The Legion’s Foil

Knibbec tries to land a shot on the last Stormtrooper, even as he turns tall to fall back to the hanger. Both shots go wide, and both Knibbec and Plok enter the room proper and see the carnage that had been wrought by Rebel and Pirate alike.

Four dead stormtrooper, and one slinking back through the hole that Hss’kas had earlier cut open, only to unleash the malfunctioning droid.

"Fall back to the Hanger! Cut off their escape!"

---

"The Alliance! A Jedi and a Rebel. They should have made sure to get you when they enacted Order 6…" but by then it’s clear that she has no intention of coming willingly, and so Hss’kas brings down a heavy blow on the side of her head, knocking her out instantly.

The Jedi does well to catch her before she hits the cold, Imperial floor of the strange station… As Hss’kas stoops to catch the Chiss, he sees some words on the monitor Ado had been at when he first entered the room:

Planetary Hyperdrive Malfunctioning

---

C4PQ watches his ally, his friend, go down in sparks and smoke. The droid is about to turn his blaster on the troopers, ignoring AC-D3’s dying wish, when the comms from the one surviving trooper on the other flank comes through.

"The Pirates have the target. Falling back to the Hanger! Call reinforcements!"
The four remaining Stormtroopers could surely dispatch of C4PQ easily enough. Perhaps they should… But they have a mission, and maybe they thought a Protocol Droid didn’t have it in them to really strike back against the Empire, even after they’d just gunned down his fellow Rebel!

With Thorsh temporarily lights out, and what sounded like the stormtroopers retreating, Hss'kas took a moment to quickly check the other exit to see where that led to. Then, back out again through the way he came, to see the aftermath of the firefight and the fallen form of AC-D3! "C4PQ, will you be able to see what can be downloaded from Thorsh's computer banks?" The Jedi walked over to the power droid. The Force surrounded all things, both living and inorganic. Now Hss'kas summoned its power to envelope AC-D3.

Knibbec pumps a blaster-holding fist at the retreating stormtrooper. "Yeah you better run! I missed on purpose to spare you! Don't you waste my generosity and try to come back!" He gets back into the hoverchair and crams himself next to Plok, as uncomfortable as that was. "We should meet back up with Hiss Kiss and his stupid light sword. I don't think our luck will hold out forever. Did you see what they did to poor AC-D3?!"

As AC-D3 lies there, he suddenly stands up ... "What the ... ?" he realizes that the Mouse Droid took the brunt of the blast, and the smoke coming out of him actually belongs to that little fucker? "Thank the Maker! But how did the blast get redirected ...?" He senses the Jedi's work here, and feels a sense of awe flooding through his circuits!

The ancient texts spoke of only one who had power to cheat death, and it wasn't something the light side meditated on, for the Jedi believed in rejoining the Force when their time came.

That said, life was precious, even those of the inorganics. Hss'kas did not bring AyCee back from the dead; he merely persuaded the blaster bolt to focus on the mouse droid instead. The Jedi had proper respect for droids, and this power droid was as feisty and hardy as they came.

"This station's malfunctioning hyperdrive explains why they are here. Perhaps it is tech that the Alliance could benefit from."

The look of glee on Plok's face at the Jawa's question fades as he putters the repulsor chair over towards the others -- and sees AC-D3 getting up. He unleashes a babbling stream of strange-sounding words as they join up with the rest of the group.

*I did see that. I did! I was sure he was a goner! Those Stormtroopers really are terrible shots!

"Press that button Plok, it has a translator." Hss'kas saw the Rodian float back their way, and couldn't resist pointing out the obvious: the communicator function built into the hover chair.

Checking the room beyond the Lab, Hss’kas finds himself in the Shield Array room. Each console seems to correspond with each of the destroyed shield generators the Rebels had passed on their way in. Destroyed, in whatever mishap had occurred during Planetary Hyperdrive…

And then you are all gathered over the form of AC-D3, as the droid seems to shake off whatever electrical current had run through him when the Mouse Droid was blasted.

Speaking of how good a shot the Stormtroopers were, the Pirates seem to be taking the fight to them in the hanger even now; desperate to get to their ship and get away before the inevitable reinforcements arrive from the Star Destroyer.

C4PQ’s photoreceptors brighten with something close to joy — or as close as a protocol droid can manage — as AC-D3 stirs and rises from the floor.

"AC! You marvelous, stubborn little spark plug! I knew they couldn’t keep you down!"

He claps his hands together once, a sharp metallic clink, before stepping forward and giving AC’s dented dome a quick pat — gentle, for a droid with his strength.

"Between your luck and my eloquence, we may yet make it off this station in one piece."

Without further ceremony, C4PQ swivels and strides toward the terminal where Ado Thorsh had been working, his fingers flexing as if to prepare for the delicate work ahead. His servos whir softly as he reaches for the terminal, his hands hovering over the controls for a moment longer than necessary.

"Let’s see what secrets you were so desperate to keep, shall we?"

He begins interfacing with the system, his fingers moving rapidly over the keys. As he works, he narrates — mostly for himself, but also for AC, who he’s certain is listening.

"Logs, manifests, command overrides… planetary hyperdrive schematics, maybe?"

For all his diplomatic flair, there’s just a hint of malice beneath the surface now. The Empire, after all, had already taken enough from him today.

"A planetary hyperdrive." Hss'kas paused for a moment to see if that fact sunk in on anyone else.

It explained the misplaced fauna, and the ravaged landscape. The console in the room you now stood in had once shown a lush jungle planet, before Hss’kas had altered the display to hide his doings from the troopers…

You had seen no such foliage on your approach. Whatever malfunction, whatever tear in the force that Hss’kas had felt earlier, had left the moon bald and barren, and made charred husks of the Imperials stationed here. All, save for Thorsh and the man in the hole…

In the few moments before Hss’kas had cut through, it becomes apparent to C4PQ that Thorsh had been hard at work deleting her work and covering her tracks. To understand what had occurred, the Rebellion would have to take her alive, and make her talk!

While some of the others work on the console to pull what data they can, and presumably work to secure the mean Imperial lady, Plok cruises the (very) light repulsor-tank towards the door that leads to the hangar. The hangar, their ship, and escape -- if they can manage to get past the Imperial tractor beams!

PEW-PEW! fires the chair tank blaster. PEW-PEW!

Hitting the Stormtroopers from both sides should do the trick, picking them off as they fight the pirates from the other direction!

"We need her alive," PQ says. "Whatever happened here, whatever twisted this place into… this, it’s locked inside her head now. The files are gone — she made sure of that — but her memory…"

He steps back from the console, gesturing toward the Jedi and the prisoner. "We cannot afford to lose her, Master Hss’kas. Not to the Imperials. Not to the void. Let's get out of here."

If we are unable to fight against the stormtroopers, PQ will check the corridors leaving room 9.

Knibbec stays in the (very) light repulsor-tank and fires his blaster pistol at the stormtroopers.

How did Thorsh survive, that was part of the mystery. Knibbec had ended the other Imperial in the elevator chute, so there was no way to interrogate him. The Jedi had the beginnings of an explanation in his head: the failure of the shield generators meant that the life on the moon was not protected from the warp. But now was not the time to test his theory by interrogating the knocked-out Thorsh. 'Then we must leave with her See-Forepiqueue." He handed the living database over to the droid.

Could they get away from the Stormtroopers, and then subsequently outrun the Star Destroyers? Hss'kas stared at the shield array. Could they turn it back on? That would prevent further reinforcements from arrving, and protect against attack runs.

"If those shield generators can turn on, I can power them," AC-D3 suggest. "Blink 'em in and out for us to fire through, just like back on Cadomai Prime," he says, recalling an earlier mission they survived.

Hss'kas nodded, marvelling at the power droid's resilience. "Only if you've fully regenerated from that last blowback. Let's quickly look at the shields."

At the same time, Hss'kas kept an ear out in case Plok and Knibbec needed an extra hand with the skirmish.

Plok and Knibbec whooosh into the hanger room once more, firing blasters as they go! The three pirates are hiding behind the frame of the door which Hss’kas had cut through earlier; releasing the explosive droid out into the hanger.

Two stormtroopers already lay dead on the hanger floor, mixing in with the broken and battered droids scattered everywhere. Plok bears down on one more with heavy chair-laser fire. The trooper lets out a quick scream before being thrown head over heels to the hanger floor… dead.

Knibbec catches yet another in the back, as he runs to take cover behind your very own ship. He tumbles over immediately, and his blaster goes skittering across the hanger floor.

Only one trooper remains, under fire from both sides. Seeing the shocks of white now littering the floor, he tosses down his blaster, puts his hand up a moment in surrender, and then turns tail and races for the TiE Fighter he had flown in on…

Thorsh is thrust into the arms of the protocol droid, C4-PQ. It now lay on his shoulders to get the Chiss scientist to safety! The droid enters into the hanger just as the last Stormtrooper flees for his ship.

Stormtroopers would be the least of the droid’s concerns. Plok has the right of it. There was still the Imperial Star Destroyer out there; though at a distance. It would take some skill and a little luck to escape without getting caught by that terrible warship.

Hss’kas and AC-D3 hang back, to further examine the ruined mess that was the shield generators. They would help the Rebels escape, if they could be made operational. It would at least shield them from the heavy fire they would surely come under, once the Imperials realized that re-securing Thorsh was not an option. Better to kill her than have her fall into the Rebellion’s lap.

Whatever they were about to do with these fried consoles, they’d better do it now!