Escape from Kessel

Aboard a Prison Transport bound for Kessell...

The deceleration from hyperspace is virtually unmistakable - even on cruise-liners with dampener systems to provide for passenger comfort, an experienced spacer still feels their muscles tighten, and stomach move, as the vessel leaves relativistic speeds. There is no such comfort afforded aboard this ship; everyone aboard lurches forward, and then back, with the inertia.

Moments later, the ship is rocked by explosions, followed by the shrill alert signal filling the corridors and holding bays. Impacts striking the hull, and traveling its length. A minute later, the hum of the engines gone, the lights go dark, and the sound of ventilation and oxygen scrubbers fall inert. Low red emergency lighting flickers to life, and another minute passes.

The scream of blaster fire accompanies the zipping bolts that pass before the heavy durasteel bars of Jaspar's cell. Smoke obscures much in the way of visibility, and seems to be doing the firefight no favors, either way, but eventually the exchange falls silent, and there is only the sound of heavy boots approaching from the corridor.

"Jaaaaspar Andromidas!" Vane's distinctive accent and raucous enunciation rings out as the pirate steps through the smoke, blaster in hand. "As I live and breathe! I /can't/ believe you came all this way to see me!"

Ever exemplifying calmness in the face of peril, Jaspar has inverted himself in his cell, 'checking his eyes for light leaks' as the saying goes. The blaring alarms, flashing lights, smoke abound.. and it does fuck all to unnerve Jaspar, the smuggler having grown accustomed to it during his time in Imperial custody, as well as during the time he's spent aboard the transport ship, finding it easier and easier to do time 'standing on his head', as the saying goes.

"Hello, Shiari. You know I could never stay away from you. 'Tis fate that brought us together again.. Do you agree?" Jaspar inquires, kicking off from the wall, and rising to his feet, doing a few quick stretches to really wake up.

"That, or a large paycheck." Vane chuckles in her low gravelly rumble as she levels her blaster with the door lock and fires. Once, twice, three times before it gives way and the cell door slides open. She reaches for her belt, a second holster from which she draws a blaster and offers it to the smuggler. "Someone wants you /pretty/ bad. The Empire though, they seem reluctant to cooperate with my little withdrawal here so we're going to have to fight our way out..."

Jaspar accepts the weapon, and does a quick visual check to make sure it's in working order. Once satisfied of the weapon's functionality, he nods to Vane. "Ready when you are. Lead on, Cap'n.."

Vane keeps hold of the barrel, nodding down to Jaspar's stump. "You know how to shoot with that hand?" she asks incredulously. "I'd sooner not take a blaster bolt from my /own/ side."

"This was bound to happen sooner or later," Jaspar nods, sagely. "So I figured I'd best become proficient at shooting left- OR right-handed." He shrugs his shoulders. "...Are we leaving?"

Vane shrugs her shoulders and releases the weapon into Jaspar's care, the pirate stepping clear of the jail cell doorway and gesturing down the corridor. "This way to my ship...I estimate the Empire will have reinforcements here in...two minutes, so we're on a tight schedule."

As they start down the corridor, prisoners begin hammering on their own cell doors - easily forty cells in this corridor alone, a dozen species and absolutely no record of what they'd done to wind up here.

"Let us out!" they cry. "Open up! Take us with you!"

Vane, for her part, ignores them entirely.

Jaspar keeps pace with Vane.. somewhat lazily at first, but growing quickly, as though waking after a good night's sleep. He glances, rather briefly, at the various other prisoners as he passes them, likewise tuning them out, and focusing on getting out with Vane.

Just before they round the corner, the two pirates holding the intersection are blown off their feet by blaster fire; distinctive sound of E-11 rifles and stormtrooper vox-units confirming their kills.

"That!" Vane roars defiantly, swinging about the corner with blaster extended and squeezing off a shot "Was! Uncalled for!"

The smuggler dives for cover, and watches as one of the hostiles is knocked flat on his ass, followed by a call for medical attention from the injured one's identical twin. The uninjured trooper returns fire, his mask hiding the scowl of a rather pissed officer. "Blasted fools!" The trooper growls. "You think you can get away... well good luck trying. You'll need it!" Jaspar cooks off a few shots from his own weapon, as if in reply.

The stormtrooper's return fire catches Vane square in the chest. The concussion wave of the explosion of energized blaster gas knocking her clear off her feet and sprawled across the decking. The same trooper drops his stance by an inch as Jaspar scatters a volley toward him, the bolts narrowly missing and impacting with scorched carbon burns on the bulkhead.

Jaspar raises his weapon and fires again. His shot goes wild, to his amazement. Probably the adrenaline. ... The shot does, however, manage to draw the trooper's attention away from Vane for a brief period. The troopers both sight Jaspar with their weapons, and pop off a few shots. Jaspar's reflexes, gained from years of smuggling, enable him to dodge the incoming bolts with relative ease. "Is that all you got, you mindless gits?!" He calls out.

"Urrrrghh..." Vane groans from the flat of her back on deck as the haze clouding her senses clears. She lifts her head, shaking free the sensory cobwebs and sighting in on the pair of Stormtroopers exchanging fire with Jaspar, raises her weapon. A powerful, reverberating shriek echoes off the bulkheads, the blaster bolt striking the stormtrooper square in the helmet, blasting open the protective case and frying the occupant with a scream of agony. The previously unwounded trooper dropping to the ground, dead.

The remaining trooper returns fire, and Jaspar continues to play intergalactic Whack-a-Mole, bobbing and weaving rather skillfully, compared to the trooper's lack of aiming skill. Alas, with Jaspar's dodging, conversely he's unable to land much of a shot. Damn!

Vane staggers to her feet with all of the grace of someone whose accustomed to hazy vision and sluggish limbs coming about rather more pleasantly than a blaster bolt. She runs a free hand over the black carbon scorch on the plastoid breastplate worn beneath her signature coat - still hot. "This is becoming..." she roars, trying to draw the trooper's attention as she levels her blaster and fires. "...less profitable!"

While the trooper's distracted, Jaspar cooks off another blaster-bolt, stunning the trooper, before moving forward and standing over the trooper. "This is for the shit you put me through." Another shot puts the trooper's lights out, permanent-like. Jaspar glances back to Vane, calling out, "How're you holding up, Cap'n?"

Vane steps over the fallen pirates with a cursory kick of her boot to check for life signs, but both men are well and truly dead. For a moment the Rattataki looks introspective, a low rumble in her voice speaking some obscure alien dialect from the distal fringes of the unknown territories. "Goodbye, old friends."

"Come, come, Mister Jaspar! We've a flight to catch!" she snaps right back, virtually perky as she picks up one of the stormtrooper's blaster rifles and slides her pistol smoothly into its holster. Pointing with her newly acquired weapon's barrel down the corridor, she draws a small com-link from her belt "Men! We are /leaving!/"

Jaspar quickly falls into line with the Rattataki. "So, whose purse do you have your fingers in, again? I mean, you don't work for free, so who's got you rescuing my rump?" He inquires, moving quickly, so as to spend as little time here as possible. He looks around at the various pirates. "Nice group you have here."

A dozen or so pirates must be aboard as each intersection they come too, they join up with another holding force left behind to cover the advance. Each time a door closes behind them, Vane blasts the panel. A thuggish, but effective barrier to swift pursuit. "You don't think I would do this for camaraderie, for friendship?!" she chuckles loudly, the imminent danger having passed and with her crew covering their backs she merely keeps up a brisk pace toward the docking tube. "You /wound/ me, Captain Andromidas... But, since you ask: The Republic has kindly agreed to settle my fee. What /have/ you been doing to make them so generous?"

"Oh, you know. A little bit of this, a little bit of that... If you want to know, you should ask. Perhaps we could join forces? The Republic pays rather well." Jaspar replies, grinning, as he makes his way. "..And I don't doubt you'd do things for friendship. I'm honored you think me worthy." He pauses, thinking to himself. "D'you know any decent medical-type folks? This thing's starting to ache." He raises his stump-formerly-known-as-hand.

Vane laughs. Loudly. It doesn't seem cruel, perhaps Jaspar'd stumbled on a private joke. They round the final corner to the docking tube - a yawning hole burned in the hull of the vessel, metal still glowing hot and severed circuity still sparking. "Nobody by name..." she rumbles "Perhaps if the Republic are such fine benefactors they will be kind enough to see too it? If not, there're clinics on Nar Shaddaa. Expensive, but well...not an arm or a leg." a malevolent grin stretching across her lips as they step through the tube and aboard the Hardlace.

"They must come in quite handy when you come across someone needing a leg up in the world, eh? Not too difficult to find, just gotta keep an eye out for 'em?" Jaspar replies, taking up the perceived challenge, as he steps aboard, hot on Vane's tail.

With the airlock sealed, the Hardlace shudders. The ship detaches and there's a momentary thrust of inertia that propels her clear of the Imperial corvette, the long hammer-headed profile of the ship growing smaller and falling by the aft out of a nearby view-port as a squadron of Republic starfighters streaks by, exchanging laser cannon fire with TIE fighters. "We're all aboard, helm. Make the jump to light-speed." Vane orders across her com-link and turns to Jaspar. "So, about this favour you owe me..."