Bounty: Theron Vhan - The Wife

[Joseph Trazyn]

Join the Imperial Army they said, Joseph sighed beneath his helmet ,it will be fun they said. He grumbled to himself, as things seemed to be getting rapidly out of their scope of control. Personally, he had no idea why two supposed 'Imperials' had dropped in, on a warranted arrest mission - it all seemed, deeply unsettling. The addition of a Bounty Hunter droid as well hardly set Jospehs mind at rest either, but hey-ho, such was life .

Screw it, it was clear that they where ramping up the operation. Caran headed out to deal with the cab driver, and Joseph signalled to the remiainin member of the team. "Weapons hot, clear the area of non-essential targets." he made the call, signalling to the squad that there was only one person who they needed alive - the Moffs wife.

"Get the droid out of the building," he informed his squadmate via their helmet comms, removing a second flash-bang grenade "...use force if needed." he continued, cracking the door open ever-so-slightly and rolling the flash-bang inside, intending to blind the moffs wife. One, he readied his weapon. Two. He position himself to kick open the door. Three, Joseph heard the flash-bang go off, and kicked the door open. Aiming at the startled, and no-doubt blinded target, the Moffs wife, he fired one shot directly into her right leg, which would force her to drop the the floor - moving quickly, he fired a second shot into her left arm as he moved, hopefully paralyzing her effectiveness at shooting, and made quick progress across the room, where he would kick the flamer away from her, and aim his weapon at the hopefully now downed, blinded, and injured target.

 

[Ben Drake]

This is how people get killed, Ben thought to himself.

He stepped back from the doorway as the boss went on his rampage, still against the wall.

On his squad-mate's order, he motioned the droid to the south-west corner. The door to his right was where the target was and who knew what was happening outside now. It was the only place they could get some sort of control.

"Things could get messy in here. Get yourself safe down in that corner." This was a threat as much as it was advice. He would watch the droid move across, covering his route from his corner.

Once he was safely out, he would quickly cross the room, taking a route that did not take him past the open doorway and hugging the walls where possible, until he was in position on Trazyn's left, rear shoulder, to the left of the doorway. Only then would he give him the tap to say he was ready to move in.

As his comrade then entered the room, he would be stood right up against the North wall - forming a link man between the ends of the squad, and providing protection should anything burst through either door. His rifle was still ready to end any sudden movements from the droid.

 

[Wyatt Kebiin-Solus]

With a defeated sigh Wyatt watched the pair of new arrivals deliberate quickly and begin walking back to the cab they’d arrived in. This was a great chance for him to cover some distance as he snatched his shriekhawk and came to the edge of the buildings roof, using the jetpack in combat mode. Making short controlled bursts to clear the gaps between roof tops as he was moving towards the target house and parrellled the street below.

That was when he heard the shots ring out and a shout or two and looked off of the roof he was on to see the cab had slowly begun to roll with a dead driver. It had gotten interesting and Wyatt saw the opportunity to thin the herd; setting his shriekhawk on the tiles of the roof and letting his bowcaster hang in the sling he peaked up over the shingles. Just enough to get his shoulders and up exposed to aim his vambraced wrist and loose the rocket at rear passenger side of the cab, designed to penetrate and detonate inside the cab; as he was 2-3 meters from the ground and within 20 meters of the cab.

@Sreeya @Clayton @Phoenix​

 

[Narir Solus]

Narir's position behind the shrubbery gave him a fair vantage point of what was going on, and even allowed him to hear snippets of the conversation. Everything seemed to be going normally until it wasn't. There was sudden commotion outside as one of the Imperial officers and the budget bounty hunter climbed back into the cab and drove away.

And then there was that sound that he had heard more times than he could count: the sound of blaster fire. It was one of the Imperials shooting at the cab. It was strange, but he wasn't looking for an explanation. It was an opportunity. A wrist rocket that came streaking through the air only a moment later meant that Wyatt had judged the cab to be a threat. Whether it was or not before, it certainly was now.

If the driver was indeed dead, Narir would peek out from behind the bush and send his own rocket into the opposite side of the cab from Wyatt's. Between the pair of detonations, there was little to no means of escape for the cab whose driver - the only innocent as far as Narir could gauge - had already been shot by the Imperial. Oh wonderful.

As soon as Narir had fired the rocket he would conceal himself behind the bush once more, moving along its edge for several meters so as not to be shot through the bush by someone guessing at his position. It may not have prevented him from being physically hit, but it was nigh impossible to hit what you couldn't see. @Clayton @Sreeya @Rimrald @Nefieslab @TWD26 @Ulysses @Nor'baal @Lets Awesome @Brick

 

[F2O2]

Get the droid out of the building? No acknowledgement of his earlier service in giving Joseph a lift? How....How utterly, completely RUDE. He wondered what Joseph's spine would look like removed and flailing as the poor man was beaten to death with it. "Very well," F2 huffed, indignant. "I hope she's as crazy as she sounds and claws your eyes out with fake nails," he said stiffly, moving towards the door he'd just entered to leave the building as directed, and slammed it behind him, annoyed. Well...slammed it as best a door with a broken latch and frame could be slammed.

F2 stepped out into the light to see everything go to hell at once. The trail of a rocket zipped towards the car out front. Oh dear. People were going to die today, weren't they? Served them right for being rude jerks that stomped in on his bounty. F2 stepped to his right to clear the doorway, though still on the stoop. His left arm clicked as a probe popped out. He looked to the doorway, and was sad that he couldn't lock the lot of them in there with the woman. He was also caught between explosions outside and whatever insanity that lady was going to unleash. One did not interrupt a woman getting ready by flash-banging her. Not someone who sounded like she did. The explosions were exciting, at least.

 

[Raz Solus]

At this point it was every man for himself, and Raz had decided it was time to act. She heard a lot of commotion going on in the living room that faced the bedroom. Raz didn’t pay heed to any of it, quickly pulling out a grenade and cooking it. She heard the droid huff and puff as he stormed out of the building. That was when she tossed the grenade into the main living room, the explosion sending shrapnel everywhere. The two Imperial Republica men hadn’t entered the bedroom just yet - focused on shooting the woman inside the room and waiting for the flash grenade to go off. As Raz had been hiding behind a wall, she would be protected from the effects of the blast.

The men could avoid certain death by utilizing the sofa or being thrown into the bedroom with the woman, but they would be hard pressed to avoid the surprise attack entirely. Raz didn’t care whether they lived or died, she simply needed them out of it enough for her to burst into the living room. If, and only if, the two men were incapacitated, she would bolt into the living room and make an attempt to escape with the wife.

If the men weren’t down, Raz would spring from her position and have her blaster leveled and ready for a fight. She was facing into the living room while still being half behind the wall she was peeking from, ready to duck behind cover when needed.


@Nefieslab

 

[The Storyteller]

Reggie had been a cabbie on these streets for years now and he had seen a lot of stuff. But this was just a whole lot of stupid. People rocking up and posturing and then leaving and all over some random little house? He hadn't been to this side of town too much but he knew well enough that the whole damn area was nothing but a very boring residential area.

The two who had arrived got back into his cab and he just rolled his eyes a little bit, adjusting the small picture he had attached to his dashboard before making to leave. He was making ready to move off when he noticed the man in the middle of the pavement lift up his rifle. Gunning the engine on instinct built into him over years of running around this sweat stain of a planet, Reggie's window shattered upon the first shot, the second blasted past his front narrowly, the third hit him clean in the right arm, twisting his control over the cab and causing the fourth shot to slam into the metal of the cab door.

First wrist rocket had been aimed at the rear passenger side but with Reggie's deranged movement due to being shot in the arm, it didn't impact with the passengers - instead it impacted with the back of the cab, the explosion tearing into the metal frame and bursting it open (much like when an overripe fruit was torn open but with more flying chunks of jagged metal) causing the vehicle to spin and slam into a nearby wall. The second rocket from the second Mandalorian would slam into the rear side of the cab as planned however, the cab having come to a violent stop by this point. The explosive devise would tear into the metal and the glass, the shockwave turning the interior of the cab into a shrapnel party zone.

Reggie the cab driver was slumped forward in the front seat, his right arm half-blasted apart and a jagged chunk of shrapnel jutting out of his neck.

He'd just wanted a nice and easy fare. He had let is wife, Padma, go on ahead to their favourite restaurant after assuring her that it was just going to be a quick drop off, a favour to his boss. The man had gotten them together in the first place after all, introducing the two of them at a wedding almost ten years ago.

This was to be their first wedding anniversary so Reggie had been saving for months to make sure that her night was perfect.

But it seemed he'd let her down.

She would sit at their table for two hours, drawing pitying looks from other dinners before mustering the courage to leave. Full of anger and hurt, she would demand his boss tell her where her no good husband was.

And she would slowly fall to the ground and sob for hours, until their children came downstairs for school the next morning, upon realising that her Reggie was dead. That her Reggie had left her with two children below the age of five and widowed before their first anniversary was over.

-

Back in the house itself, the target was getting restless and had her flamer still pointed at the doorway. As soon as she saw the door open even slightly she would, quite literally, open fire. The little section of the door that Joseph had tried to open would be filled with fire, making it next to impossible for him to slide his grenade inside.

Even if the grenade did go off it likely wouldn't have much of the desired effect as she would merely hold down the trigger, continuing to spray fire at the door. It wasn't like she would have to move after all. If Joseph did risk the flames to get a couple of shots off, they would merely impact the bed, blasting through her mother's dovet cover but otherwise doing nothing to her.

She may or may not have been screaming since she had started to pull the trigger.

@Sreeya @Clayton
@Brick @TWD26 @Nor'baal @Lets Awesome
@Rimrald @Phoenix

 

[Joseph Trazyn]

Things really where not going to plan for Joseph today, and as he made to carry out his breaching of the door, he was struck by a detonating Mandalorian grenade, which knocked him off balance, and into his targets room. He staggered into the flames, and attempted to fire - but to no avail.

Collapsing under the weight of the flames, stunned from a grenade blast, he fell to the ground, and everything went black.

Joseph had died as he lived. Smokin' and in the bedroom.

 

[Ben Drake]

Ben saw the grenade coming, just.

He leapt for cover behind the sofa. Too late. The grenade exploded in impact with his colleague. The other soldier took most of the brunt of the explosion, but he still got knocked off course and landed badly.

The explosion was funneled upward by the walls and the dying soldier into the ceiling. This dislodged a light fitting, droping down onto Ben's head, knocking him out and covering him in plaster-rubble.

 

[Wyatt Kebiin-Solus]

With his helmets recorder still running Wyatt looked on at the carnage as the cab slammed into a nearby wall likely possessing three corpses as he did not see anyone move; but he was not so stupid as to leave things to chance. Activating his jetpack as he came to a standing position he moved across the street and descended touching the grassy lawn and made his way around the unearthed dirt carved from the cabs movements in its final operational moments, keeping an eye keenly on the passengers slumped bodies for any movements. Bowcaster at high ready and aimed as he made to the passenger side door, aiming at the closer mans head with the barrel of the weapon before firing the bolt at virtually point blank range, crossing through his skull and lodging into the other mans as it penetrated the far sides door frame with a metal clunk. Opening the door and having it come off the hinge in his hand, Wyatt let it fall to the ground as he took a step back and let his weapon drop in its sling as he reached in and pulled the closer man out by his collar after the bolt had passed through his head and into the other man he moved him to the grass but leaving the driver put.

Wyatt made quick work of photographing the body lodged in the cabs door by his head and the other sprawled out on the lawn next to the dislodged door. He had been aware of the commotion inside the home but did not think much of it yet as he turned to make for the entrance, flames were visible from the exterior and as he neared the front door he could see the massive mess in the living space. "Meg o'r haran cuyir slanar bat o'r olar?" He said in a raised tone as he threw his bowcaster over his shoulder rotating the sling and synching it down to keep the weapon in place as he produced his concussion grenade while looking on at the currently cooking corpse and had to hold back his vomit at the smell and sight. It wasn't one someone got used to but he didn't let it distract him for more than a glance as he kept against the exterior door frame and waited for someone to give some instructions.

@Sreeya @Phoenix @Clayton @Nefieslab​

 

[Narir Solus]

A normal snatch and grab had turned into a full combat zone in seconds. Narir's rocket found its mark and the explosion was deafening. Combined with the blaster fire and the flaming of the woman inside. Wyatt moved in quickly on the cab, shooting the occupants to make sure they didn't get back up, and Narir shifted his attention to the building once again.

The first shooter had... wandered off? He had no idea why or what had led him to fire on the cab in the first place, but it was clear he had nothing to do with the fight anymore. Actually, Narir couldn't even seem to find him?

As for the house, there was flickering off the walls that indicated flame and smoke billowing outward. Had Raz lit up a flamethrower? Had she even bought a flamethrower? Regardless, it was clear there was some sort of conflict inside. With Wyatt approaching as well, Narir spoke into his comlink. You need support? he asked in Mando'a. He was on standby, but until he got the go-ahead, wasn't eager to charge into an unknown situation. Instead, he hoisted his carbine back up and took aim at the door, watching and waiting. @Sreeya @Phoenix @Rimrald @Nefieslab

 

[F2O2]

An explosion caused the broken door to slam shut hard and then bounce back inwards, now incredibly worse for wear and some holes in it from shrapnel. If F2 had eyelids, he would have blinked in surprise. This was most certainly not how he had expected things to go. With a whirr of servos, the odd droid turned and leaned to peek into the living room. To say that the room was an utter mess was an understatement. He could no longer see Joseph Trazyn, although some smoke appeared to be lightly wisping from the bedroom. The other Imperial was motionless and trapped under a fallen light fixture. How interesting. "Well done, I deduce that grenade was your doing," he spoke to Raz through the commlink.

F2 moved into the room to check on Ben Drake. With the precision of a medically-programmed droid, he quickly assessed the soldier's vitals. "He's alive, but rather damaged," F2 announced after a few moments. He paused for another few moments to consider their options in dealing with him. "Would anyone like his spine? Does anyone need a liver, kidney, or other vital organ? With some preliminary blood work I can determine if he is a suitable donor match. I can assure you the procedure would be entirely safe for the recipient," he informed the party.

@Phoenix @Nefieslab

 

[Raz Solus]

Raz came out of where the dining room was, an odd silence hanging in the house now. The teen upstairs had shut off his music and was hiding like a pansy instead of coming to check on his poor mother. The Mandalorian stepped out, waving aside the smoke that plumed inside the house. She heard several voices on her comms and took a few moments before answering, “Everything looks okay here for now, stay outside and find us an exit route. Imperials will be on this like a fly on shit,” She grumbled.

She walked over and saw F2 casually talking about ways to harvest the man that was still alive. Raz scowled at him beneath her helmet, “We don’t have time for that bullshit, just leave him!” She hissed before turning towards the woman that was still inside the bedroom. Raz held her hands up, trying not to step on the dead Imperial’s body, “Look, you’re going to keep having people coming after you like this,” She spoke to the woman directly, “This isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. You need to help us find Theron and this bullshit will stop once and for all. Think about it.”

Raz knew it was pointless to threaten the woman. She had faced nothing but threats up until this point, and that explained the damn flamethrower she had. She would wait only a few moments for the woman before trying ways to cleanly knock her out and take her by force. Raz was going to try the civil route, but even she had limited patience when authorities could come down on them at any point.

@Nefieslab

 

[The Storyteller]

Soma was just so confused.

A man tried to burst into her bedroom but seemed to have been thrown into said bedroom by a grenade going off, throwing him directly into the path of her panicked flamethrower. She screamed a little bit but managed to turn it off in time to keep it from overheating or exploding or anything of the like. Instead she just shook a little bit as she continued to point her flamethrower at the doorway.

"Oh."

She shook as she pointed the flamethrower at Raz as soon as she had stepped into sight but refrained from pulling the trigger just yet. Probably only because she was almost frozen over the fact that she had burned a man alive.

"My."

And, of course, it all came back to Theron.

"God!"

She gripped her flamethrower tighter and screwed up her courage. Her indignation.

"Theron might not have been a good kark but I LOVED that man - you just wanna kill him!"

Soma was not ready to go quietly. This woman might not be someone who had tried to shoot her in her bedroom but she was clearly not here for her own benefit. The one thing she didn't count on was coming down the stairs into the living room however.

"Mom!" Lans Vhan, a thirteen year old metal head, whined as he looked down at his phone the entire time, "Did you explode the microwave again? Stop trying to cook eggs in them for Gods' sake!"

He looked up from his phone to see a heavily injured man, a dead (burned) man, a droid and a woman in armour who wouldn't look out of place as the action star of a new blockbuster holovid or some such nonsense. Oh and his mother had a flamethrower in her bedroom. Swallowing thickly, Lans looked between the droid and the armoured woman.

"... is my mom in trouble?"

@Sreeya @Clayton
@TWD26 @Nor'baal
@Rimrald @Phoenix

 

[Wyatt Kebiin-Solus]

Raz had made her move and it was to the displeasure of the woman who'd just barbecued a man, arguably he had started it but she quickly ended it. In an attempt to stay as far away from all of that as he could Wyatt stepped into the doorway and kept along the far wall from the bedrooms door, moving towards the teenager who had made himself known by putting his nose into the business in the first floor. Asking the question as his view rose from the devices screen he was holding Wyatt responded while walking closer "We are here to get you and your mother to a safe place, she was in trouble yes... But we dealt with those men." Wyatt concluded as he stopped a meter short of the son, taking his helmet off an placing it on a small end table; he had projected his voice in hopes that the woman heard him.

"You're going to have another team of imperials or bounty hunters coming to get you to probe for Theron's whereabouts, that is certain if you stay here. We want to get you to safety and get Theron to some people who can really help him. We're just the people trying to help you all." Wyatt finished with his right hand outstretched and motioning towards the teen to come with him and moving his gaze to the armed woman for a moment to make sure she wasn't going to torch him "We didn't come here to hurt anyone, but then some bad guys showed up and we needed to keep you both safe, we're sorry about the mess but there is no more need for bloodshed." He finished and hoped the honest words would ring true to the woman and the boy.

@Sreeya @Phoenix @Clayton @Nefieslab​

 

[The Storyteller]

Soma wasn't going to come out.

She was under attack in her own home and she reserved the right to defend herself and she would exercise that right gods damn it and anyone who tried to take that right away from her! And then she heard him. She heard her son, who she had hoped and prayed would stay upstairs, speaking from the living room and her heart leapt into her throat and stayed there.

For the first time in her life she was completely and utterly speechless.

Her little boy was in the middle of her home, surrounded by thugs and bounty hunters and who even knew what else. They were talking to her son and her throat seemed to have seized up entirely. She moved from behind the bed, flamer still in hand, on shaking legs until she could see her soon stood there, within arms reach of a Mandalorian.

Oh he didn't have the helmet on but you didn't become the wife of an Imperial Intelligence officer without learning a few things and one of the first things she had learned even dating Theron was what some of the enemies of the Empire looked like. Mandalorian armour, beskrgraph or whatever they called it, was distinctive, even if the man wasn't wearing the T-visor.

If it was just her, Soma would have liked to say that she would have bravely fought on against the enemies at her door or something like that. But it wasn't just her, was it?

Her son was in clear and present danger to her mind.

She dropped the flamer to the ground.

"Please... I'll go with you but just..." her voice was small and vulnerable for the first time in her life, "Please just let my son go. Let him go to my aunt's - he'll be safe there. And I can help you find Theron just please... let my son run along to his family?"

Soma didn't have a choice and she knew it. Regardless of what actions they would take, she would surrender herself to their custody.

/End thread.