[Mando/Renelo] Fear and Loathing on Zeltros

[Bardan Kex]

The moment the alert came across the comms for the the Alor and Rebel Commander, Kex and his team were on the move, their borrowed Gunship carrying them at high speeds towards the pleasure house. The conversation between the two Commanders as they were trapped listening to the monologing Mando was humorous to Bardan, who added his brief input to the discussion of Ral and his taste for redheads. He couldn't really blame the man after all his wife, the woman that had led him to the clans, had been one of the infamous feisty Mando Reds. The gaudy pleasure house was quickly drawing nearer, a quick hand motion alerted the Commando's to stand ready.

"Give the building a new sunroof, and bring down that ugly kirffing flower!" the First Commando would order the pilot of the Craft as he remotely opened the two side doors of the gunship and made ready. The Pilot was ready, the Blaster Cannons in the noise of the craft erupted, rocking the Gunship gently, its rockets soon joined the cacophony of destruction. "I said, bring the Flower down, not the whole damned building!"

"KEX! You said sixty seconds!" shouted Arya as the Gunship began to unload its deadly cargo. Kex hit the floor first, bringing up his weapon to engage security forces on the upper most level of the main room, the rest of the team fanned out.

"I came a bit early." he responded in a flat tone as he dropped a guard that had just come running out in a panic.

"Bet that's not the first time a woman heard that from you." fired back the Rebel Mando'ade.

"Won't be the last time either I'm sure." came the retort as he moved around with the team. "You know Commander, I heard you talking about Stormtroopers. If you ever need a pair of strong hands, just ask. Black Hats do it better."


This post was written in collaboration with @Loco

 

[Ral]

The conversation had quickly worn on the Mandalorian's nerves; Ral didn't like talking about such personal matters, especially not when they're supposed to be trying to rescue their friend. Of course, Kex thought it would be the best to pipe in and mention the other things Ral had been doing in his spare time in a less-than-subtle way causing Arya to look at him, with what he could only imagine was a deadly glare and punch him in the arm. "Oww! Arya!" Ral growled, loud enough for those outside to hear a muffled cry of pain. Gritting his teeth, Ral glared at Arya for a few seconds until he turned to face Grae whom he had been vaguely listening to this whole time. His face was cold and stony as he stared into the other man's eyes as he spoke quickly, his tone betraying his emotions. "You want an answer? You want to know what she means to us? Why we'd risk coming in here to rescue her?" It was quite clear that Ral was livid.

Just then Kex entered the scene by blasting the sunroof with the gunship's weapons. As the explosion rocked through the room, Ral and Arya sprung into action as he dropped to one knee aiming his shatter gun at Grae's unprotected neck. With Arya blasting the emitters, Ral fired his Verpine Shatter Rifle. "I hope you brought your credit chits, 'cause rent in hell gets paid in advanced!" Pulling the trigger back in one smooth motion three times, three bullets fired out of the barrel at supersonic speeds. Not waiting to see if the bullets made contact, Ral sprung to his feet, moving up towards where Grae was standing, firing his weapon. The Mandalorian wasn't going to take any chances, he wanted to make sure the man was dead first. Keeping his rifle trained at the body of Grae to make sure he didn't move.

Turning his comms back on he spoke to his two friends looking a way for a brief moment, "Now, as for you two, why don't you both go grab a room while we're here?! I'm sure Kex would be happy to let Arya show him her how much of an expert pilot she can be with his flight stick, huh Kex?" Ral's words were venemously vindictive as he looked back at Grae for a moment. "Of course, I'm sure it's been a good long while since anyone but Arya got a chance to mess around with her fighter's controls."

With a sigh, Ral took a step over to where Ceres was, "Ceres, you okay? Hey, you there?" He asked kneeling next to her, trying to draw her attention.

 

[Ceres Wyvern]

The shots and explosion from the roof had made Grae back away, his blade gliding over and cutting lightly into ceres's neck, and accross the top of her shoulder as he stumbled back. He looked down to the others with a snarl as he raised his blaster, "To hell with the lot of you!!" He cried out as he brought the blade aiming towards Ceres, wanting to make his vengence as bloody as possible.

The Bullets were not something the Wyvern Lord was expecting, a large tear opening on the side of his neck as his eyes went wide, another round tearing into his collarbone through the armor, the final round striking him the side of his chest. The bladed blaster found its mark as it hit Ceres's legs, the other mando falling back and dragging his weapon with him as he hit the ground. Grae lay crumbled on his side facing away from Ral, eyes wide as a hand clutched at his throat. He shoved his arm hard against the ground as he rapidly loss blood.

"Code...Manda...lore..." He gasped out, the pool of crimson life fluid surrounding him as his head lolled to the side, going limp as he finally bled out from the wounds, one of the side effects of having no heated plasma to sear the wound shut.

Ceres's eyes were still glazed over, unfocused as she blink at the voice. She vaguely looked towards Ral's direction, still strapped to her chair as she tiredly spoke. "...Are you....real?" She asked uncertainly, getting closer ral could see she had more then just bruises on her chest, the dark discoloration seeping through even with what appeared to be applied makeup. She turned away, wincing in pain a bit as a small trail of blood went from where Grae had managed to get his blade into. "Pain...maybe you are real..." she said, not sounding sure as she looked away from Ral, "...I can't stand up. My legs...they disabled them. Ion charges...." She looked pretty ashamed at that, hoping that he didn't pry and unaware of her current physical state.

The dress was ruined to say the least, the lower half just above the knees now torn open. Ral could see what was beneath, the two dull grey prosthetics that made up her legs. They both were deactivated, or rather, shorted out from the ion energy they'd evidently been subjected to. They were human in shape at least, but there was no false skin over them, leaving her status as a cyborg rather obvious to those gathered.

"P-please...if you are real...d-don't look at them..." She said, closing her eyes tightly shut as she said it, sounding almost afraid as her voice shook, not its usual monotone at all.

Outside the pleasure house, at the plain squarish security building earlier, the roof of the facility was starting to open up. As it did so, 15 of the jetpack soldiers soared up and headed towards the Gunship Kex and is Team were in, laying fire from their blaster rifles as the roof of the complex fully opened, recognizable as a vertical launching point for any number of ships could use.

 

[Ral]

"Good riddance, ya hut'uun." Ral nearly spat out as he watched the man die before looking back to his friend. She was out of it, obviously drugged up by the way her eyes were glazed over and unfocused. When she asked if he was real, Ral frowned as he looked at the dark-haired woman, trying to get her eyes to focus in on his face. The bruises on body caused the fire inside Ral to burn hotter and he had to resist shooting at the corpse nearby. Taking a deep breath, Ral cut Ceres' restraints as he activated his comlink to his comrades. "Alright, if you two aren't going to take the opportunity to indulge yourselves in one of these fine rooms, Arya, find that load of osik Zeltron and end him. Kex, I'm going to be taking Ceres out the back, have the team meet me back there so we can get her away from this place. Kex, total massacre, understand?"

Looking back at Ceres, Ral frowned, she was speaking, saying that her legs were disabled. Looking down he could see through the torn dress she was wearing the metal prosthetic limbs beneath. Exhaling, Ral shook his head, wondering why she would have been so ashamed, so self-conscious not to tell him. Hearing her ask him not to look, her smiled as he removed his helmet. "Look at what vod'ika?" He said kindly as he grabbed a small first aid kit off of belt, opening it up and applying a small bandage to her cut. "Don't you worry 'bout nothing, girl. I'm going to get you patched up and out of here, alright? You won't have to spend another minute more in this Manda-forsaken place." Ral remarked as he placed picked her up in both arms wedding-style and started to carry her out. As he moved he could feel the structure shaking as the roof began moving.

"Kex, order the Shukalas to make a microjump into the orbit of the planet. I think somebody is trying to escape, make sure they don't. Understand? If they do you're going to be chasing them until every single one of them is dead! Do what you have to, blow the whole building up if you have to, but make sure they don't get away!" Making his way through the corridors of the pleasure house, Ral kept his eyes open for the green-skinned Mirialan named Janas he assumed to be the sister of the recently deceased Tamara. Ral still felt bad about the woman's death, and he was going to make it up to her if he could. As he passed by the kitchen of the high end brothel, Ral saw a Mirialan out of the corner of his eye. Stopping he looked at her. "You Janas?" The woman nodded. "Your sister wanted you to come with me. Let's go!" The way Ral said it clearly indicating that there wasn't going to be a no option for her, and for someone who worked at a whorehouse, Ral was sure she knew better.

Ral saw the exit to the back from his position next to the kitchen, and he moved to it, beckoning Janas to follow. Kicking the door open causing the woman in his arms to jump a little from the force of the kick. "Sorry, vod," he whispered to Ceres as he stepped through and looked around. Seeing the team of Mandalorians he waved them down and started running towards them. "Clear the blast radius, vod. I want the gunships to level this structure and anything that comes out from it."

 

[Ceres Wyvern]

"...Underground...There's a passage Ral..." Ceres mumbled as she looked to him, her vision blurry as any light they passed by was blinding, the colors constantly fading in and out of her vision of him carrying her. She couldn't tell she was blushing slightly as she spoke, "Erso...There's a hanger down there...lots of ships for the Corsuca...I'm sorry Ral I...he knows about the Corsuca..." She said, closing her eyes as she tried to keep the tears back.

"I was weak...when he talked, I just...he knows the codes to the ship. How to find it...he'll give it to the empire..." She turned away from Ral, from the drugs ravaging her system, from the exhaustion she felt from days of being their prisoner, and from the shame of in her eyes being too weak to stop this. "He said...if I tried to contact anyone...he'd send it out..."

"....I can take you to it..." A voice spoke up from behind, Janas looking to the two nervously as she spoke up, "The bunkers...their in case anyone ever tried to attack the city. I-I've been down there before. There's an entrance hidden near the fish ponds. It leads down below the Security Center launch bays..." she said pointing towards the square building with it's open roof as a ship began to rise out of it.

The 15 Mandos who'd scrambled out to engage Vex were being joined by others, these armed with rocket launchers by the looks of them. Instead of aiming for the gunship itself however, they appeared to be aiming for those on the ground instead. Their missiles fired out and struck at the civilians who hadn't fled the area yet, the explosions tearing apart masses of people as the incendiary charges began to spread a fire throughout the area. One of them aimed an incendiary payload and hit the Everlily, as it began to burn more and more.

From the building was rising a vessel, a M22-T Krayt Gunship by the looks of it, slowly rising out from the Security Center's hanger as it began to turn towards Vex's ship. It kept near the hangers, its weapon systems still warming up, but it was apparent it would try to keep anything it could from reaching the Security Center.