RPlog:A Lone Marine Demolition Team

 "Join the Marines, they said. See the galaxy, they said." Vengan's lips compress into a thin line, so tightly that the blood is forced from them. He grins, feebly, at the attractive technician strapping him into place. "I'd rather be sailing. Any chance of a good luck kiss?" he asks, his voice nervous. The technician giggles, leaning down to brush lips against Vengan's cheek, before stepping away with a saucy wink.

"Oh, thanks!" Vengan calls insincerely, as the hatch closes. He tries to shift a bit, a nervous sweat dampning his cheek. A screen near his face flickers on, barely an inch from his nose.



"HOPEFULLY?"

Meanwhile, a long, slender object was being loaded into a torpedo launch tube. The cylinder, roughly seven meters long and perhaps a meter and a half in circumference, was capped with a vicious looking conical spike, obviously meant to do some damage. At one point, it might have been a standard escape pod for Republic vessels.

Inside it, one 2nd Lt. Vengan Draelis, firmly strapped in place and watching a countdown timer on the screen at his nose, breaks into a cold sweat. His lips part, as if to make a final, abortive cry, panic welling up in his chest. A blue field shimmers into place around the man, utterly paralyzing him. Even his eyes cannot seem to twitch, albeit in the near absolute dark, that would be a difficult thing to discern.

On the Reprisal's bridge, a gunner makes his target. "Alignment, positive. Inclination, positive. Target acquired. Target lock. Request go." Someone flashes a thumbs up. "Firing."

In the vastness of space, amidst the raging space battle, a black shuttle pod is flung at incredible speed into space, screaming towards one of the Imperial Star Destroyers, the Domination. It nears, closing the space in moments, angling to strike at the aft portion of the vessel.

Once it strikes, however, there is no explosion. The hull ruptures, crumpling around the sleek tube as it firmly embeds itself in the side of the Destroyer like a great dart flung from a giant's hand. Air whooshes from the impact site, sparks fly, and a blue static field shimmers into place, sealing the breach. Inside of the torpedo, however, the smaller field deactivates, oxygen flooding the interior. Vengan comes awake in a rush, kicking off the access panel after a few panicked moments. The Marine clambers out of the tube, a heavy blaster in his hand and 36-T rifle and rucksack on his back. He wears Marine combat armor and a thick helmet, the kind designed for troops about to engage in vicious close-quarters combat. He flashes the corridor with the blaster barrel, looking for enemies, seeing none. Vengan consults a PAD, then maneuvers around the hull breach and starts jogging through an access corridor, moving into the Destroyer's heart.

As Vengan's one-man torpedo slashes through space, an agile Corellian Corvette cuts alongside, firing a heavy salvo into the Victory-Class Star Destroyer's hull. Though by itself the lean Corvette is nowhere near capable of taking a Victory-class Destroyer down, it does punch a fairly large hole in her defenses, drawing just enough fire for the pod to slink through. It peels off, shields crackling as a volley of turbolaser bolts strafe her reinforced hull. The Corvette is painted black, virtually invisible with her power down. Even with her engines blazing full, she is difficult to discern to a passing eye, especially as she holds position far and away from the vessel in question.

Inside the Destroyer, Vengan moves through oddly quiet corridors. His blaster is out and ready, his lucky wood-handled DL-44. The weapon hums, a slight charge in the secondary buffer chamber. Red lights paint the walls sanguine, the vessel running on high red alert.

Vengan pushes a button, the door sliding open with a hiss of pneumatics. The Marine rushes into the huge, bay-sized power room quickly, blaster high. Three lone technicians turn to him, their jaws dropping in shock. "Hey...you don't have clearance..." one of them begins.

Vengan starts shooting, rapidly, three quick shots. Two technicians are taken entirely by suprised, the bolts hitting their chests. The third turns, starts to run, and takes a bolt in the side of the head, dropping in a sodden mass.

With professional, practiced motions, Vengan holsters his sidearm, reaching into his rucksack for a pair of chunky looking detonators. Ferroplast, coupled with an oversized thermal detonator. He slaps one onto each side of a massive, humming generator, setting the timer for five minutes. The Marine rucks back up, flickering his headset on.

Vengan follows the twisting, turning corridors, using his HUD as a reference. Left, right, left, straight, two rights... "If I ever meet the guy who designed these ships, I'm gonna feed him to a rancor," Vengan mutters. He speeds up, seeing his HUD flash brightly as he nears the primary power reactors.

The Destroyer suddenly shakes, lists in space. The main lights go off, a loud rumble echoing through the great craft. A moment later pale emergency lights go on, though only a few basic systems are online. Vengan grins to himself, realization dawning. The secondary generators were knocked offline. The Destroyer had switched over to emergency power, killing the primary feed to prevent an uncontrolled surge in just this event. More importantly, however, the shields were down and the turbolasers temporarily offline...at least for the next thirty seconds, or so.

Vengan gets off the wall, restablishing his balance as gravity re-asserts itself. The Marine starts running again, fairly sprinting down the corridor as the plan slowly comes together. He makes a sharp right....

....and skids to a halt. Twenty armored Stormtroopers turn around, weapons low. He goggles at them. They goggle back. Both parties look equally suprised.

 The question is never completed, a red-pauldroned platoon leader raising an accusing finger at Vengan, comprehension slowly dawning. Vengan recovers faster, grabbing a grenade off his vest and priming it with one hand. "Hey, catch!" he calls, tossing the EMP flashbang at the man. The Stormtrooper catches it, fumbling with an electronic . Vengan raises his 36-T, flicking the selector to full auto, and holds the trigger down, raking the Stormtrooper platoon. He dances backwards around the corner and lays out like a swoop bike, sprinting pell-mell back the way he came. Behind him the sharp *crack* of blasters is overcome by a loud, static *WHOOP* as the EMP goes off, dimming half the lights in the section for a moment. Vengan ducks into a side room, some kind of empty mess hall. , he states, flicking his HUD back on. The device clicks to life. Nothing. His one way down was the turbolift that the Trooper were now undoubtedly guarding. With an angry growl, he kicks a ventilation duct next to him. It staves in easily, the Marine looking at it curiously. He drops to his belly, gauging the size. Big. Accessible, too. He drops his ruck and his armor, unslinging his load-bearing gear and putting it on the back of his ruck. Tying the whole affair to his ankle he starts belly-crawling into the vents, using the system to bypass the Imperial Stormtroopers searching the corridors for a lone Marine.

Storm Troopers move in search of the Marine now, checking their corners, ordering Mouse droids to charge about on scans while on the bridge, Ansforth stands tall, acting as TK Actual for the moment for exemplary service on the ground operation, acting as command central while Squads Eight, Six, and Two are under his direct command, the latter two standing outside of the bridge.      A chorus of 'copies' and 'rogers' return to the Commander's earpiece.

In space, a lethal black dart slices towards the Victory-Class Star Destroyer. It is the Corvette that covered Vengan's initial approach, black as death. No blasters, no evasive action. Just a full burn at high speed, rocketing towards the Star Destroyer. It's pilot, some kind of wizard with the controls, jukes the craft at the last moment. It latches to the top of the Destroyer's command tower, weapons unleashing a torrent of fire to take out the inert turbolasers mounted topside. An explosive decompression rocks the tower as the Corvette smashes a breaching line into the top of the Command Tower. First and Third platoons of A Company, 224th Marine Battalion, disgorge themselves into the tower. The strike team moves like chain lightning, clearing their immediate area and proceeding to the bridge itself, taking advantage of the Destroyer's temporarily disabled status.

Meanwhile, far belowdecks, Vengan peers through a vent. The main reactor bay. Huge, in and of itself almost as large as a fighter bay, but filled with vast, roaring fusion generators. Vengan peers around, looking for technicians. When he sees a clear way, he gets to his feet, slinging his load bearing gear on and rucking up once more. His HUD is discarded, ground under his boot. Blown by the EMP. His rifle in one hand, he starts laying charges on the base of two of the major fuel canisters, rifle in his hand and a wary gaze kept about him.

As the Corvette slams into the command tower, Ansforth and the rest of the troopers within it hit the ground under the force of the impact, listening to the emergency klaxons as mag con fields pop up to stop the loss of Atmosphere.  the transmission cut off by weapons fire. Ansforth works his way to his feet now.  the lot of the Troopers flying into action, heading for access hatches as well as the turbolifts.

Vengan sets the timers for ten minutes. Just enough time to get off the ship. The Marine takes a moment, closing his eyes and trying to dredge from memory the ship's display. After a few moments he shakes his head. "No way I'm gonna get back to my pod," he mutters. He slumps against an access panel, wracking his brain. He glances up, hearing footsteps. A technician, wearing gray work coveralls. Vengan moves towards the man, light as a whisper without his rucksack or armor on. The blaster rests against the base of the man's skull.

"Freeze. Directions to the escape pod, now," Vengan mutters, glancing around the area. The technician lifts a shaking hand. "FF..fffollow the red floor line, then right on b-blue, then left on b-black," he stutters, terrified. Vengan nudges him with the blaster. "That all?" The tech nods. Vengan prods again. "Comm unit." As soon as the device is in his hands, Vengan saps the tech with his pistol, catching him before he collapses and dragging the man out of immediate sight. Twisting the knobs on the commo unit, he finds the Marine frequency.  He tucks the commo device into his pocket and starts sprinting, all out, heading for the shuttlepods.

  already punching in a few keys on a nearby console as he was moving to exit the bridge, alarm klaxons now beginning to go off... Panic ensueing.

It's all-out survival at this point. No one even stops to challenge Vengan as the alert for 'Abandon Ship' is given. Still, he shoots on the run, blasting anyone who even looks like they're going to get in his way. He makes it to the escape pods, glances down the line. He sets the 36-T for fully automatic and sprays reckless fire into the launching mechanisms, disabling fully a dozen of the automatic launchers and causing flarebacks on how many others. He hits the manual override on 'his' pod, climbs in, and kicks the 'launch' button. Inertia pins him to his seat as the pod screams away, shooting far away from the doomed Destroyer. He watches the black Corvette dump it's mooring clamps, the Marine's mission accomplished as it hastily withdraws. Noxious gas pumped into the fusion chambers now. No one would be able to get inside for at least five minutes...which was a minute more time than they actually had.

Vengan grins to himself, watching the first explosions rip through the Victory-Class destroyer's hull. He activates his Marine transponder and sits back, the thrill of victory burning in his chest. Nothing to do now but wait.