That settled it for both of them. Without needing to even glance at each
other, both of them sprang into action. Kaybin's DX-97x came up, already
spraying a veritable firestorm of crimson energy, and Saeryn reached for
her blasters even as she dove to one side to throw off the Weequay's aim.
But even as she squeezed off a shot and dropped the alien on his back with
a bolt through his head, another slashed past her left temple from behind,
so close that she could feel the heat.
She hit the pad and rolled over, bringing both guns back up to track the new enemy. When she saw them, she cursed. There were at least a dozen of them, Rodians, Weequays, Humans, and others. They wore a motley array of tattered fabrics and battered armor, but all of them had a black circle surrounded by wavy black lines emblazoned on their shoulders.
A Black Sun Death Squad.
"Kaybin!" she shouted in warning.
If the Bothan replied, it was lost in the sound of gunfire. She heard his DX-97x shriek again, followed by a dying yell as another of Garbag's cronies toppled from the boarding ramp of the YT-1100.
Rolling to one side to avoid another shot coming from the Black Sun henchmen, Saeryn opened up with both of her blasters; she didn't aim, she was merely intent on sending back as much energy as she could. Her efforts were partly rewarded. A Human wearing a Mandalorian breastplate and wielding a BlasTech rifle jerked and went down, struck twice in the chest. Two other foes dove to the side to avoid her volley.
It took Garbag's hired thugs a full three seconds to react to the firefight, but now they had their guns drawn and were adding their own shots to the foray. Lasers pinged into the stone surface of the pad all around Saeryn, preventing her from staying still long enough to get a good shot at the Black Sun squad. She had to keep rolling, and she realized that if she didn't find a way to get to her feet, they would eventually kill her.
To her right, Kaybin was on his feet and blasting away with maddened vigor; he was facing the opposite direction that Saeryn was, still toward the ship and Garbag's four remaining toughs. His rapid fire gun was wreaking havoc, keeping the aliens from setting up any good shots. One of the Rodians took a bolt in the chest and dropped on its back, sliding down the landing ramp to come to a rest on the pad. But the Bothan's position was getting too hot; though Garbag himself was nowhere to be seen, his cronies were still on the ramp and shooting back at Kaybin. Half of the Black Sun Death Squad was also shooting at him, making it hard for him to stay in one place for more than a second. Cursing as he dropped a spent powerpack and slapped another in its place, he darted to his left, heading for the relatively good cover of the freighter's port side.
Fortunately for Saeryn, his movement caused most of the Black Sun thugs to shift their attention and their thankfully bad aim to him. The woman stopped shooting long enough to roll to her feet and start after her partner. As she went, she switched out powerpacks for her own guns.
By the time she reached him, Kaybin was already piling up several crates and barrels that had been stacked near the freighter, constructing a hasty barricade. "It was an ambush!" he exclaimed as he worked, as if Saeryn didn't already realize that. "I should have known Black Sun would be right on our tails!"
Saeryn didn't listen to the rest of what he had to say as she vaulted over the low row of crates to crouch beside him – which was just as well as most of it was a steady stream of epithets and oaths. She was too busy listening to what was going happening on the other side of the freighter. Which was nothing at all.
The only thing she could hear was silence.
"I've got a really bad feeling about this, Kaybin," she breathed.
"There's a surprise," he muttered as he peered out over the crates toward the front of the landing bay.
"Worse than usual," she answered. "I think Jabba's working with Black Sun on this one, or at least his crony Garbag is."
Kaybin stared at her in disbelief. "What? Why? The Hutts have always minded their own business. For the most part, they're rivals of Black Sun."
"If that's the case in this situation," Saeryn returned, "why aren't they shooting the snot out of each other out there?"
The Bothan started to reply, but then stopped, apparently hearing the silence for the first time. "I've got a really, really bad feeling about this," he said finally.
"I don't think this barricade's going to cut it," she said. "I figure there's at least ten of them left, maybe twelve. And that's assuming Garbag doesn't have any more hired guns on the freighter that he's keeping in reserve."
"Either way, that's more than enough to flank us," Kaybin finished. "Speaking of which, there's some of them coming around from the front." Even as he finished say that, he squeezed off a quick volley of shots, forcing a Weequay and two Rodians to retreat back around the curve of the freighter.
"Stay here for as long as you can," Saeryn said as she stood. "I'll make sure they don't get us surrounded." She ducked and started under the belly of the YT-1100.
"Why do I get the feeling that I'm the bait again?" Kaybin piped.
Saeryn grinned over her shoulder but didn't reply. She headed for the centerline of the freighter, toward the belly turret that hung dark and immobile. She could only hope that one of the toughs wouldn't get the bright idea to power it up and start spraying lasers everywhere. Not only would it probably kill both her and Kaybin, it would likely destroy the entire bay as well, along with the ship and the guns.
But as she reached the quad guns, she didn't see any movement through the darkened transparisteel of their control pod. Before she had passed them, though, something to her right caught her eye. She turned in that direction and crouched, bringing her twin blasters up, ready to shoot.
It was a pair of legs, or rather, two pairs of them, slowly making their way around the protruding engine housing of the freighter, and heading toward Kaybin's position. Both were Human from the looks of it, but she could barely see to their waists. There was no way to tell what kind of firepower they were packing. Regardless, she couldn't let them sneak up behind her partner. Casting a glance over her should to make sure none of her foes had gotten the same idea, she started toward the flankers, moving as fast as she could without making any noise.
But at that moment, chaos broke loose.
Shattering the silence, Kaybin's DX-97x opened up with a vengeance, shrieking so fast that Saeryn couldn't count the individual shots. Screams echoed through the bay, followed by the reports of heavier weaponry returning fire. The Humans that Saeryn was tracking started running, toward her partner. She would have to act now.
Gritting her teeth in concentration, she went down on her stomach and brought both of her blasters up, tracking for the briefest second, and then started shooting. Both of the Black Sun members went down with multiple wounds to their legs, but they weren't dead, and that's what Saeryn had been afraid of. These two were good, at least better than their fellows. Even as they fell, their carbines were swinging in her direction, spitting a hail of crimson energy.
Wincing as the bolts pinged off the freighter above her head and the pad in front of her, Saeryn kept blazing away, hoping she hadn't maneuvered herself into a deathtrap. One of the toughs jerked and went still as her bolt took him through the chest, but the second rolled to his left, avoiding the two shots that would have blown him away.
But his move allowed Saeryn to do the same – only he was wounded, which made her faster. Even as he was bringing his carbine back up to sight for her forehead, she squeezed off a shot from each blaster.
And that was that.
She started crawling as fast as she could, eager to get out from under the freighter where there was almost no room to maneuver. She slipped past the two bodies of her foes, and straightened to find herself directly aft of the YT-1100, facing its engine banks.
A quarter of the way around the freighter to her left, Kaybin fired two more shots, and then an eerie silence fell over the bay, punctuated by the moans of at least two wounded combatants. She jumped as Garbag's throaty voice echoed off the walls around her, sounding as if it was everywhere at once; the slug-like alien was speaking in Huttese, probably goading his toughs onward. As she listened, it sounded like he might have been just inside the landing ramp of the ship, and an insane idea came to mind.
Hoping that Kaybin would be able to hold his position long enough, Saeryn holstered her guns and reached up to grab the lowest lip of the engine housing. She hauled herself up into the exhaust cavity of the main thrusters, then edged her way forward until she had reached the starboard edge. She paused briefly to make sure no one had spotted her; she leaned out slightly, but couldn't see anyone. She slipped out and climbed to the top of the engine housing and started up over the gently sloping top of the freighter.
"Come on, Kaybin," she whispered as she neared the bow, "just hold on a little longer."
She drew her blasters again, heading for the low spot where the protruding cockpit joined up with the main fuselage of the YT-1100. If she could reach it unseen, she could slip back down to the ground a dozen or so feet below, and then she would be right next to the landing ramp. There would be nothing between her and Garbag then.
But even as she reached the cockpit, two things happened at once, and neither of them was good.
With a collective howl, the remaining Black Sun toughs charged Kaybin's position, careening around the curve of the freighter, their guns blazing even before the Bothan was in sight. At the same time, Saeryn heard a muffle yell below her, and looked down into the cockpit to see a Rodian in the pilot's chair, already training its heavy carbine on her.
With a squawk that was half shriek, half yell, Saeryn emptied both her powerpacks into the cockpit, closing her eyes as the Rodian returned fire with equal gusto. The transparisteel of the cockpit was designed to withstand even a handful of accidental discharges, but it could not endure the firestorm that struck it from both sides. Accompanied by a numbing crackling and popping, the canopy exploded, spraying razor sharp shards in all direction, along with a goodly amount of fire and sparks as large portions of the ships controls disappeared under the barrage of lasers.
Even as she fell backward toward the ground below, Saeryn felt pain rip through her body in several places. She vaguely felt herself hit the ground, still squeezing the triggers of her spent blasters. The world swam around her, the hazy images punctuated by flashes of red light and the sounds of shouts and screams. Realizing that the fight wasn't over yet, she struggled to roll over and stand up, but her limbs wouldn't respond. She simply lay there for a moment, trying not to feel the waves of burning that swept through her.
She hit the pad and rolled over, bringing both guns back up to track the new enemy. When she saw them, she cursed. There were at least a dozen of them, Rodians, Weequays, Humans, and others. They wore a motley array of tattered fabrics and battered armor, but all of them had a black circle surrounded by wavy black lines emblazoned on their shoulders.
A Black Sun Death Squad.
"Kaybin!" she shouted in warning.
If the Bothan replied, it was lost in the sound of gunfire. She heard his DX-97x shriek again, followed by a dying yell as another of Garbag's cronies toppled from the boarding ramp of the YT-1100.
Rolling to one side to avoid another shot coming from the Black Sun henchmen, Saeryn opened up with both of her blasters; she didn't aim, she was merely intent on sending back as much energy as she could. Her efforts were partly rewarded. A Human wearing a Mandalorian breastplate and wielding a BlasTech rifle jerked and went down, struck twice in the chest. Two other foes dove to the side to avoid her volley.
It took Garbag's hired thugs a full three seconds to react to the firefight, but now they had their guns drawn and were adding their own shots to the foray. Lasers pinged into the stone surface of the pad all around Saeryn, preventing her from staying still long enough to get a good shot at the Black Sun squad. She had to keep rolling, and she realized that if she didn't find a way to get to her feet, they would eventually kill her.
To her right, Kaybin was on his feet and blasting away with maddened vigor; he was facing the opposite direction that Saeryn was, still toward the ship and Garbag's four remaining toughs. His rapid fire gun was wreaking havoc, keeping the aliens from setting up any good shots. One of the Rodians took a bolt in the chest and dropped on its back, sliding down the landing ramp to come to a rest on the pad. But the Bothan's position was getting too hot; though Garbag himself was nowhere to be seen, his cronies were still on the ramp and shooting back at Kaybin. Half of the Black Sun Death Squad was also shooting at him, making it hard for him to stay in one place for more than a second. Cursing as he dropped a spent powerpack and slapped another in its place, he darted to his left, heading for the relatively good cover of the freighter's port side.
Fortunately for Saeryn, his movement caused most of the Black Sun thugs to shift their attention and their thankfully bad aim to him. The woman stopped shooting long enough to roll to her feet and start after her partner. As she went, she switched out powerpacks for her own guns.
By the time she reached him, Kaybin was already piling up several crates and barrels that had been stacked near the freighter, constructing a hasty barricade. "It was an ambush!" he exclaimed as he worked, as if Saeryn didn't already realize that. "I should have known Black Sun would be right on our tails!"
Saeryn didn't listen to the rest of what he had to say as she vaulted over the low row of crates to crouch beside him – which was just as well as most of it was a steady stream of epithets and oaths. She was too busy listening to what was going happening on the other side of the freighter. Which was nothing at all.
The only thing she could hear was silence.
"I've got a really bad feeling about this, Kaybin," she breathed.
"There's a surprise," he muttered as he peered out over the crates toward the front of the landing bay.
"Worse than usual," she answered. "I think Jabba's working with Black Sun on this one, or at least his crony Garbag is."
Kaybin stared at her in disbelief. "What? Why? The Hutts have always minded their own business. For the most part, they're rivals of Black Sun."
"If that's the case in this situation," Saeryn returned, "why aren't they shooting the snot out of each other out there?"
The Bothan started to reply, but then stopped, apparently hearing the silence for the first time. "I've got a really, really bad feeling about this," he said finally.
"I don't think this barricade's going to cut it," she said. "I figure there's at least ten of them left, maybe twelve. And that's assuming Garbag doesn't have any more hired guns on the freighter that he's keeping in reserve."
"Either way, that's more than enough to flank us," Kaybin finished. "Speaking of which, there's some of them coming around from the front." Even as he finished say that, he squeezed off a quick volley of shots, forcing a Weequay and two Rodians to retreat back around the curve of the freighter.
"Stay here for as long as you can," Saeryn said as she stood. "I'll make sure they don't get us surrounded." She ducked and started under the belly of the YT-1100.
"Why do I get the feeling that I'm the bait again?" Kaybin piped.
Saeryn grinned over her shoulder but didn't reply. She headed for the centerline of the freighter, toward the belly turret that hung dark and immobile. She could only hope that one of the toughs wouldn't get the bright idea to power it up and start spraying lasers everywhere. Not only would it probably kill both her and Kaybin, it would likely destroy the entire bay as well, along with the ship and the guns.
But as she reached the quad guns, she didn't see any movement through the darkened transparisteel of their control pod. Before she had passed them, though, something to her right caught her eye. She turned in that direction and crouched, bringing her twin blasters up, ready to shoot.
It was a pair of legs, or rather, two pairs of them, slowly making their way around the protruding engine housing of the freighter, and heading toward Kaybin's position. Both were Human from the looks of it, but she could barely see to their waists. There was no way to tell what kind of firepower they were packing. Regardless, she couldn't let them sneak up behind her partner. Casting a glance over her should to make sure none of her foes had gotten the same idea, she started toward the flankers, moving as fast as she could without making any noise.
But at that moment, chaos broke loose.
Shattering the silence, Kaybin's DX-97x opened up with a vengeance, shrieking so fast that Saeryn couldn't count the individual shots. Screams echoed through the bay, followed by the reports of heavier weaponry returning fire. The Humans that Saeryn was tracking started running, toward her partner. She would have to act now.
Gritting her teeth in concentration, she went down on her stomach and brought both of her blasters up, tracking for the briefest second, and then started shooting. Both of the Black Sun members went down with multiple wounds to their legs, but they weren't dead, and that's what Saeryn had been afraid of. These two were good, at least better than their fellows. Even as they fell, their carbines were swinging in her direction, spitting a hail of crimson energy.
Wincing as the bolts pinged off the freighter above her head and the pad in front of her, Saeryn kept blazing away, hoping she hadn't maneuvered herself into a deathtrap. One of the toughs jerked and went still as her bolt took him through the chest, but the second rolled to his left, avoiding the two shots that would have blown him away.
But his move allowed Saeryn to do the same – only he was wounded, which made her faster. Even as he was bringing his carbine back up to sight for her forehead, she squeezed off a shot from each blaster.
And that was that.
She started crawling as fast as she could, eager to get out from under the freighter where there was almost no room to maneuver. She slipped past the two bodies of her foes, and straightened to find herself directly aft of the YT-1100, facing its engine banks.
A quarter of the way around the freighter to her left, Kaybin fired two more shots, and then an eerie silence fell over the bay, punctuated by the moans of at least two wounded combatants. She jumped as Garbag's throaty voice echoed off the walls around her, sounding as if it was everywhere at once; the slug-like alien was speaking in Huttese, probably goading his toughs onward. As she listened, it sounded like he might have been just inside the landing ramp of the ship, and an insane idea came to mind.
Hoping that Kaybin would be able to hold his position long enough, Saeryn holstered her guns and reached up to grab the lowest lip of the engine housing. She hauled herself up into the exhaust cavity of the main thrusters, then edged her way forward until she had reached the starboard edge. She paused briefly to make sure no one had spotted her; she leaned out slightly, but couldn't see anyone. She slipped out and climbed to the top of the engine housing and started up over the gently sloping top of the freighter.
"Come on, Kaybin," she whispered as she neared the bow, "just hold on a little longer."
She drew her blasters again, heading for the low spot where the protruding cockpit joined up with the main fuselage of the YT-1100. If she could reach it unseen, she could slip back down to the ground a dozen or so feet below, and then she would be right next to the landing ramp. There would be nothing between her and Garbag then.
But even as she reached the cockpit, two things happened at once, and neither of them was good.
With a collective howl, the remaining Black Sun toughs charged Kaybin's position, careening around the curve of the freighter, their guns blazing even before the Bothan was in sight. At the same time, Saeryn heard a muffle yell below her, and looked down into the cockpit to see a Rodian in the pilot's chair, already training its heavy carbine on her.
With a squawk that was half shriek, half yell, Saeryn emptied both her powerpacks into the cockpit, closing her eyes as the Rodian returned fire with equal gusto. The transparisteel of the cockpit was designed to withstand even a handful of accidental discharges, but it could not endure the firestorm that struck it from both sides. Accompanied by a numbing crackling and popping, the canopy exploded, spraying razor sharp shards in all direction, along with a goodly amount of fire and sparks as large portions of the ships controls disappeared under the barrage of lasers.
Even as she fell backward toward the ground below, Saeryn felt pain rip through her body in several places. She vaguely felt herself hit the ground, still squeezing the triggers of her spent blasters. The world swam around her, the hazy images punctuated by flashes of red light and the sounds of shouts and screams. Realizing that the fight wasn't over yet, she struggled to roll over and stand up, but her limbs wouldn't respond. She simply lay there for a moment, trying not to feel the waves of burning that swept through her.