Post by Relthar on Apr 22, 2005 19:56:36 GMT -5
The Black Swan is pretty much a smoking ruin. Koyi gets out of the speeder to check over the hull. D4 keeps watch. The landing struts on one side were blown out as the ship is leaning on the ground. Koyi crawls through the superstructure looking for Z5’s astromech body. Sparks shower from burnt out relays and there are still some areas quite hot from the smoldering fire. He finally finds the droid body, and it is severely beat up. It’s missing a leg, but will otherwise be functional, just severely damaged (3 wound points). He drags the body back to the speeder, has D4 drive, and Koyi works on transferring Z5’s memory into his original body.
Back with the Naboo troops, the others are told that our original third mission, snake into the city and take out the droid control center, will be scrubbed. Others have been called in to do that. We will now be given their mission, which is to sneak into the sewers to the palace after the droid control center has been taken out. This gives us more time to recover and heal. We now have seven hours to recover. In that time Koyi transfers Z5 into his astromech body, rebuilds his leg well enough, and gets his body in better shape (8 wound points). The rest of the group recovers, some in bacta tanks.
Once the seven hours are up, Captain Carver tells us arrangements have been made to get us into the city. It won’t be nice, though. Better than the spice mines of Kessel, I’ll bet. The capital city sits on a plateau at the intersection of two rivers. We will cross the river near the city, to a sewer entrance at the base of the plateau. Underneath the plateau is a processing plant. All the sewer lines enter the processing plant. We can enter the city through the processing plant. Once in the city, we enter the palace, and sieze control of the universe (OK, just the city, but we can dream can’t we). Their latest intelligence reports indicate that the prince is no longer in control. Grand Administrator Vratoo, a neimoidian with a nasty temper and a bad attitude. The Naboo would prefer he be taken alive, though dead if necessary.
Night eventually settles in full around d the city. The lights from fires, blaster shots, and a war going on are prevalent. We are given a small pontoon boat to cross the river, as well as a disposable envirosuit that are baggy enough to wear other things under. There is no plan B at this point. This is it – we either succeed or fail. If we fail, we are likely not going to see the ramifications. If we succeed, we get our own archipelago. The captain gives us and several other soldiers a last big pep talk. Afterwards he says he will leave the tent and return in five minutes. Whomever is left in the tent will go on the mission. Any who leave will do so without any repercussions. The captain leaves. After a minute or so two guys get up and leave. Everyone else stays.
Trosk get the captain back in the tent telling him we’re ready. He gives one last send off, and tells us to get going. We grab our equipment and are transported to the river. Once there we load up into the boat. Trosk volunteers to carry Z5, since the astromech no longer has the repulsorlifts. It takes about five minutes to cross the river. We can easily see the pipe entrance to the sewers on the cliff face. It is covered by a grate, and about 2 meters in diameter. We should be able to walk through it single file. We head over to it, and Garrick makes us a door in the grate. In we go.
The stench is as expected – bad. Onward and upward we go following a small map on a datapad. Nothing out of the ordinary jumps out at us. After about an hour, we come to a ladder, and we start climbing. The next level we reach will go into the processing plant. We come out on a catwalk in large room containing the waste treatment / water purification tanks. There is only one exit, off to our left. We move to the door and Koyi places his ear to it. He doesn’t hear anything – seems quiet. Trosk confirms this. The door is locked, and Z5 makes quick work of it.
The next room is huge with giant purification machinery. There is a small office to our left, and two auxiliary tanks to our right. Trosk sneaks over to the office and peaks in. There is an older human sitting at a desk. Trosk walks into the office and taps him on the shoulder. The guy screams, in response to which 5 battle droids come down the hall between the purifiers. D4 immediately opens up with the rotary carbine, taking two down before one of the barrels jams due to sewage. Tranus takes out the remaining three with his blaster carbine. Koyi tells Trosk to tie the guy up, but Garrick quickly uses the Force to put him to sleep. He’ out like a light. Garrick props him up in the office chair and we leave him be.
Heading in the direction the droids came from we find an elevator. Piling in, we go up, hitting the button for the ground floor. The doors open, and we are in what seems like a small bunker. Apparently they don’t need a large building topside. It’s pretty quite aside form explosions outside the city. We are at present in the outer area of the city, outside the main wall. Moving out to the main boulevard we see AATs moving along the streets. But Trosk has a plan. Oh great. He suggests we disguise ourselves as techs, borrowing overalls. Garrick still suggests we don’t make contact with any enemy units. So we put on our disguises (including D4), and make our way toward the palace.
We take back alleys and side streets, periodically ducking out of sight of patrols. Getting near the palace we can tell it is on a small rise. About half way to the palace the sky becomes daylight for a brief moment and is followed by a deafening and ground-shaking roar. The blast of air that washes over us blows out windows and knocks Koyi on his ass. The others somehow remain standing. Once we get our bearing, we notice that the battle droids patrolling the city have stopped moving. It seems like the droid control center is down. Seeing this as our chance to get into the palace, we start running toward it.
We reach the steps to the palace a minute or so later. Craters where buildings once stood pockmark the cityscape. The palace is still mostly intact. At the entrance are two inactive squads of battle droids, two inactive AATs, three human mercenaries, and up the steps are a nervous neimoidian and three inactive battle droids. Combat is quickly joined. Garrick advances menacingly, keeping his lightsaber on the defensive. Tranus also moves closer to get better line of sight. The mercs get their bearings quickly open fire. Garrick deflects one shot back on one of the mercs. The other two fire on Tranus and miss. D4 returns fire at one, missing pathetically, followed by another miss by Koyi (who we know can’t hit the broad side of a barn normally).
Trosk makes a rather impressive display of running up to he one squad of battle droids, jumping up onto one, using it as a stepping stone, hurdling a wall and an AAT, alnds and runs up the steps of the palace. Suffice to say the distance cleared was impressive. Garrick moves up to one merc and slices him, though he’s still up. Tranus opens fire on the same merc D4 was trying to hit, and succeeds. D4 follows up with two solid hits on the same merc, sending him reeling. The mercs return fire, hitting Tranus square – that’s why armor is a good thing.
And now the combat droids reactivate. Frell. They open fire, but with the accuracy of storm troopers, can’t hit much. The AATs open fire and we are thankful they are designed to hit vehicles, not infantry. Koyi advances again, continuing to miss. Trosk, who is now standing next to the neimoidian, demands that the ‘slug’ order the droids to drop their weapons. Upon hearing he can’t do that, Trosk grabs him, and throws him bodily at the battle droids. The nemoidian lands on the droid, smashing it to pieces and the ‘slug’ is unconscious. Z5 continues to hide behind D4 and pretend to be invisible. Garrick then raises one hand, and the AAT nearby comes off the ground farther than normal, and then slams sideways into the other AAT. Two of the mercs were in the way and didn’t move fast enough, becoming street pizza. (player note: Garrick got a 42 on his Move Object skill roll, capable of moving over 50 metric tons.) Both AATs crumple under the telekinetic assault. “Fuck…” was Koyi’s basic reaction. The last merc standing decides he doesn’t want to be standing next to Garrick and backs off.
D4 changes targets and takes down two battle droids off to the left. Koyi takes out the other three droids in that group with his blaster. Trosk launches himself into one of the battle droids bodily, smashing through the first and also the second, lands on the other side and tumbles to his feet. Garricks quickly moves to strike donw yet another battle droid, and Tranus toasts the last one. The merc who had retreated form Garrick now does a full out run away from the nasty force wielding crazies. The courtyard is a smoking ruin less than half a minute. Not bad. We regroup and enter the palace.
Back with the Naboo troops, the others are told that our original third mission, snake into the city and take out the droid control center, will be scrubbed. Others have been called in to do that. We will now be given their mission, which is to sneak into the sewers to the palace after the droid control center has been taken out. This gives us more time to recover and heal. We now have seven hours to recover. In that time Koyi transfers Z5 into his astromech body, rebuilds his leg well enough, and gets his body in better shape (8 wound points). The rest of the group recovers, some in bacta tanks.
Once the seven hours are up, Captain Carver tells us arrangements have been made to get us into the city. It won’t be nice, though. Better than the spice mines of Kessel, I’ll bet. The capital city sits on a plateau at the intersection of two rivers. We will cross the river near the city, to a sewer entrance at the base of the plateau. Underneath the plateau is a processing plant. All the sewer lines enter the processing plant. We can enter the city through the processing plant. Once in the city, we enter the palace, and sieze control of the universe (OK, just the city, but we can dream can’t we). Their latest intelligence reports indicate that the prince is no longer in control. Grand Administrator Vratoo, a neimoidian with a nasty temper and a bad attitude. The Naboo would prefer he be taken alive, though dead if necessary.
Night eventually settles in full around d the city. The lights from fires, blaster shots, and a war going on are prevalent. We are given a small pontoon boat to cross the river, as well as a disposable envirosuit that are baggy enough to wear other things under. There is no plan B at this point. This is it – we either succeed or fail. If we fail, we are likely not going to see the ramifications. If we succeed, we get our own archipelago. The captain gives us and several other soldiers a last big pep talk. Afterwards he says he will leave the tent and return in five minutes. Whomever is left in the tent will go on the mission. Any who leave will do so without any repercussions. The captain leaves. After a minute or so two guys get up and leave. Everyone else stays.
Trosk get the captain back in the tent telling him we’re ready. He gives one last send off, and tells us to get going. We grab our equipment and are transported to the river. Once there we load up into the boat. Trosk volunteers to carry Z5, since the astromech no longer has the repulsorlifts. It takes about five minutes to cross the river. We can easily see the pipe entrance to the sewers on the cliff face. It is covered by a grate, and about 2 meters in diameter. We should be able to walk through it single file. We head over to it, and Garrick makes us a door in the grate. In we go.
The stench is as expected – bad. Onward and upward we go following a small map on a datapad. Nothing out of the ordinary jumps out at us. After about an hour, we come to a ladder, and we start climbing. The next level we reach will go into the processing plant. We come out on a catwalk in large room containing the waste treatment / water purification tanks. There is only one exit, off to our left. We move to the door and Koyi places his ear to it. He doesn’t hear anything – seems quiet. Trosk confirms this. The door is locked, and Z5 makes quick work of it.
The next room is huge with giant purification machinery. There is a small office to our left, and two auxiliary tanks to our right. Trosk sneaks over to the office and peaks in. There is an older human sitting at a desk. Trosk walks into the office and taps him on the shoulder. The guy screams, in response to which 5 battle droids come down the hall between the purifiers. D4 immediately opens up with the rotary carbine, taking two down before one of the barrels jams due to sewage. Tranus takes out the remaining three with his blaster carbine. Koyi tells Trosk to tie the guy up, but Garrick quickly uses the Force to put him to sleep. He’ out like a light. Garrick props him up in the office chair and we leave him be.
Heading in the direction the droids came from we find an elevator. Piling in, we go up, hitting the button for the ground floor. The doors open, and we are in what seems like a small bunker. Apparently they don’t need a large building topside. It’s pretty quite aside form explosions outside the city. We are at present in the outer area of the city, outside the main wall. Moving out to the main boulevard we see AATs moving along the streets. But Trosk has a plan. Oh great. He suggests we disguise ourselves as techs, borrowing overalls. Garrick still suggests we don’t make contact with any enemy units. So we put on our disguises (including D4), and make our way toward the palace.
We take back alleys and side streets, periodically ducking out of sight of patrols. Getting near the palace we can tell it is on a small rise. About half way to the palace the sky becomes daylight for a brief moment and is followed by a deafening and ground-shaking roar. The blast of air that washes over us blows out windows and knocks Koyi on his ass. The others somehow remain standing. Once we get our bearing, we notice that the battle droids patrolling the city have stopped moving. It seems like the droid control center is down. Seeing this as our chance to get into the palace, we start running toward it.
We reach the steps to the palace a minute or so later. Craters where buildings once stood pockmark the cityscape. The palace is still mostly intact. At the entrance are two inactive squads of battle droids, two inactive AATs, three human mercenaries, and up the steps are a nervous neimoidian and three inactive battle droids. Combat is quickly joined. Garrick advances menacingly, keeping his lightsaber on the defensive. Tranus also moves closer to get better line of sight. The mercs get their bearings quickly open fire. Garrick deflects one shot back on one of the mercs. The other two fire on Tranus and miss. D4 returns fire at one, missing pathetically, followed by another miss by Koyi (who we know can’t hit the broad side of a barn normally).
Trosk makes a rather impressive display of running up to he one squad of battle droids, jumping up onto one, using it as a stepping stone, hurdling a wall and an AAT, alnds and runs up the steps of the palace. Suffice to say the distance cleared was impressive. Garrick moves up to one merc and slices him, though he’s still up. Tranus opens fire on the same merc D4 was trying to hit, and succeeds. D4 follows up with two solid hits on the same merc, sending him reeling. The mercs return fire, hitting Tranus square – that’s why armor is a good thing.
And now the combat droids reactivate. Frell. They open fire, but with the accuracy of storm troopers, can’t hit much. The AATs open fire and we are thankful they are designed to hit vehicles, not infantry. Koyi advances again, continuing to miss. Trosk, who is now standing next to the neimoidian, demands that the ‘slug’ order the droids to drop their weapons. Upon hearing he can’t do that, Trosk grabs him, and throws him bodily at the battle droids. The nemoidian lands on the droid, smashing it to pieces and the ‘slug’ is unconscious. Z5 continues to hide behind D4 and pretend to be invisible. Garrick then raises one hand, and the AAT nearby comes off the ground farther than normal, and then slams sideways into the other AAT. Two of the mercs were in the way and didn’t move fast enough, becoming street pizza. (player note: Garrick got a 42 on his Move Object skill roll, capable of moving over 50 metric tons.) Both AATs crumple under the telekinetic assault. “Fuck…” was Koyi’s basic reaction. The last merc standing decides he doesn’t want to be standing next to Garrick and backs off.
D4 changes targets and takes down two battle droids off to the left. Koyi takes out the other three droids in that group with his blaster. Trosk launches himself into one of the battle droids bodily, smashing through the first and also the second, lands on the other side and tumbles to his feet. Garricks quickly moves to strike donw yet another battle droid, and Tranus toasts the last one. The merc who had retreated form Garrick now does a full out run away from the nasty force wielding crazies. The courtyard is a smoking ruin less than half a minute. Not bad. We regroup and enter the palace.