Last time: Sasha and Viran entered into the cave as the Empire showed up. Cien following them.
Now: The fight to save Oppie begins.
Chapter 4- The Battle Begins
Kyr settled up on a small set of boulders, looking through his scope of his verp. He had an excellent view of the landing site, as well as the approaching trail. He had a couple of sites he set up as fall back positions. He had selected a bridge, made out of what looked like scrap parts, to be his first kill zone. Already storm troopers were approaching it. Just about to cross it in about thirty seconds. "Tac, com check." A bright warble responded. "Okay, I have one Sentinal class settling down. Power up the shields, and prepare to move in case things get too chance cubey, we can't lose the Shadow, but cover the cave entrance as long as you can. I need an airburst missile strike. Relaying coordinates, wait for my signal." There was a standard perimeter guard settled around the shuttle, and he wanted to deny them the ships use as a staging point. Flaming wreckage also did a nice job of making a landing site inaccessible.
They were approaching the bridge. 2,547 meters.
He slowed his breathing, taking steady, deep breaths.
After a few seconds he could feel his heart beat, waiting for the lull in between the thuds for his shot.
"Tac, send firepackage."
Behind him, a missile roared off from one of the vertical tubes in the nose of his ship, it would have about a seven second flight time.
The storm troopers reacted, stopping on the bridge, raising their E-11's, realizing the missile was flying off towards the Sentinel.
In the lull between heartbeats, he took the shot.
The electromagnetically propelled projectile flew through the air, taking almost a full second to reach his target, the squad leader that was commanding the platoon. It hit him centermass, sending him sprawling against the railing of the bridge. It took a split second for his troops to realize what happened and recover, taking aim and shooting the ridge the shot had come from, but their weapons were far too inaccurate to be a threat from that distance. They ran for cover, but the bridge was too long. Kyr took two more down as the platoon split up, sending return fire the whole way, but scrambling for cover. Three went up to the side that led up to the trail, the remaining three took cover at the other end, that led back up to their landing site.
About this time the airbust missile hit, sending a cloud of razor sharp shrapnel flying down in a cone shaped explosion into the shuttle, ripping it to shreds and leaving it a flaming hulk that would never fly again. Secondaries went off as various munitions and fuel from the body of the shuttle ignited, and the troops on perimeter guard were caught in the shrapnel from the missile or the secondaries, a few surviving to take cover and try to figure out what hit them and how to return fire.
In the intervening time, Kyr was keeping the three that were on the trail side of the bridge pinned down. He thought he nicked one in the leg but he couldn't be sure. They didn't dare move from cover lest the sniper get them.
"Tac, one round indirect, airburst, relay my buy'ce. Send." He called, using their shorthand for an airbust mortar round.
Back at the Shadow Runner, the turret lifted from the housing it was nestled in, rotated up and through the hardened bubble shield that projected from the ship, and sent the shell to the position that Kyr had highlighted on his visor. It flew through the air in only a few seconds, landing and bursting above the heads of the troopers that were caught on the trail side of the bridge, shredding them like a miniature version of the shuttle.
"Good effect." Kyr called back. "Wait for the next target." He shifted his sniper scope to start attacking the guys on the landing field side of the bridge.
Viran found a decent sized boulder and sat down upon it while Sasha continued to read the murals. He watched her curiously as she would study each mural, mimic the movement with small moves, then would move on to the next mural to do the same thing.
"How's it going?" Viran spoke up when Sasha practically finished her circle around the cavern, looking upon what he assumed to be the last two murals.
"Almost done," Sasha said, not tearing her eyes away from the mural. "I have a good idea on what to do, but once I finish the last mural I'll give you a better idea."
Viran nodded and let her finish. Another few minutes, Sasha stepped away from the last mural.
"Alright, after studying each one of these, I know what I must do," She said moving to the center of the room. "I'm gonna need you to be my light as I'm going to need all my concentration." She switched off her lightsaber and clipped it on her belt.
"Alright, I'll also stand guard just in case any Imps decide to come join us," Viran said.
There was a silence for a moment while she stood directly in the center of the room.
"Time to bring him back," Sasha said as if readying herself.
As Sasha centered herself, a sudden snicker was heard from the cave that led back to the entrance. Viran turned on his heel, saber in front of him to illuminate the mystery figure. Sasha glanced over.
"Cien," Sasha hissed.
Cien approached out of the darkness and spoke, her voice echoing in the cave. "So you're here to rescue your master?" She asked. She pulled out her saber and activated it. Her red blade mixed with the blue of Virans.
"Sasha, ignore her. You focus on bringing Oppie back," Viran said before stepping between Sasha and Cien. "I'll handle her myself."
"The issue, Jedi, is that if you bring your master back, you might bring mine back." Falling into her ready stance and glowering at them with all the venom of death itself. "I can't allow that."
Cien then launched herself forward, bringing her saber down on Viran's.
Kyr kept the fire up, they tried to advance but his sniping kept them pinned down. He had taken out a handful who were trying to push up from the wreckage of the shuttle but the bridge was too open a barrier to cross. Another group was trying to climb down and use the river bed as cover.
A few whistles and a chirp came over the line.
"What?" Kyr looked up out of reflex. Overhead a Star Destroyer was apparently in orbit. That wasn't good, that would mean orbital strikes and TIEs could be inbound, not to mention a couple thousand troops were just a shuttle ride away.
"Okay, Tac we're blowing the bridge. Three rounds indirect, HE, relay." He designated three markers, one on each side of the bridge and then one in the center just to make sure he got it. "Send."
A few seconds later the bridge exploded as three high explosive shells landed at almost the same instant, making it a lot harder for the imps to cross the ravine to get to the trail.
"Tac, any TIEs show up, they are priority targets, especially bombers." He got an acknowledging beep in response. Already three - no, four landing craft, the little stubby ones with solar panels on them for some reason, were landing back at the site where the sentinel was, they were dropping the troops off in a hover before immediately taking off again, then the little gunboats turned towards him.
"Tac, four AA, relay." He highlighted the gunboats in his visor. "Send." They started peppering him with laser blasts as he hunkered a little closer into the ground, then exploded, not expecting the missiles. One tried to dodge, but the confines of the ravine during their strafing run kept it from being able to maneuver very much. Kyr rolled back up and looked over the ridge. Already the squads of troopers were across the ravine, and his, now well known, position was being suppressed with blaster fire. The E-11's couldn't really reach this far, but with a hailstorm like that, and the expert marksmanship of troopers making it land fairly close, he couldn't stay here long. He fired off five bolts and took down four troopers, but they were going to get too close.
"Tac, I'm displacing back to CP Grek." He got an acknowledging beep. Tac was connected to the feed from his visor, but in case anything happened he still called out his movements so the droid could understand where he was. "Get me a line to Kitsu." He added.
Kitsu was laying down cover fire in the foggy night, this contract was especially annoying. Off to her right Illara was trying to flank the enemy position. This bounty sure was a hard case. She got a message buzz on the screen of her visor, and seeing who it was she patched it through.
"Oh, hey Tac." She said, as she popped up from cover to send more blaster bolts down range towards... Wherever these guys were. This soup they were fighting in was incredible, she could just barely see their thermal blooms. A few cordial beeps followed. "Yeah I missed ya to bud, what's up?" A few more warbeling beeps. A blaster bolt hit particularly close to her, ricocheting off the rock. She popped up and returned the favor, a scream in the darkness told her she had aimed better. "Oh, okay sure I can talk."
"Hey, Kitsu?" Kyr's comm line also had the sounds of battle coming over it.
"Yeah, what's up vod?" She asked, sending another spray of fire. Over to her right Illara had started their flanking assault, and was starting to spray down the enemy position with fire too.
"You guys busy? I think I might need some help." Kyr asked. Over the line she could hear the distinctive sounds of a verpine firing.
"Well, we're kinda on a job." Kitsu responded, pulling out a grenade and lobbing it towards the enemy.
"Hey, is that Kyr?" Illara said over the com line, off to Kitsu's right their fire didn't waiver, and the grenade exploded. "What is it this time?"
"We've encountered some uh.. Opposition. Imperial Opposi- hold on." She heard the whine of three quick verp rounds. "There's a star destroyer in orbit and I probably need some back up." Kyr admitted, sheepishly.
"A star destroyer?" She fired off three rounds of her own. "Kyr what the kriff are you into this time?" She said. OOOooh one guy was trying to flank to the left, she shot him quite dead.
"Kitsu, it's Op, Sasha and Sport think she can bring him back. They just need time." Over the line a couple of explosions ripped off in the distance.
Kitsu and Illara looked at each other through the fog, to each other only vague outlines. Then they resumed fire on the enemy.
"Gotcha, okay. Have Tac send us the coordinates and we'll be there as soon as possible." Kitsu responded. Pulling another grenade off her rig and sending it towards the enemy position as she ducked for cover.
"Thanks guys." Kyr's comm line went blank.
Kitsu peeked over the top of the rock she was sheltering behind, and turned up her voice amp. "Guys, GUYS! Hey!" She waved her hands towards the idiots in the fog. The blaster fire concentrated on her position. "HEY! Time out!" She yelled over the din. A few blaster shots came and then quieted down to nothing as the bounty's security guards looked on in confusion..
"We have a family emergency we need to get to, can we do this later?" She yelled.
"Choy?" One of the guys called out in Huttese. It translated to 'What?'
"We need to go take care of something, but we'll be back!" Kitsu called out.
There was some Huttese mumbling, and then they called out and said that would be fine.
"Thanks guys!" Illara called as they started backing away, rifle up, just as Kitsu was. "See ya in a bit!"
In orbit, Colonel Kaifsen was overseeing the battle. What had been expected to be a relatively routine operation to secure a site for an inquisitor had turned into a much bloodier encounter. He was displeased. So was Captain Mieran.
"Colonel, report." The Captain demanded.
"My troops have made the landing field and are moving up the trail to the site, but they are meeting resistance."
"From whom?" the Captain asked stiffly.
"Unknown at this time, I would like to request an orbital bombardment of the site."
"No, Colonel. We have strict orders from Moff Jirardon himself, there is a VIP at the site that we must not endanger."
"Very well captain." He ordered another deployment of troopers down to the planet. If they could pin down the enemy, they could strike then.
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