Touchdown

Posted on Mon Mar 15th, 2021 @ 2:34am by Lieutenant Kor' de'leia & Lieutenant Melvyn Kosta

Mission: Scoundrels, Cuttthroats and Rogues
Location: Nar Shaddaa
Timeline: Day 1 at 0500

Melvyn's next thought was that something tasted like blood in his mouth, and his jaw was half-numb half-painful, like that time he'd gotten punched in the face. He had a blinding headache, one of those that made you think you'd better stay in bed today and maybe tomorrow. In fact going back to sleep sounded like a great idea, except his neck was uncomfortably twisted... and something was digging in his shoulders... and... wait... he wasn't in bed.

He tried to open his eyes, shards of pain flashing in his brain as his blurry sight slowly refocused. His cockpit appeared to be half-embedded into a wall, the other half into a pile of broken speeders. Better hope the owners didn't come back to ask for compensation because he had a feeling he wouldn't be cashing in his back pay.

Slowly straightening into a position that didn't make his neck and spine clamor bloody murder, Melvyn tried to touch his face with shaky hands. The breathing mask was still affixed on his face albeit slick with blood, that after some ginger investigation appeared to come from a cut on his nose. A fairly deep one judging by the painful ridge of burst skin he felt under his fingers, but at least he didn't think his nose was broken.

Unbuckling his harness took several tries, and he feared the buckle may be broken, but at last it clicked open. Melvyn could have used a few minutes of calm to just sit there and make peace with his near-death experience, but he knew this kind of time was a luxury he didn't have. They may have lost him when he'd fallen but they would come for him soon enough, and while a death at the hands of former friends would have been ignominious, capture seemed almost worse. It certainly would be more painful.

Climbing out of his cockpit, Melvyn slid down the side of the round hull until his feet landed on the solar panel attachment, then all the way to the ground, finding then that his legs barely supported his weight. He allowed himself to sit for a few seconds, breathing shallowly, wiping more blood from his face. Against all odds he was still alive. For how much longer was another story.

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Kor held her arm up to shield her eyes from the cascade of sparks enveloping the cockpit. Her instruments had gone mostly dark. She toggled the damage assessment screen in vain. Not that it mattered, it would only tell her that she was as screwed as felt she was.

The x-wing still held together but was plummeting fast for the nearby surface. The TIEs that had shot her had relented in their barrage of fire. She was the consolation prize for whoever they had been gunning for in the damaged TIE fighter. Kor had just been a target on convenience, they likely got a good laugh out of it. They were laughing as she felt herself spiral downwards to what was likely a messy end.

But she wasn't dead yet. And in that there is hope... or a sadistic sense of humor. The instruments were fried. By the lack of mindless beeping, the droid had checked out too. Good riddance, Kor thought. The truth was the little Astromech had managed to adjust the systems to avoid the ship becoming a complete fireball, but that bit of knowledge was lost on Kor. She pulled on the flight stick hoping to find some sort of positive control that simply was not there. Moments like this there was only one choice left. She depressed the ejection circuit.

Long seconds passed. Suddenly the word around her exploded in a mass of sparks as the pilot's couch blasted its way out of the cockpit of the doomed fighter. The world spun as the cold of Nar Shadda's atmosphere hit her. She was not wearing the wretched orange flight suit, their earlier departure had been a bit to abrupt to worry about putting it on. Her leg felt numb as she found herself looking up at the sky instead of down at the city around her. The pilot's couch she was strapped into had enough aerodynamic qualities to right itself as the drop chutes deployed.

The deceleration was a relief from the preceding terror of free fall, but she had no notion of where she was, what was around her, or how long she would keep dropping. She could see the skyscrapers now significantly higher than she was. So that was progress. She fought to keep her eyes open on the descent, trying to stay alert and keep her bearings when the couch abruptly hit the ground, the drop chutes billowing in to cover her view.

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Whatever fate awaited Kor on the ground, it was to her benefit to not hang around until it got there. The crashed fighter and the ejection seat would certainly attract interest, and Nar Shadda was not a welcome place to stand out. She rapidly detached her harness, removed her flight helmet and pitched it to the side. The numbness in her leg continued, likely from the large laceration that was bleeding out of her calf. She swore a bit as she ripped apart the lower hem of her dress. It had been a good cress, expensive too. She cursed her bad luck, but she had to get moving. Wrapping her wound tightly, she climbed out of the seat beneath the canopy of parachute that covered her.

The survival kit installed on the back of the couch was collected easily, as well as her blaster and knife. Not much else sentimental to hold on to. The leg was bothering her, but she was able to crawl her way out from the drop chutes covering the couch and peer out into the streets of Nar Shadda. They were just as ugly as she remembered. Not far to the south she could make out some shadows that would be preferable to stage herself in than here.

A few interested individuals had come to gawk or offer assistance. She looked at them dumbfounded. "Did you see the guy that dropped that thing on me?" she began. "I was walking along minding my own business when some ass drops out of the sky and lands on me. I gotta get to work!" she lied, of course her ruined dress did not look like the outfit of a pilot.

A couple kind souls helped her away from the area as a crowd grew. Kor smiled at them and exaggerated the pain in her leg. "I can't thank you all enough for this. Go call security, the bastard that did this can't be too far away. He looked Imperial." She managed to get them to leave her be, and she slipped into the shadows as quickly as her leg would allow her.

"Jafan, you still around. Come in. I'm mostly in one piece, but I could use some help down here." she called out on the small hand comlink she had taken from the fighter.

[Jafan]

***

As Melvyn walked unsteadily away from his fighter the whine of an ion engine made him look up. Imperial shuttles, headed this way. They'd been faster than he'd expected, and they couldn't really miss the crash site. This place would be swarming with stormtroopers in no time.

It would be best to get rid of his pilot's suit but walking around naked would be only marginally better than being in uniform, and also it was cold. Better keep an eye out for the first opportunity to steal clothes then, preferably from someone who'd be roughly his size. At least he had his blaster ; Melvyn had a notion he was going to need it, sooner rather than later.

He stopped at the corner of the street. A crowd of bystanders had already gathered around his crashed fighter and would soon notice him if he didn't get a move on. A few already seemed to be looking for something to steal. One, more daring than the others, started climbing onto the twisted metal of the wing and perusing into the cockpit.

Before moving on Melvyn fished his comlink from his pocket, hesitating only a second before he tossed it into a large garbage bin. Let the stormtroopers dig it out. It would have been better to plant it on a moving target but he didn't have time to stage something that elaborate, especially while trying not to draw attention to himself.

This far down, the streets looked little better than a sewer ; they certainly smelt like it. Melvyn followed the crumbling sidewalk, willing his legs to move faster but he was still fairly shaken from his crash-landing. More crash than landing, if he was fully honest. Still, he needed to pick up his pace ; although the streets were fairly empty he saw at least one Rodian peering at him from a dark alley from behind a pile of empty boxes and garbage. The wolves were out.

He heard the ion engines again, closer this time. Swearing under his breath he reached the end of the street and turned right. He didn't really know where he was going, what mattered was to keep moving.

"Hey, got a coin for a brother in need ?" a Calamari wheezed. He - or she - was sitting by a streetlight, missing at least two limbs if not more, hand held out beseechingly.

Melvyn didn't even slow down. Odds were the Calamari was either bait or an informant, and he didn't have time for either.

Distant shouts and the sizzling of laser shots made him walk faster. It sounded like the storm troopers had landed, and now they would be closing in on him. The trick would be to slip through the net without getting caught.

"Here !" Someone yelled. A Quarren was pointing at Melvyn, a few words of basic strewn between the wet sounds of his native tongue. The temptation was great to shoot him but Melvyn needed to save his ammo so he gritted his teeth and broke into a run. He found breathing difficult, though whether that was a lingering effect of the crash or a problem with the atmosphere of this district of Nar Shaddaa, he couldn't tell.

The shouts and thumping of the stormtroopers were getting worryingly close. Melvyn was about to dive left when he came up right in front of two white armours. Swearing, he threw himself back behind the cover of the street corner, pulling his blaster from the sheath at his thigh as he did so. A volley of lasers clipped the wall, informing him pretty categorically that they didn't mind bringing him in cold rather than warm. Running back from where he'd come, Melvyn stopped abruptly when he spotted another flash of white and he dove in the nearest alley, paying no heed to the rodents and arthropods scurrying away from him.

The alley, dark and narrow, the walls on either side covered in disgusting slime, turned out to be a dead end. Lips pressed in a grim line Melvyn turned around, eyes darting left and right for an escape route and finding none. The windows on either side of the alley were barred and there was no way he could climb those walls. There wasn't even so much as a sewer grate.

"Come out, traitor !" One of his pursuers shouted from the opening of the alley. The filter on the trooper's helmet gave his voice metallic inflections but failed to hide his satisfaction at having cornered his prey.

Melvyn shot at him as his sole answer. He didn't hit anything, he didn't think, but the defiance was all he had left. Let them come, and -

A silver ball flew in the air and landed at his feet. Melvyn's eyes widened as he recognized it, frantically grabbed it and tossed it back at the troopers.

He almost made it. For a small, miserable second he thought he was going to manage to blind them with their own weapon and somehow get past them. A few more seconds on the stun grenade's timer and he might even have succeeded ; but he didn't. Melvyn found himself on his back, ears ringing, eyes watering, the world around him reduced to a flash of searing white light and a sound so loud it resonated inside his skull.

***

Kor stuck to the shadows hoping that Jafan's distraction would be enough to keep her pursuers, both imperial and criminal, off her tail and let her get to a place where Jafan could pick her up, or she could steal a pair of wings. At the moment she was free and alive, and that counted for something. She heard a distant rumble, likely Jafan releasing some tension on some of the local architecture.

A low hum grew to the unmistakable hum of shuttles weaving through the skyscape of Nar Shadda. The distinctive delta foil appearance made Kor curse her poor fortune. Imperial landing crews, likley coordinating shutting off the entire sector of the city. The net was being drawn tighter. Kor started to look frantically for a swoop or speederbike that she could 'borrow' to find her way out of this trap.

Still she had the shadows, and the likelihood they were searching for downed pilots, not a young lady too tight to fly a fighter in. Of course she knew she could fly just fine if you pulled it up to your waist, but she needn't share that bit of information. A local tavern or dance club would be ideal to blend in right now, but this level of Nar Shadda was pretty tame. She made her way down the next block, only to stop in her tracks by the unmistakable click of a Stormtrooper's comm mic.

She looked around cautiously. Yeah she saw them now. Two troopers standing near the next street junction. She did he best to walk casual with her hurt leg. With any luck it would be a confrontation she could avoid.

"TK-7634 reporting in. Street is mostly deserted. If the Rebs come by here, they should be pretty easy to grab." the trooper spoke into the mic. "Copy that, bring any prisoners back for interrogation. Yes sir." he continued.

Kor slipped her hand back and unlatched her knife on her belt. she allowed her hips to sway a little as she approached the troopers. A brief tinge of pain hit her as she stepped onto her left leg. She rolled her eyes. This was not going to be her finest hour.

"Hold up there Miss. This corridor is under a security lockdown. I need to see your identification." The trooper held his hand out to her as his partner, in proper protocol, level his blaster rifle towards her.

"Woah, there boys!" she called out as she approached. One hand being held up to look harmless as she pat down her form fitting dress with her other hand. "I'm happy to let you look at it. I just gotta figure out where I put it." She kept he hand moving around her obvious lack of pockets. She moved in closer to the troopers, and quickly ducked her hand down into her cleavage of her dress. "No not there either, I am so sorry. I had it before I got dropped off, I don't know where it could have gotten to."

"Stop where you are." the trooper ordered. "What is your name and ID number?"

Kor stopped herself a bit further than arms length from the troopers. The second one was getting really assertive about pointing his blaster at her. She held up both hands, "Officers, I'm just a girl trying to get home. It's getting kind of cold, and as you can see I'm not dressed for being out on the streets."

The trooper spoke into the mic in his helmet. "We got a female twil'lek down here without identification in the security zone. No sir. Seems to be in a skimpy dress. Might be a dancer or prostitute."

Kor did her best to look offended by the statement. The Troopers didn't seem to care, of course its hard to read the face of a Stormtrooper.

"What happened to your leg?" the trooper inquired.

"Oh it was an accident. I had a bad fall, and cut myself."

"Uh-huh. Where did you cut it?" the trooper continued.

"Uh on my leg obviously." Kor responded flippantly.

The trooper was less than pleased. "The location of your accident please."

"Uh yeah, it was at my cousin's house, it's just down the way if you want to check it out. He's probably still cleaning up the floor."

"Your story will be verified. Cuff her and get her set to be taken to holding." the trooper stated, signaling to his partner to bring her in.

"Guys is this really necessary? I'm just a girl in the wrong part of town by my lonesome. Isn't there anything we can do about this?" she asked swaying her good leg out, allowing the troopers a clear view of her thigh.

After a quick moment of sultry seduction, the extra weight being placed on her hurt leg caused it to buckle and she unceremoniously dropped to the street on her butt. She winced. Definitely not one of her finer performances.

The second trooper seemed slightly hesitant as he brought the binders in to slap them on her wrists. As he bent down. she looked up to him with a pathetic smile of an adorable rabbit caught in a snare. He drew in close to her, suddenly noticing the small blaster tied tot he inside of her thigh. She shrugged at him.
"Blaster!" he called, as she flipped her self up on his outstretched arm her legs wrapping around his helmet and quickly bringing him down to the street.

Exactly when the knife appeared in her hand was difficult to determine, but she had planted it beneath the helmet of the trooper so fast his partner was not even aware of what was happening. He did know enough to fire a shot, his blaster still set to stun. She dropped into unconsciousness.

***