infinitest | Flashpoint

Annabelle makes a note of the crewman's suddenly staring out into space. Looks like the tales about Jedi being able to mess with your head ARE true.

"It's a Harrower Dreadnaught," she says, her tone a little off. "I'd...rather hoped that I'd never see one up close."

She shakes herself a bit, trying to clear her head. "Not done for as long as we're still breathing," she argues.

"Consular Onemi Arael." The jedi says, and shows a badge to the captain. "I'm a Republic Field Commander, Lieutenant equivalent. Calm yourself down, Captain; this woman is right, if the Imperials wanted us dead, they could have destroyed the Esseles already."

The man blinks in surprise, and takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry for losing my temper, Lieutenant. I'm First Officer Haken, currently in charge of this ship." He gestures to the tall, big man. "This is my second-in-command, Ensign Plex."

Annabelle nods and introduces herself and Corso to the hot Consular, the First Officer, and his second.

"Good to meet all of you, although I would have preferred it be under better circumstances."

"They want the ship intact. I'd guess there's either someone on ship important enough that they want a captive or the ship is carrying something that they want."

It's why she'd pull a job like this!

"It makes sense." The jedi nods.

"Also why they have someone already inside, sabotaging your systems." Corso pipes up, and the Trandoshan grunts his agreement.

"But..." Haken starts, but the comms officer interrupts. "Captain, the Imperial ship is hailing us."

"What? Well... put them on." Talking beats being shot at, after all.

The image of a tall, ruggedly handsome man in Imperial uniform appears in the ship's main Holo. "Republic ship Esseles, I'm Grand Moff Rycus Kilran. You are transporting a known anti-Imperial terrorist and seditionist, the so-called Ambassador Vyn Asara. I've come to collect her." Well, right to the point.

Haken shakes head, stepping forward. "You must be mistaken, this is a simple passenger ship, and we received no diplomatic envoys aboard."

"Hm." The Moff rubs his chin. "Lying, or simply incompetent? No matter, my agents already confirmed the presence of Ambassador Asara aboard the ship. A shuttle will be docking with your main airlock, and I suggest you cooperate with my men. Kilran out."

"Wrapping this 'Ambassador Asara' up and handing her over seems like the easiest way to fix this problem, assuming she's actually here."

"Where is your main airlock, Captain?" The jedi obviously disagrees with Annabelle. "I will hold off the boarders while you think of a solution."

"Are you crazy?" Ensign Plex raises his voice. "She is right, we have to find this 'ambassador' and send her off, or they will kill us all."

Haken intervenes. "No, Plex, that is Rycus Kilran, the Butcher of Coruscant; the moment he gets what he wants, he will destroy the Esseles and kill us all."

"Right, makes sense, he wants this Asara person and will not blow up the ship and lose her." Corso agrees. "Keeping the Imps out buys us some time."

"Figures the easy way was too good to be true," Annabelle allows. "You want help at that airlock?"

The jedi nods. "I would, yes."

"Take the first hallway right out of the bridge, and then take the lift down three levels." Haken directs them. "I'll have our security chief, Commander Narlock, meet you there."

Annabelle nods. "Sounds good." Hopefully, there will be a plan before they get overwhelmed.

Annabelle starts heading for the hall. "I've never gotten to see a lightsaber used in combat before, should be interesting," she says to the Consular with a grin.

"Likely." The woman nods, hurrying along, and... well, she moves with the kind of grace that encorages someone to linger a bit back and watch.

Its not far to the airlock, where they find the security chief and four armed guards. "Oh, you must be the ones the Captain was talking about. See, men? We will not be fighting alone; we have some very experienced volunteers. Imps will not have time to even figure out from where the fire is coming."

Good thing Annabelle can watch and run at the same time. (Hey, she might be about to die, might as well enjoy what time she's got left!)

"Shouldn't be too bad, long as we hold them here. A choke-point's a defender's best friend."

"The master hunter and I will take point." The jedi nods to her Trandoshan companion, and the big lizardman readies his electrosword. "You all get to cover, and give us cover."

Right on cue, the sound of a laser torch is heard against the airlock doors; Narlock scatters his men behind bulkheads.

Annabelle gets herself behind a bulkhead as well. Cover is important when you can't deflect blasterbolts.

Annabelle grins to Corso, her blood already pumping. "Didn't mean to get you involved in this kind of trouble, but it's good to have you at my back."

"What is life without some crazy impossible fights?" Corso actually chuckles, readying his blaster.

Onemi walks close to the doors, and hits the 'open' switch; the result is nearly comical, the soldiers who were cutting the doors fall forward, giving a clear line of sight to the boarders behind them.

Oh, look, blaster-packing people: a bunch of stationary targets, crowding a narrow space...

Annabelle grins, shark-like at the sight as she opens up with both blasters. It's like shooting fish in a barrel!

Very much like it: the imperial soldiers are cut down, a second wave advances using heavy shields to stop blaster fire and those are cut down by Onemi and the Trandoshan.

Strange enough, even as the bodies start piling up, the Imperials continue to attack, trying to push past the defenders.

Likely, they know all too well the price of failure.

Annabelle would feel sorry for them, but she's too busy trying to kill them and stay alive at the same time.

She doesn't bother firing at the ones with shields unless she knows she can get a shot through. In the middle of a battle is not the time to run out of energy in the blaster pistols.

The fighting ends as abruptly as it started, when Onemi beheads the officer in command of the attack. "Commander Narlock, can you jam the docking clamps shut?" Smart thinking, with the imperial shuttle locked in place, the Imperials can not send another attack.

"Right away!" The Mon Calamari uses a control console to do as the Jedi requested. "We did it men! We saved the ship!"

"For now," Annabelle replies, thinking. "They said that they had agents on the ship though, we may have sabotage to deal with shortly."

"And," says a voice coming from the lift "this was just a diversion." Oh, look, it's the twi'lek female of before.

Annabelle gives the Twi'lek a Look. "The way my luck's been running lately, I should have known."

Seriously, is there something wrong with her? Why is everyone ELSE disloyal?

Actually... "Ambassador Asara, I presume?" Onemi comes over, nodding to the Twi'lek. "What you mean by diversion?"

"Yes. It's me the Grand Moff is after." She woman shakes head. "While you were here, the Imperials used breacher probes to insert a group of mandalorian mercenaries into the bridge; they just put the ship under security lockdown."

"That's no good." Narlock shakes head. "With the Bridge locked down, we can not go anywhere."

Annabelle is relieved to be wrong, for a change. "But you're here and you're the one they want, yes?"

"We could set up an ambush, maybe..." She glances at the Security Officer. "How many approaches to this position do we have to worry about?"

"All of them." Narlock frowns. "We need to get the ship back under control, or they will just lock every section in turn and use the passengers as hostages."

"Well, can't you unlock things?" Corso goes for the obvious, after all Narlock is Chief of Security.

"Not something initiated from the Bridge." Then, an idea. "Chief Engineer Salen, he knows every system on this ship better than anyone; he must know a way."

"And where might Chief Engineer Salen be?" Annabelle asks, thinking.

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