seen upon entry, these looked like they had been torn off their users by brute strength. Some were crusted with a brown substance that Dante had no doubt was blood.

"Where are all the bodies?" Private Kry whispered, voicing the question that had been echoing through Dante's mind throughout the mission. He'd expected corpses, maybe withered from the loss of fluids but still recognisable as such. Instead, the corridors had been empty of anything but droids. It was almost like those old tales of ghost ships... Dante shook his head. The droids they'd fought had been very much real. Things were bad enough without them frightening themselves.

They walked through twisted corridors, taking the longer route whenever cave-ins or battle damage blocked their way. As they pushed deeper into the battleship, they began to find pieces, not of the crew but of the droids. Disembodied torsoes, broken limbs, heads with the faces crushed in by some tremendous force...whatever had done this had not been gentle.

The RAIDERS found their way into what had apparently once been an armoury. Empty boxes and E-11's were everywhere the floor, along with grenades and armour. Some of the white plastoid suits were still shrouded in their original translucent wrapping.

Dante took the point as the group made its way into the chamber. There had once been a large durasteel table in the centre of the room, but something had torn it apart and thrown the remains across the room.

Part of it had smashed into a rack of blaster rifles, scattering its contents across the room. There was a droid propped up against the wall, but a cursory examination revealed that it was in no condition for combat: its outer shell were riddled with carbon scoring and most of its head was missing.

There was a screech of metal on metal, and Dante spun around in time to see the pair of blast doors they were emerging from closing. Celota jammed his A-280 between the metal plates in an attempt to stop them from closing only to see a shower of sparks as part of the rifle's barrel was sheared off.

"What in he..."Dante began, but broke off halfway as he saw a glimmer of metal on the door across from the now closed entrance.

"Contact!"

The security drone, clad in clumsily-attached parts of stormtrooper armour, charged through the partially opened doorseal and was abruptly put down by the combined fire of the RAIDERS. Even as its remains sparked and stopped moving, half a dozen more sprinted in. Worse, these were armed with E-11's they'd looted from the area.

Dante emptied half a clip from his MA5B slugthrower into the foremost droid and saw it stagger back, falling apart a moment later. Marka yelled as he decapitated another with a vibrosword, a yell which turned into a curse as the now blinded robot continued to slash at him with an arm mounted blade. Dodging the drone's wild slashes, Marka cleanly removed its weapon arm with his blade before finishing it with a blaster pistol.

Yet another wave of the drones was marching into the room, when they abruptly stopped, literally in midstep. Taken by surprise, the RAIDERS didn't fire. Dante was beginning to hope that their positronic brains had finally shut down when they turned around and fled.

One or two troopers fired at their retreating figures, but the droids didn't return fire or even turn around. That, in a way, was even more worrying. The room shook slightly, and clouds of dust flew into the air. Somewhat randomly, a fragment of a thought passed through Dante's mind as he scanned the room, the MA5B cradled in his arms.

By the prickling of my thumbs...

OOC:

And..done. Yes, it's low quality, but it's better than nothing, right?

Kand hated being humiliated, especially by something that didn't have the guts to hang around. Wraith squad, one of the most highly trained squad's the Vast Empire, no, the universe, had to offer, was being toyed with by some thing as if they were nothing more than action figures. It had nearly killed Arnaut, and Jenn was looking far from her normal self. Kanderin had to assume this thing was stalking them, waiting for a drop in the guard and then pouncing. It would attack the member that wasn't paying attention, do as much damage as possible and then escaping before the full squad could take up arms.

Not again. Kanderin looked down to long piece of metal trailing most of the way down Kand's leg. His electrostaff. It hadn't ever had that much action, but when it did, it was deadly. The amount of electricity it could channel through itself after even the slightest brush with an enemy was immense. The lucky one's were knocked unconscious, the unlucky, he tried to forget. He didn't know if the thick skin would be able to resist such a blow, or even if it would function properly in this area, but it was worth a shot.

He crouched at the waist and began to remove it from the specialised pocket he had custom built into the suit. It wasn't in the same vacuum of air that his body was, it was in its own attached to the main suit, with a rubber insert cementing them together in case of a fault. He pulled some of the buttons towards himself, causing the pocket to fall open and the staff rolled out in response. He caught it in his palm and swapped it into his right hand, his blaster being pushed to his left.

"Jenn, RK, move ahead of me and Helena" He called back.

"You sure Kand? It's pretty dangerous back here" Jennabelle replied, her voice somewhat stifled by her puffed out cheek.

"That's why I want to be back there. If it strikes again, I want to be able to respond straight away. See how a few thousand volts suits the thing"

"What about me Kand? I haven't got one of those....thingies" Helena asked

"You should be alright as long as you stay close and pay attention. It seems to be pretty smart, picking on the one's who momentarily lose concentration" Kand replied, patting Helena's shoulder padding.

"Ah good, glad I'm not the only one that thinks that" He heard Doc reply.

"And there's me thinking it was just me"

Rogueboy was walking through the halls with the rest of his squad and Darr, twice troopers had reported hearing sounds around the corner as they worked their way deeper and deeper into the annals of this floating fortress or whatever it was. The fact that these troopers were hearing sounds worried RB, they were in space noise doesn’t exist. Wait…what was that, Rogue peered inside one of the many holes that riddled the surface of the station. There was definitely a sound emitting from it, so faint that it was barely a whisper, straining his ears Rogue was able to hear it. “Beeeeer, Beeeeer, Beeeeer.” It said in a voice that Rogue could barely recognize.

Quickly Rogueboy turned his comlink on for squad talk. “Fuck off, Snipes.” A chorus of laughter emitted from the squad leader’s mic as the squad looked on confused.

Ignoring the squad’s glances RB slowly took the lead, the eerie silence of space creates a certain sort of agoraphobia in some troopers. Raising his hand to halt the squad RB peered into the inky blackness of the awning ahead of the squad, his A-280 did not have a flashlight as he wasn’t planning to end up on some stupid ship getting attacked by stupid robots that only know how to kill people. However Rogue did have one thing he could use, reaching into the side pouch of his backpack on the opposite side of his currently useless canteen and pulled out an already activated glow stick. Shrugging at how the glow stick was already turned on Rogueboy slowly pushed it down the awning and began following it.

The glow stick did its job admirably as it floated down the slanted flooring with RB and the squad only a few steps behind it. “I got a joke for you guys, knock knock.” Rogueboy said.

Snipes sighed, while Famus’ voice came over the comlink. “Whose there?”

“You got screwed by.” RB said as he kept his eyes trained on the glow stick hoping his peripherals would pick up anything it would show.

“You got screwed by who?” The green recruit said.

“You got screwed by a rancor.” Raider veteran said.

It was a weak joke, RB knew it but said it to break the tension but he didn’t have to waste his time as a blaster bolt appeared seemingly out of nowhere hitting the glow stick and causing it to erupt in a chemical reaction that destroyed all the particles, plunging the squad into darkness. “Anyone see where that came from?” RB asked.

“If your lame joke wasn’t distracting me I would have.” Was Snipes’ sharp reply.

“I saw it come from the right.” Darr said.

For the first time in a long time RB felt fearful, the sensory deprivation was starting to get to him he was starting to breath heavy, random thoughts were coursing through his head, perhaps he was starting to lose his mind?

“Well, I never thought I’d say this,” said Giovanni, fastening a cable from his standard issue grappling hook to his belt harness. He stopped and tried to remember what he was going to say, but after a good minute of groping around in his mind, he couldn’t come up with it.

“What was that, boss?” Brock was as curious as the rest of Iron Horse squad, all preparing themselves to rappel down the turbo lift tunnel into the great abyss below.

“Never mind that. Just shut up and keep your eyes peeled. You hear Doc. I can almost hear the little bastards squirming and beeping down there with their cold metallic hands.”

He was really starting to hate droids. Like the rest of the squad, and the vast majority of the army, he saw droids as friendly, docile machines. The ones he had encountered fetched him drinks and helped him with his bags. These ran around and hid in crevices and attempted to end his life.

“Looks like these cables aren’t long enough to take us down more than a floor at a time. I guess it’s just as well, we should look around each floor just in case we find something interesting to plund…I mean… salvage.” Giovanni was thinking out loud again.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

The tunnel was wide enough to accommodate the entire squad rappelling down at a time. They inched down the pitch black opening and were dismayed to see that the first floor below them was pitch black. Liam was the first to touch down and with the press of a button, unhooked the cable from the floor above and reeled it back onto his belt.

Turning the light on his blaster rifle, he swept the area as the rest of his squad came in through the turbo lift entrance. Luckily for them, the doors had been blown out and were nowhere to be found.

Giovanni pointed his rifle and inspected his surroundings. There was rubble everywhere, at least a foot deep. Near the doors that lead to hallways, it was stacked up at least man-high, and prevented them from pushing further.

“Fine by me. I didn’t like this floor anyway.” Ken turned around and hooked the grapple firmly in the gap where the sliding doors for the turbo lift used to be. Giovanni let his squad prepare to descend another leave and took the chance to report back to Riqimo.

“Come in Doc.” Doc garbled back a response. “The floor directly below you is in lousy shape. Unless you and yours wanna shovel debris for a good hour or two, there’s no way you’ll be able to delve deeper than just the lobby where the lift is located. Me and the boys…” he forgot about Fayeena, and waved to her in apology. “…and girl…are just about to head down another level.”

“Roger that, Gio.”

With that, Gio closed the com channel and joined his squad. They were almost out of sight by now, barely hanging on to the floor with their hands as they hung precariously on the metal wire attached from their grappling hooks.

“Ok, one down, four to go…”

Iron Horse continued down to the next pitch-black level, the lights from their rifles constantly moving along the bulkheads. The cone of light from Ken's rifle shook constantly, the only outward indication of his fear. He had grown accustomed to combat, but not like this. On the ground, he could hear his enemies and see them clearly. On this lonely ship, death leapt at you from blackness, and even the helmet's various optical modes couldn't give him the same awareness his own two eyes could. In his desire to finish the job and leave, he foolishly hurried and was the first to reach the next deck down.

His boots landed on the deck without a sound. He frantically swept his light across the passageway, making sure he was the only one there. The passageway proved to be empty, clear of rubble, with only a handful of doors scattered on each side. Ken unhooked himself from the next deck up and walked cautiously to the first door on his left side, checking behind him to make sure his squadmates were still there behind him.

"Here goes..."


Ken tried the door console, but couldn't get it to work. Apparently, the droids already had access to everything they wanted, and conserving energy was a higher priority than seeing what was in all the compartments. Ken looked down the hallway and saw that all the door consoles were just the same -- dead and useless.

"No good, Sarge," Ken reported. "Door consoles are off on this level."

"What's the door say?" Gio asked.

Ken looked up at the label and read it for him. "It says 'Fire Control B.'"

Giovanni shook his head. "Forget it. We'll check behind the doors on the way up. Keep going a little farther, see if there's anything else interesting."

Ken nodded and proceeded down the passageway. Thankfully, he reached the end without encountering any of the murderous droids. He returned to the turbolift shaft quickly and took several deep breaths.

"This ship creeps the hell outta me," Ken muttered.

"Don't worry," Liam explained, "once we get the lights on, it won't be half so scary."

With a glance back over his shoulder, Ken replied, "Yeah...well, now it's your turn to check the next level down.

“This ship creeps the hell outta me,” Ken said upon returning.

Liam tried to put him at ease. In a cold voice that contained no hint of sarcasm, he said, “Don’t worry. Once we get the lights on, it will only be half as scary.”

Ken looked back at Liam and replied, “Yeah…well now it’s your turn to scout the next level down.”

Liam shrugged his massive shoulders and checked his rappelling rig one more time. Everything checked out on the rig, so Liam went over his gear once again. His E-11 was still in the sling on his hip, and his pistol was in its holster, strapped to his thigh. Both were fully loaded, and both were extremely deadly. His combat knife was also clear of its rig on his utility belt. Reassured by the readiness of his weapons, Liam prepared himself to descend to the next level.

As he readied himself on the edge of the tunnel, Ken asked a question. “Doesn’t it bother you at all?” he asked, somewhat disbelieving.

Liam smiled behind his helmet, and answered, “I like the dark.”

The last thing Liam saw before he pushed off from the ledge was Ken shaking his head as he went about preparing his own rig. Then the rest of the squad was gone, and Liam was alone in the dark tunnel.

He hadn’t been exaggerating when he told Ken he liked the dark. Liam had always relied heavily on his gut instincts, and so when he was in the dark he felt comfortable, despite the fact that even with the infrared and night vision filters on his helmet he couldn’t see very well. As he rappelled down the turbolift shaft Liam scanned the area below him, searching for the next level. At first he couldn’t see the next door, and fear began to creep up his spine. If he couldn’t find the next level before his cable ran out of extension he was going to be in a tight spot.

Finally, after nearly a minute of searching, he found the door. It was only five feet down or so, but it was recessed into the shaft wall, and so Liam hadn’t been able to spot it. Moving slowly he pushed off the wall and dropped the rest of the way down, swinging into the doorway. Once he was on stable ground he released the cable from his belt and immediately pulled his pistol from his holster, scanning the area for any hostile threats.

The floor was utterly silent. Even with the night vision and infrared filters Liam could see nothing beyond a few yards, and the result was unsettling. Whether he liked the dark or not, the utter blackness, the silence, the deadness of the ship made Liam very uncomfortable. Throughout the entire mission he hadn’t seen one body, or any signs that the ship had ever been occupied. Whatever had happened to this twisted hulk had either been planned, or simply so quick and destructive that it left nothing behind.

Suddenly a voice erupted inside Liam’s helmet, causing him to jump. “Hayes, report,” Gio ordered.

Cursing quietly, Liam took another look around. He then replied to his SL, this time speaking loud enough for the helmet mic to pick up his speech. “I don’t see anything on the landing, boss. Come on down.”

Liam received an affirmative from his squad leader, and decided to scout farther in. He drew a glowtorch from his utility belt and held it in his left hand so that when he let his arms hang at his sides the light pointed down and back. He then held the light out in front of him, resting his right hand on his left wrist. The result was that Liam could shoot accurately while still pointing the torch. Shaking off his nerves, Liam advanced into the darkness.

He had barely made it two steps when something tackled him from behind. Liam’s instincts took over. Dropping the light and his pistol he rolled with the hit. He was driven to the floor, the wind knocked out of him but relatively unhurt. His attacker went flying by. Rolling back to his feet with a grunt of effort, Liam drew his combat knife and crouched, waiting for whatever had attacked him to return from the shadows.

When the thing didn’t return, Liam keyed his mic again. “Boss,” he said, attempting and succeeding in keeping most of the discomfort out of his voice, “you might want to get down here. We have company.”

"Beats the hell out of me, but more of those astromechs are coming and they've brought friends, not really good friends, evil delivery bots!" Jenny replyed, with literal meaning to the delivery bots that usually delivered drinks for the squad, now was throwing it at them along with pieces of pizza, which she'd really like to have, but couldn't in the vaccum of space, and instead returned fire on them with a blaster pistol, still keeping her vibroblade out, destroying them in a blast of electronic parts. These sons of guns can't be what the hell is really attacking us, they don't seem to be in order and have easily revealed themselves, what if the assassin--- But her reflection of the situation in her mind was quickly interrupted by Arnaut's retorts:

"Damn, what the hell is wrong with these Ugors, they like worship droids that we love too, sithspit!" As if response for his angry retort, Arnaut destroyed one of them and threw a grenade at the rest of the astromechs still standing with the squad's fire on them, it blew two of them up and the rest was easily taken care of by the blaster fire of Jenny and the others.

"This is way too easy, I'm getting that bad feeling again about another trap, any one with me on that?" Jenny heard Kand thinking out loud as she nodded and let Doc agree with his serious and officer tone that he was well known for:

"Definitely, Kand, I agree with you on this one, again good on your senses."

The conversation ended there as Jenny detected movement by shadows behind Arnaut, enacting revenge on the spot while Jenny spotted it and quickly went to attack it with a full clip of blaster fire. It seemed to spot her directly as its knives went straight for her, Jenny ducking accordingly. Arnaut had realized the threat and helped Jenny, stabbing the thing in the torso, and the gap between the legs and the torso. Jenny was stabbed in the shoulders, just missing her neck, a bit expecting a last blow as she pulled the blade out and returned the favor, by slashing off the neck. It felt like a rerun to her because Arnaut had done it before, but what the heck, these assassin bots were quite smart in using the distraction of the other droids to attack them, plus they provided the challenge, as Jenny reminded herself.

"Nice job, Jenny, I would've let the droid have his revenge if it wasn't for you." Arnaut thanked her, patching up her wound as the fight before the control room went on.

"Well, be glad I watched that training video too, these droids are quite the nuisance, ahh!" Jenny replyed, couldn't help yelping at the last moment for a blade piece stuck in her muscle tissue, letting some blood run out.

"Lucky that wasn't your blood vessel, keep it up, Jenny, you're doing a great job so far." Arnaut said, making Jenny chuckle at his praise, first time she had heard it, probably because she was more used to Kand's, because they didn't actually show they were praises. Well, what the hell, I earned it, survived a damn beast and an assassin droids, I must be a lucky girl, like my lover always tells me. Jenny thought in response to his thoughts as she turned back to fighting in the battle.

Liam didn’t wait three minutes before the rest of the squad made it to his level. He quickly sheathed his pistol and turned to talk to his squad leader. “Sarge,” he said, “I don’t think we should wait around. Whatever attacked me probably has friends.”

Gio took a look around and nodded. “I agree with you. Let’s get off this floor.” With those words, the rest of the squad jumped into action. They didn’t like the situation any more than Liam himself did, and it showed. All the rest of Iron Horse wanted to do was get to the generator and get the hell out.

They set three rigs. Liam, Ken, and Brock would go down first, then Gio, Fay, and Anival would follow. When the three rigs were set Liam attached the cable to his utility belt and inched himself to the edge next to Ken and Brock. With a nod from Gio and a glance at each other, the three pushed off down the shaft. They hadn’t gone twenty feet when they reached something solid at the bottom.

Before unhooking the cable from his belt Liam made sure to test his footing. He kicked and stomped around, making sure nothing was going to collapse under his feet. Satisfied that everything was solid, he unhooked the cable from his belt and took a few tentative steps forward while Ken and Brock waited, their on cables still attached.

At first, Hayes couldn’t tell what he was standing on. There were no doors on the surrounding walls, and Hayes couldn’t see any type of hatch or opening that the squad could move through. It was so dark where he was that even with his night vision filters Liam could barely see. He paced around, trying to figure out what to do.

Eventually Gio radioed the three troopers. “Come on gents, what’s the hold up?” he asked.

“Uh…” Liam began to answer, but then he figured it out. “Nothing, come on down,” he said. “Do we have some kind of cutting device?”

There was a moment’s silence. “Aye, I have a small fusion cutter,” Gio responded.

“Roger that…better make sure to bring it along. We’re gonna need it,” Liam told his squad leader.

There was a grunt that Liam took as an affirmative, and then three shadows appeared on the wall twenty feet above them. As Ken, Brock, and Liam watched, the shadows grew steadily larger until there were six bodies standing on what Liam now recognized as the top of a turbolift car.

Looking around, Anival seemed to realize the problem. “Where’s the way out?” he asked nervously.

Ken chose to answer, his voice dry. “You’re standing on it,” he said.

With that Gio drew a small device that looked in some ways like a gun and in others not at all. Kneeling on the metal ‘floor’, he flipped a switch and looked around at the squad. “Get ready,” he said.

With that he depressed the trigger on the device and the tip began to shine brilliantly with pure energy. Lowering the device to the top of the turbolift car, he began to cut a hole into the car.

It was slow going. The fusion cutter was small, and the roof of the lift was incredibly thick. Still, the intense heat created by the cutter literally melted through the lift’s roof, and in a few short moments there was a hole three foot by three foot. With a glance at the rest of the squad, Liam moved to the edge and dropped through.

When the rest of the squad had made it down into the elevator car, Liam led the way. Surprisingly the door was open on the lift, which made things extremely easy. The six stormtroopers continued moving down the hall, encountering no opposition and eventually coming to a large door marked with the word “Power” in Galactic Basic.

Ken laughed. “Leave it to the Empire to be utterly obvious,” he said, a smile in his voice.

Liam had to agree, but he wasn’t in the mood to say anything. His bad feeling had returned, and right at that moment he was too preoccupied for small talk. Waiting for the go-ahead from Gio, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The generator was right in front of him. He swept his weapon around the room, but found no hostile threats. He gave the all-clear and the rest of the squad filed in. Ken and Gio moved over to the generator and gave it a look, trying to figure out how to reactivate it. After four or five minutes of looking, neither one of them had any ideas on how to get the thing going again.

It was Fay that had the winning solution. Sighing she got up, walked over to where Ken was standing, and patted him on the back. Then she reached by him and flipped a switch.

With a deep, throaty hum, the generator began to run. Soon it was turning over at full speed, and the noise was deafening. “Let’s get out of here!” Gio said. The squad filed back into the lift, which to their surprise was working just fine. Gio hit a button and the turbolift began moving up.

Liam glanced up through the whole in the ceiling. It was disconcerting, but he didn’t let it bother him for long. Much more worrisome was the itch that was running down his spine. Something bad was going to happen, Liam just knew it.

OOC:

This post was typed yesterday afternnon. Due to a ridiculously improbable series of events, the most noteworthy of which was the Sichuan school I was typing it from suddenly losing acces until 5 minutes ago, I was unable to put this up even though it was complete yesterday. I tried to get it up, but the internet was unavailible until now. I apologise for any incovenience caused by this.

Dante was near the middle of the hanger bay when he heard that they were going back in. He stood up, as did the other troopers, but his mind was still on the revelation Doc had shared earlier. They were on the Death Star. The kriffing Death Star. He'd been in carbonite when it was destroyed, but the holofilms had been splashed over the HoloNet so many times it was hard to find someone who didn't know what it was. In many ways, it had been both the Empire's finest hour and the beginning of it's downfall. And the squads had been blithely strolling through it for the past hour.

"Come on!" Darr yelled, shaking Dante from his reverie. Grabbing one of several clips he'd retrieved from the shuttle's weapons rack, he shoved it into his MA5B's rear. The built-in computer beeped quietly, and both the rifle and Dante's HUD's ammunition count flickered from 00 to 60. The other RAIDERS were making similar preparations; Famus was running one gloved finger along the jagged edge of his combat knife and Marka was running a last minute check on his A-280. Lieutenant Riqimo gave the order to move out, and the squads passed one by one through the airlock. Dante was somewhat apprehensive, considering what had happened the last time they’d passed through those doors, but there were no droids lying in wait this time.

Other than the presence of machine parts and discarded blasters, the scene was completely unchanged. Looking at the fragments of armour on the ground, Dante wondered what their owners’ last moments must have been like. The sudden disorientation and loss of air; the confusion and bewilderment, and finally a prolonged death by either radiation or eventual suffocation. He shivered slightly, the movement almost unnoticeable through the bulky zero-G armour. It seemed to take hours for the squads to retrace their way through the wreck?but a quick glance at his chronometer confirmed that it had only been a few minutes. The Doc led the group through the labyrinth-like corridors, consulting a datapad as he went and turning to the diminutive alien at his side for confirmation.

Dante wasn’t sure why they were working with the vermin, or even trusting it, but he knew better than to raise the question. The higher-ups had decided, they thought they were the Force-incarnate, and there was no way a lowly trooper was going to convince them otherwise. Still, he had to repress the urge to silence the little creature as it bounced forwards, squealing ear-splittingly loudly over the team com as it did so.

“So we’re looking for a generator?”

“Yes, yes. Quest object there, I help find.” the creature burbled in barely-understandable Standard. Apparently satisfied with this answer, Riqimo nodded.

The corridor came to an abrupt halt, and a large half cylinder projected out of the wall. At the group’s approach a pair of doors mounted into the cylinder slid to one side, revealing a seemingly-bottomless drop between themselves and a blank wall.

“An elevator shaft…” a trooper directly ahead of Dante murmured.

“Yes, yes. We need go up.”

“You three, use your weapons’ grapple attachments.”

The three indicated troopers did so.

“Fire.”

Three claw-tipped lines shot straight up and embedded themselves in the shaft.

“And now, we climb.”