RPlog:Into the Imperial Embassy

Landing Pad, Imperial Embassy

Capable of housing half a dozen of Lambda class shuttles, this chamber functions as the Embassy's landing facility. A huge armored dome opens out to the sky protecting the chamber from the elements while not in use. Floodlights surround the perimeter, lighting every inch of space. Warning lights ring the pad, functioning to both assist in landing procedures, and guide personel into safe routes of travel. Blaster mounts make the occassional appearance around the area, silent and deadly sentries. The only exit other than by shuttle is a single blast door flanked by a pair of stormtroopers that leads to the embassy's lobby.

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Simon

Before you is a young human male of average height and narrow build. His hair is a deep brown, parted and cut short. A strong jawline and deepset eyes of blue-grey give the man a stern look at a glance. For facial hair he wears a well groomed goatee and mustache, trimmed short and of the same deep color as the rest of his hair. All in all, the man's demeanor can be summed up in a word: aware.

At a glance, the man before you looks to be in good health. Scrutiny directed toward his right hand, however, tells a different story. While his thumb, index, and middle fingers appear to be intact and functional, the ring and little fingers of his right hand appear to be missing. Two fleshy stubs protrude from where fingers should be. The skin there is pink and tender looking, as if newly grown.

Simon is dressed in earth tones. Light tan, loose fitting trousers are tucked into soft leather boots that come up to just under his knees, and are tied tight with brown, leather chords. Tucked into the top of his pants is a simple shirt of a matching color. Over this is a loose wool tunic of dark brown, covering his arms completely and hanging down below his waste. It's comfortable clothing, suitable for most climates and cultures.

Mira

What can be seen of this woman under the large, grubby cloak that she wears isn't a whole lot. One might be able to tell that she is small and wiry, almost painfully thin. The bottom of the cloak drags on the ground, and looks frayed, as if it has been trod upon often. The hood of the dirty, dusty cloak that she wears manages to throw a shadow over most of her face, leaving it mostly obscured. A clump or two of frazzled, dark hair finds its way out of the cloak's hood to stick out at odd and unnatural angles away from her face.

Kizuka

A tall, gaunt young man of aristocratic bearing stands before you. Blond hair, blue eyes, a hard chiselled face marred with a blaster burn along one cheek. He is sharply dressed in a well pressed black Imperial uniform, with the insignia of an acting ambassador upon him. HIs uniform is tight over firm, clean young limbs, with a hint of powerful muscle. Young, indeed not yet out of his teens, proud looking and intelligent, he turns to look at you and tips his head in a faint nod.

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With the battered hull of the _Sanguine Raptor_ still smoking and emitting sounds of metal against metal as some of its internal parts continue to grind themselves into non-functionality, the entry ramp starts to open. With the ship's frame bent so awkwardly, it is only able to open a few inches before it halts, and the opening mechanism begins to make groaning sounds of its own. A grunt of disgust is heard next, followed by a double snap-hiss. A bar of green light works its way through the hatch near where it's jammed, and like a blade carving through the belly of a hunter's prey, begins to cut the door out of the frame.

With a loud clank, the metal that had been the hatch of the ship falls away, its edges still glowering from the heat of the cut. Simon Sezirk is left standing in the opening, his weapon still activated in his hands. With a frown prominent on his brow, the goateed man looks more than a little stern. Slowly, carefully, he studies the chaos of the area around him. It wasn't nearly as bad as he thought it'd be....

From the stairway leading down into the building appears the tall form of Ambassador Kizuka, his young, horribly scarred face set in an expression of pure fury.. Accompanying him, a squad of six stormtroopers, blasters cocked and raised. In his own hand is his IR-5 blaster, whining at full charge.

"Hold it RIGHT there!" He commands, as he catches sight of the man with the lightstaff. "In the name of the Empire, I place you under arrest!"

Standing slightly behind Simon, Mira peers out of the newly opened hatch, blinking in the light pouring in from outside. It takes a moment or two for her to see the squad of stormtroopers pointing their weapons at them, and takes her another moment to figure out why exactly they might be doing such a thing. The best she can come up with is that someone back on the Rancor must be wondering where their shuttle is and had sent someone to find it. Perhaps it was the cleaning crew. It certainly couldn't be the fact that they had careened out of control through restricted airspace and crash landed on top of Imperial grounds. She was feeling pretty smug that they had survived at all, and credited it all tol her great piloting skills. "It's okay," she announces clearly, stepping past Simon and into the doorway of the ship. "We were going to return the shuttle." Of course, in the condition it was in now, she doubted anyone would want it back.

With his ears still ringing somewhat from the crash, with his mind still numb from the recent loss of his two fingers, much of what the Ambassador says is lost to Simon. Whatever it is, it sounds bad. Twisting bodily to face Kizuka, Simon jumps down from where he'd been standing in his makeshift ship entrance. His arms pump, the lightstaff twirls, and he lands with his knees bent and his weapon held defensively in front of him. Mira's words wash over him much as Kizuka's had, leaving little more than an impression of what she was saying in his mind.

"I do not believe they wish to speak to us," Simon says, doubtfully. His words are slurred even more than usual by his odd accent. Looking carefully towards the troopers and the person that led them here, Simon lets out a heavy sigh. "This does not look good..."

"Drop the lightstaff. NOW!" The ambassador orders, his blaster rising into a firing position. "Put it down, and kneel with your hands behind your head.. You have ten seconds to comply!"

The man's face is contorted in fury, as the storm troops scatter, taking up firing positions.. The sound of safety catches being released clicks all around the rooftop.. "We WILL fire!" He reiterates.

"Look," Mira says pointedly, dropping to her knees and placing her hands behind her head, as instructed but continuing to argue. She was smart enough to follow orders, but no one had said anything about shutting up. "I"m sure if you just call Mr. Ethan of the Angry Rancor, we can get this all straightened out. We are very close, personal freinds with him, and I'm sure that he will tell you this. Please, just go make the phone call. It's his shuttle. It broke. And we fell out of the sky." Removing one hand from behind her head, she dives it through the air, mimicking the descent of the shuttle into the city, wtih accompanying falling sound effects. "Shwooooo. If it weren't for my piloting skills, I'm sure we would have all been killed. You should be grateful we made it out alive. Please, can i get up? I think I am kneeling on an acorn."

Simon hears the command, and pauses with much consideration. The movement and flurry of words from Mira also reaches Simon's ears, but he doesn't take the time to marvel at the young woman's skill with speaking so quickly. Bits and pieces of what she's saying mixes with his thoughts, and as the soldiers move to take flanking positions, their weapons raised and to the ready, Simon makes yet another hasty decision.

Spinning the staff in front of him with his left hand, he points his right at one of the stormtroopers to his far right. With his index finger outstretched, it briefly looks like an accusatory gesture. He flicks his wrist, and at the same time, the stormtrooper he'd pointed at is flung bodily back in the direction he'd been moving.

"Mira! Stay behind me!" he shouts as he takes a step back toward her. His staff begins to whir, the green light of each end already moving to intercept the onslaught of blaster shots. This was not going to be fun...

"FIRE AT WILL!" The order is issued by the ambassador, and the sound of blaster fire echoes back and forth, as a searing volley of gunfire jets towards the pair.. From all direction, the red bolts flicker back and forth, some striking wildly on the side of the ship, others flying more directly for the two fugitives.

Taking careful aim with his own weapon, Kizuka tugs the trigger, firing a well aimed shot straight at the woman.. "Kill them!" He orders.

Mira, more than happy to have an excuse to get her knee off the acorn under it, dives behind Simon, just in time for the blaster bolts to start flying all through the air around her. "AAAGH AAAAGH," she screams as the bolt from Kizuka's blaster sizzles a strand of her frazzled hair, the word becoming a staple of her vocabulary over the course of the day. She curls up in a little ball directly behind Simon, clamping her eyes shut tightly.

Red flashes of energy fly toward Simon and Mira like wasps swarming in to the kill. Yet, Simon is not wholly unprepared. Letting the True Source move through him, his arms move of their own accord, and the lightstaff in his hand moves as if a living thing, hungrily intercepting the shots as they streak toward him. The effect is not without effort, however, as beads of sweat begin to form on Simon's brow.

"Fall back! Into the ship!" Simon yells. As the red blasts encounter the green blades of his lightstaff, several bounce off wildly back in the direction of those that are firing at them. None actually strike the white-clad soldiers, but at least one shot comes dangerously close.

"The man with staff! Get him!" The ambassador yells, taking cover as the bolts ricochet back.. And so the firepower concentrates on Simon, energy crackling and spitting all around him, throwing up sparks, smoke and showers of dust where they hit.. "Rapid fire!" He demands, now pumping the trigger of his blaster until it runs hot in his hands.

Mira stays in her tiny ball for a few moments before another blaster bolt sizzles by, dangerously close to her head again. She didn't need any more convincing, and, breaking from her protective posture, makes a diving, scarmbling, falling, tripping run back towards the hatch of the Sanguine Raptor. "AAAAAGH," she screeches as she reaches the doorway, which is now covered in a spattering of burn marks from blaster shots that managed to get by Simon. Ducking into the doorway, she runs towards the cockpit, with the hairbrained idea that she and her magnificent piloting skills might be able to make the ship take off. Never mind that the little bit of fuel that was left was spilled all over the embassy.

What she finds is that the cockpit is rather dark. This, of course, does little to detract from her enthusiasm, and she begins to poke wildly at whatever buttons she can find. On the outside of the shuttle, thsi causes a myriad of rather strange things to happen. The wipers on the bent shuttle attempt to sweep back and forth, knocking some of the debris from the front viewscreen onto the ground. The weapon turrets swivel around once or twice lifelessly, and the engines try to power up, sending a shower of sparks from the aft of the shuttle.

Sparks, stray blaster bolts, and ship fuel. Simon has yet to learn what sort of disastrous combination these items can make when combined, and with his attention focused on keeping his skin intact, he wouldn't care at the moment. Taking staggering steps backwards toward the dilapidated ship, Simon continues to hold off the pressing attack, but only barely.

When the stormtroopers double their fire, it's all Simon can do to hurl himself backwards behind the cover the hull of the ship. Red blasts singe his clothes, and bring up red welts on his face and hands where the shots had come so close as to sizzle his skin.

"I do not know how we're going to get out of this one," Simon slurs quietly, carefully steeling glance through the hull's opening.

"Stun grenades! Now!" The ambassador orders, as they retreat into the shuttle. "Section one.. cease fire... section two.. suppress!" Like a well oiled machine, the troopers obey his orders, as half of them continue rapid fire, while the rest draw small grenades, casting them into the open hatch. "Prepare to move in on detonation! We'll take them alive!" The man's voice echoes once more.

Mira continues pushing buttons, trying to save the day with her incredible piloting skills. One might argue that poking at buttons did not consititue piloting "skills" but it had gotten them this far, and she wasn't one to stop using something when it seemed to be working. Unknowingly pushing the button to activate the port repulsorlifts, the ship rocks to one side as the try to activate before dying again, sending the ship falling back to the ground. The rocking motion tossing everything inside the ship around, stun grenades included, which roll back into the casing of the hyperdrive, cracked open from the impact of the crash.

Moments later, the grenades go off, causing some rather unpleasant side effects for the innards of the hyperdrive. A cascade of tiny explosions sends the ship jumping forward into a wall of the embassy, cracking the concrete badly.

For Simon, the ride had already been rather unpleasant. As the grenades are lobbed into the open hatch nearby, he immediately suspects that the journey was about to get enough more rough. Diving in the direction of the cockpit, reaching out toward the True Source to help pull him toward his destination, his suspicions are thoroughly confirmed.

As he lands in the cockpit section of the ship, he tucks into a ball and rolls up next to where Mira is seated, just as the grenades detonate and send the _Sanguine Raptor_ on one more short trip. A great sound of metal grinding and stone splitting echoes through the ship and through the embassy hangar as the shuttle buries itself in the wall and pushes it's forward section through.

Grunting, Simon grabs Mira bodily and pulls her back and away from the forward-most section of the control station, just as it caves in. Then, much as he'd done to open the hatch of the ship, Simon plunges one end of his staff through the floor of the cockpit and begins slicing away more portions of the hull.

"Hold onto me. We're going," Simon says roughly. Before Simon can finish making the cut he'd started, the damaged floor beneath them gives way.