Mando Mission: Hidden on Hypori

[SoloWing]

((OoC Link.))

With a snap of light, a trio of fighters dropped out of hyperspace. Alya immediately turned her eyes over her instruments. The space around them was clear and free of life or obstacles. Their coordinates and navigation had been on the nose and no one had gotten lost in the space lanes. With a nod of relief, Alya turned her attention to the murky brown/gray planet located, relatively, below them.

It was the planet Hypori. From all available information it was a temperate planet located in the far reaches of the outer rim. It was home to small oceans, rocky landscapes, tough soil, and, if reports could be believed, an abandoned battle droid production facility. The mission was a simple one: find the facility and get it functional once again.

Alya instinctively disliked simple missions. In her experience, they routinely became anything but simple or easy. She just hoped that she would be proven wrong in this instance. At that precise moment, her screen lit up with a communication from her droid, an IT-O Interrogation Droid, designated V1-C3, that she had outfitted for combat. He was echoing her sentiments.

Regardless of instincts, human or otherwise, she clicked on the comm. gear and set it over to the squad's secure frequency. In theory, they could now talk without the rest of the universe hearing what they had to say.

"This is Sergeant Alya Vin and The Bad Hand reporting in." She said. "Everybody make it in alright?"

 

[Lexian Praxeus]

Or'dinii.

Rao'az kept calling himself an idiot. He hated flying. Why had he agreed to this?

Why did I not just stay on my farm?

He had joined the Mandalorian army because he felt it was his duty to his people and that he wished to regain any respect of those who might remember his father's exile.

But why did I have to fly?!

Rao'az own ship was large enough that he was able to avoid thinking about flying in space, but since it was so large - he had used the Aggressor assault fighter of a dear friend and his palms were drenched in sweat as they neared the end of their travel in light speed.

As the ship came out of lightspeed, it shuddered and seemed to slam forward.

"Haar'chak!" He yelled out of shock.

He slowly began to breath and calm himself when the voice of Sergeant Vin came across the communication system.

"This is Sergeant Alya Vin and The Bad Hand reporting in." She said. "Everybody make it in alright?"

Rao'az couldn't help but chuckle at the question when he considered his current mental state. Regardless, he quickly replied so they wouldn't know he had been so terrified,

"Rao'az here. I seem to be in one piece."

 

[Mars]

Of the Mandalorian High Command members, the A'lore was particularly well known for his activity among the members of the military. While in the previous set of leaders some held onto their ranks and acted like snobish aristocrats, this new set was very different, and Apollo was very committed to keeping in contact with as many as he could.

His personal heavily modified Tra'kad ship warped into space near the target planet. The ship was armed to the teeth with six heavy blaster turrets and a rotating missile rack, six missile tubes across with a quick targeting system. While heavily armed, it doesn't lack heavy armoring and shielding as well, making a nicely balanced ship deserving of the Mandalorian second in command.

"A'lore Apollo Ordo, reporting in, everyone's made it in safe I assume?"

The voice of the young commander was warm and calm. He'd run missions like these tons of times. Armed to the teeth much like his ship, he was in full gear, with a shield generator attached to his belt on his lower back. Inside his ship were three members of his usual crew.

Cypher, an expert hacker and a bit of a sarcastic ass, he was only recently accepted into Mandalorian society after growing up on the streets of Corellia. He was only twenty years old, but the young cyborg was better than anyone Apollo had met with a datapad and technology in general. While his armor was lighter than his CO's and he wore only a blaster pistol, he was still an asset to the squad.

Lucian, born and raised Mandalorian of the Ordo clan, he's a bit of a show off but follows commands and knows his stuff when it comes to long range combat. He wore full armor, still somewhat lighter in nature than the close-combat orientated Apollo, and used a long-range Verpine shatter-sniper and a heavy blaster pistol.

Last, but certainly not least, was the Kiffar Oliver. He is one of the more intimidating members of Apollo's squad. Standing at just shy of seven feet tall and wearing armor thicker than a Rancor's hide, he used a double-vibrostaff and a repulsor-pack like his CO, he closed the gap quickly and tore through enemies efficiently. On each wrist, Oliver had a grenade launcher capable of firing a variety of forty-millimeter rounds.

Overall, his group was ready to roll.

"I'm here to support, advise, and keep an eye on you guys. Lead the way, my squad and I will follow your lead."

 

[SoloWing]

"Copy that, A'lore. We're glad to have you along." Alya replied smoothly. Her eyes went back to the panel readouts. "All diagnostics are coming in green. Looks like we've all made it in safely. I'll begin laying out a flight plan for us."

Now that they'd arrived, the real work could begin. She turned to the navigation computer and began running some calculations and setting up approach vectors to the landing site. According to intel the planet didn't have any indigenous species, but that didn't mean that there would be no surprises. Alya wanted a good look at the place before doing anything.

While the computer crunched the numbers, a flick of her wrist turned the comm. gear over to a private frequency between Ro'az and herself. The second-in-command could easily crack the frequency, Alya wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he hadn't already, but it was the thought that counted. She wasn't one to needlessly embarrass a squadmate if it could be helped.

She asked: "You alright there, Ro'az? Realspace hit you pretty hard."

Ro'az' diagnostics were reporting no trouble, but sometimes sentience picked up on things that machines couldn't. Then there were times when the machines were better at piloting than the pilots. You just never knew.

 

[Lexian Praxeus]

Rao'az grimaced. He hoped no one had noticed his ship's shudder. He simply wanted to get out of the ship as soon as possible and get on the ground.

Plus, Rao'az barely knew any of these Mandos - he didn't want them thinking he was a coward from hating to fly.

"Yeah, yeah. Crinking ship was acting up. That's what I get for taking someone else's ship, I suppose." Rao'az said, hoping the subject would be dropped.

He was already sweating from flying, he didn't want to be worrying about what his superiors thought of him.

 

[SoloWing]

Hardly reassuring, Fortunately, The Bad Hand was a two-seater, so if the ship did go out Rao'az wouldn't be stranded. Still, malfunctioning equipment was never good.

"Alright. Keep an eye on things and let me know if it acts up again." Alya closed the private connection.

At that moment her navicomp signaled her with a beep; a line of code appeared, disappeared, and was replaced by the requested trajectories. She glanced over them, verified them in her head, and then nodded her approval. A quick bit of console manipulation re-opened the squad frequency.

"I've got the coordinates. They'll take us on a nice easy sweep around the planet before bringing us in for a landing. If there's any trouble down there, hopefully we'll spot it on approach before it finds us. I'm transmitting them..." Her thumb flicked a switch. "... now."

She closed the comm., giving the others time to verify the flight plan and punch it in. While they did that, she opened up the sensors and instructed Vice to monitor them for anything irregular. While multitasking would allow her to pilot and observe the data at the same time, it was always beneficial to have a second pair of dedicated eyes on the data feeds.

The comm. line opened once again. "If the data checks out, we'll move on in. Easy does it."

A simple nudge of the thrusters put her ship on the proper course. Now the intelligence run could begin in earnest. Alya had two hopes for this quick orbit about the planet: that the sensors wouldn't pick up anything unusual and that the sensors wouldn't miss anything important.

 

[Mars]

Apollo's ship was geared to the teeth and had some of the more advanced gear for tracking targets in ship-to-ship and air-to-ground combat, however, it's ability to scan planets for any mishaps was subpar. Regardless, he'd follow the others on the intelligence screening and keep an eye out for other things. Meanwhile, Oliver and Lucian were playing a quick game of Pazaak in one of the rooms of the ship's spacious interior.

"Oy! Apollo! What's the hold up?!" shouted the big Kiffar from the back, his thick-bladed vibrostaff leaning on the wall next to him.

"Going for a quick intelligence run to make sure all's good, calm down ya big loaf, we'll be on the ground in no time."

"We better be...."

Apollo shrugged and chuckled out loud. The big boy was occasionally a big baby.

 

[Lexian Praxeus]

Rao'az felt far more comfortable now.

He went through his supplies, checked his weapons, and was leaning back to relax. He wasn't the most technical Mando, so he was leaving the scans in the capable hands of the Sergeant. However, his own sensors were up and scanning. Rao'az was looking over the data readouts still though, hoping to maybe understand ship tech better.

While his sensors looked over the area, he heard a shrill beep ring out for a brief moment. He looked at his scanner and there was some sort of message coming through. He wasn't exactly sure what it meant. He hoped it didn't mean something they didn't want to find.

"Uh, Sarge..." Rao'az began to say over their communication network. Suddenly the message was gone.

Stang.

It must have been nothing and now I sound like an idiot.

"Nevermind. Thought I saw something, but ship proved me wrong." Rao'az said, assuming that it was nothing.

 

[SoloWing]

A frown passed over Alya's face and she checked her sensor board again. A quick conference with Vice revealed that he had picked nothing up either. Maybe it was nothing, but caution and paranoia had kept her alive up until now. She didn't see any reason to check that caution now.

She hit the comm. "Copy that, Rao'az. Nothing's showing on my sensors but that doesn't mean we should write it off just yet. If you've got a log of the anomaly, send it over via tight-beam data burst."

Below her, the planet continued on its lazy spin. Nothing was standing out to her view. All things were normal... They were slated to land in a few moments. So why couldn't she shake the feeling that there was something wrong here?

Another communication was quickly dispatched. "A'lore, did your sensors pick up anything?"

 

[Mars]

Apollo heard the chatter over the coms and listened intently for a few minutes before a loud, deep voiced blasted over from the scanner.

"Leave this place. The Factory belongs to us. The Hive will destroy you."

Naturally, a mission could never be what it seemed. Apollo had heard mentions of a Hive before, all of them relating to Killiks, the semi-sentient hive-mind insect race that tended to mind-rape those it managed to capture to become Joiners.

"Alright, listen up boys, things just changed quite a bit." Apollo began. He'd been a soldier and mercenary since he was thirteen and even with fifteen years experience and his own personal squad of killers, he was unsure they'd be able to handle this if the others were not prepared. "It appears a Hive of Killik's have claimed the Factory as theirs. With any luck, they will not have been there for long, since the bastards breed rather rapidly. Follow me in, we'll sweep the place with our ships first, lay as much waste to anything on the surface with your ship's weaponry as you can before we land."

Apollo's mind raced through the possible outcomes and the variety of plans they could follow through on, but one seemed to be the route of least resistance.

"Once the generators are on, the factories built in defenses and the remaining droids should help us take care of the rest. We'll need to strike quickly though. Once we land I'll have further instruction. Understood?"

((If you guys want this to be a little more of a cakewalk, I have no problem removing the added twist, however, as it is it's a nice little chance for both of your characters to perform in front of the A'lore))

 

[Lexian Praxeus]

"Bugs?! Haar'chak!" Rao'az yelled in his cockpit.

So far, this mission was not going well for him. He had gone on a few missions in his life, but not very many, so this one was not looking too well for him so far.

Rao'az had encountered Killik's at one other instance, but it was years ago and he only learned small parts of their culture. Regardless, the factory needed to be on as soon as possible before they were overrun with bugs.

Rao'az's ship moved starboard of the A'lore's squad's ships with the Sergeant's vessel lined slightly off of their formation so that she could clear out a possible flanking position to the factory.

The ships were nearing the factory when a green light suddenly came to life on Rao'az vessel. Suddenly, each one of the starships unleashed a huge volley of fire against the Killiks who were pouring out of the factory.

 

[SoloWing]

"Keep it together, Rao'az." This mission was starting to look unkind to the man. "A level head and a steady hand will get us farther than a loose cannon."

Rao'az' frustration was just another thing adding to her concern about this overall mission. She couldn't dwell on it too long, however. Pep talks didn't stop the enemy. A proton torpedo up the exhaust pipe would. She moved to address the plan at large.

"Understood, A'lore. Although I must point out that that plan depends upon the Killik not being smart enough, nor having a joiner smart enough, to have activated the factory on their behalf and the assumption that the defenses still work after all these years." She spoke over the comm. After letting that comment sit for a moment, Alya continued lest the others think her a pessimist. "Either way, we'll just have to knock them all down and walk right over them."

The Bad Hand was a bomber. It was built for exactly this sort of trench run. The downside was that the ship wasn't packing quite as much firepower as it normally would. Where bombs and drop mines were normally stored, equipment and supplies for an excavation now stood. Still, she did have some explosives on hand. By Alya's calculations, she could get one run, maybe two if she stretched it, out of her weapons cache before running dry.

She opened up a private line to Vice. She didn't have a co-pilot, so the droid would have to do. "Gear us up for a run. Don't skimp on the ammo."

Alya pulled her fighter around to slipstream alongside the other two ships. They dropped through the atmosphere and began setting up for their run against the killik. Her targeting computer went live and starting narrowing down places of interest. Alya took it under consideration, but opted to trust her own eyes and skill above that of a computer.

"Firing..." Alya lined up the targeting crosshairs with the Killik mound. "... now."

 

[Mars]

"Worry not Alya, we've swept this not too long ago, this colony is new, only a year or so old. Let's give 'em hell."

And so they did. The trio of Mandalorian ships, the A'lore's being the largest, tore through the surface forces of the Killik's and quickly cleared them a landing zone essentially on the front door of the old war factory. Having blown them to dust, the A'lore landed his ship quickly and left his personal droid in charge of keeping it bug-free, letting it take control of the laser cannon turrets.

Apollo's helmet clicked on with a smooth hiss, vacuum sealing his helmet and signaling his readiness for combat alongside his three squad-mates and the two other Mandos that he accompanied. The doors of the factory were huge but had a large crack in the bottom that was nearly thirty five meters across and five meters high. For now, all was quiet and they'd form up first, before moving inside.

"All here? My ship's got our LZ covered from most angles. Ready to move once you guys are."

 

[Lexian Praxeus]

Rao'az was getting a decent bit of satisfaction watching those bugs get ripped apart.

Once the area was cleared out, he saw the A'lore's ship and team's ship touch down and exit. While they prepared, Rao'az was bringing his ship down in the LZ. He wasn't the best pilot, so he took a little longer than he would have liked to touch down. But once the ship hissed as it touched the ground, Rao'az was out of the cockpit in a matter of moments. He had put on his helmet, hearing the hiss of it sealing and his weapon was drawn and surveying the area as he moved to the A'lore.

Rao'az might have been a simple farmer, but like any Mandalorian, battle was here and his blood was running with adrenaline. Plus, he was finally out of the ship.

Now he was ready to blow some bugs to bits.

 

[SoloWing]

So... the time had come. The Bad Hand, almost lazily, drifted through the air and toward the ground. The ship performed a smooth landing and came to rest shortly after the A'lore's ship. Once everything had come to rest, she paused and took a deep breath.

For the first time, she was about to enter a real battle as a mandalorian. Hard to believe that she had become one of the very people she despised. But, then, it was easier to count the number of people that she didn't dislike than those that she did. Once all of her pride and arrogance had been stripped, Alya found herself getting along surprisingly well with the mandalorian people. Evidently, not all of the mandos were sleazy dastards like her old man was.

The fact that she was in a mando uniform would make him proud, probably. Alya grimaced and pushed the stray thought aside. Her heritage had nothing to do with why she was here and she was most certainly not doing this for him. They hadn't spoken for over a decade. Her path had simply led to the mandalorians and she would follow it to the end. She was doing this because she was good at what she did-- and the mandalorians appreciated that.

Enough reminiscing. It was time to finish this mission: "Let's go, Vice."

She thumbed two switches on the console, deploying her droid and opening the cockpit's canopy. A quick vault dropped her over the bomber's side and left her standing on the ground. Alya ran through a quick weapons check, got a green diagnostic from her droid, and then nodded in satisfaction. She was good to go.

"We're present, A'lore." Alya replied. The cocking of her rifle punctuated that sentence. "And ready to take back this base."

 

[Mars]

"Excellent. Onwards, into the old abandoned war factory filled with murderous bugs."

Apollo smirked as he took point with his rifle shouldered and his shield activated. The other members of his squad formed up, making an inverted V as they headed forward into the abandoned place. His under-barrel grenade launcher was stocked with a forty-millimeter high velocity, high explosive grenade and the rockets in his shoulder were made to create amounts of shrapnel as opposed to the one-hitter power of the grenades.

The hallway was narrow compared to the massive front doors but with a very high ceiling and had a few corridors that lead fed into it, eventually leading to a wide open first room of a rather admirable size.

"Alya and Rao'az, I got us on the ground, you guys lead the way."

Apollo had started to take command but this to be there chance to shine.

 

[SoloWing]

Alya didn't like the relative silence of the old base. They had torched a fair number of killik on the way down, but now that they were inside the actual facility there were none to be found. It didn't feel right. The killik wouldn't have just given up that easily.

The first hallway fell open to a grand room-- a staging ground of some kind? She swept the area with her eyes and rifle, but came up with nothing. Vice signaled an all-clear as well. She checked the comm. frequencies for anything to indicate chatter or an ambush. Nothing.

"Affirmative, A'lore." Alya responded slowly, measuredly. She was busy checked a mental copy of the mission data. "The shortest way in to the reactor would be to take that right hallway all the way to the end and hook up with Corridor G23. It's a maintenance route that should give us a straight shot to where we need to be."

She glanced towards the hallway; noted that the entrance had been smashed open. No surprise there. None of the door consoles would work without power. That meant that if the killik wanted to get anywhere in this factory, they'd have to rip and tear their way through. Problem was that that meant that the killik were probably further into the factory as well. Best to stay sharp.

"Rao'az, you're my wing. A'lore wants us to lead, we'll lead." There wasn't much time to dilly-dally. Alya moved forward, heading towards the open corridor. Her rifle was up and at the ready, ready to fire at a moment's notice.

 

[Lexian Praxeus]

Rao'az attempted to move quietly, but he wasn't the most graceful person and his thick armor had a noticeable thud. Regardless, he and Alya were moving rather quickly and mostly quietly. But Rao'az's eyes were darting across the halls.

He didn't know much about these bugs, but he did know they shared something that let them know what the others were thinking or something like that. Which meant that the bugs they had already fried told the rest that a group of exterminators were in the factory. If their fire fight outside hadn't already alerted them. They should be swarming all over the place.

But it was eerily calm.

Rao'az kept his DC-21m pointed out, set to fully automatic, and his finger right on the trigger. The maintenance halls shined with a series of dull red lights. It might have been unsettling, but Rao'az's helmet's systems made the hall lit relatively well regardless.

He heard a sound to his right.

His gun snapped over to it. His first instinct was to open fire, but he kept his calm and kept his eyes open without opening fire.

Nothing was there.

Then another sound to his left.

Both him and Ayla looked. Nothing again.

Haar'chak.

Suddenly, he saw what seemed to be a large dark figure at the end of the hall. Then he realized it was running towards him. Then he realized that it wasn't a massive figure, but many different figures. Each of them sprinting towards them. Bugs. Bugs were filling the hallway.

Rao'az opened fire.

 

[Mars]

Two clicks.

Of all the little sounds in the world to be heard, a pair of clicks was not the most intimidating of them. The rockets hidden on Apollo's shoulders popped up and he immediately fired three of them downrange into the quickly approaching hoard of insects, blasting whole clumps of them to pieces in a a storm of shrapnel and concussive energy. His rifle came to his shoulder and blue light lit up the exhaust vents near the barrel as rounds came flying out of it and tearing into the group apart one by one. His squad opened up as well, but none of them had the terrifying ability to tear apart crowds quite like their leader.

"Oya!"

 

[SoloWing]

Alya brought her modified rifle up, shouldered it, and clicked its settings over to full automatic. It didn't take much effort to pick a target given the numbers that they were facing. She drew a bead on an approaching killik and squeezed the trigger. Bolts of energy tore from the rifle's snout and stabbed deep into the approaching horde.

Vice moved to flank her, taking up a position mirrored to Rao'az. The droid opened up fire as well. He was an interrogation droid first and foremost, so his firepower wasn't overwhelming, but every little bit would help.

Extra rockets and grenades tore past her from behind. A smirk passed over her lips. It turned out that the A'lore had a few tricks up his sleeve for their little guests. Not to be outdone, she unhooked a grenade from her belt. She waited for a reloading lull in the onslaught and sent it spinning across the hallway floor. It detonated at the swarms front fringes, taking down the frontrunners and adding to the carnage.

For a moment, despite the numerical disadvantage, it looked as though everything was going to go their way. The killik didn't have the technology to keep pace with the mandalorians. But, of course, that was typically where everything went awry. It did.

The scream and shriek of metal cut above the din. The angry buzzing in the air increased a hundred fold. Alya glanced at her sensors and growled. A second swarm of killik had appeared behind them, along the route they had just taken, intent on forming a pincher movement and trapping the mandalorians betwixt and between.

"We need a chokepoint." Alya said over the comms. They didn't need her pointing out that dividing their firepower was a bad thing. "Rao'az get one of these side doors open. Make sure that whatever room you pick can lead deeper into the factory. The rest of us need to cover him."