The Battle of Ryloth

[5ame_heart]

The role of the 501st in the liberation of Ryloth has been mostly one of orbital support, but Captain Rex has his eye on the boys from Domino Squad.  He's assigned Echo and Fives to the 91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps for the operation.

According to Rex, his reasoning is that as neither Fives or Echo can pilot worth a damn, they'd better make themselves useful in the ground assault. Echo is optimistically convinced this attachment to an elite Recon Unit is serving as field training for eventual promotion to ARC-Troopers. As Rex has been friendly with them since Rishi and has continually expressed his respect for them as soldiers, Fives doesn't have a reason to disagree.

A major difference between the 91st and the 501st is that the men of the 91st like and respect their Jedi General with the sort of fondness and respect that comes with reliable, understandable and well thought out plans - General Windu seems to like and respect them back, to the extent of their lives as equal to his own, and as highly as they value each other. Skywalker is the same, of course, but the 501st are generally of the opinion that a healthy culture of talking back is a key part of letting your General exactly what you think of showy recklessness.

But one way they match, of course, is that all plans are lucky if they last five minutes' contact with the enemy.

The 91st are engaged with the droid army in the approach to the capital city of Lessu. Ryloth is all mesas and gorges around here; it's hot, much drier than the jungles where they staged earlier engagements, and the ground has a bad habit of crumbling under one's feet - especially when hit by stray blaster bolts.

Fives is right by Echo's side one second, and the next he finds himself slipping perilously down a near vertical face into a gorge, sandy rocks racing past him to the sound of his name being yelled by his brother above. He shouts in annoyance and in shock, and then when his foot makes contact with a rock a few feet down, with pain. 

The rocky nature of this planet acts to his advantage, Fives realises. He's sliding rather than falling, and is able to holster his blaster in time to grab another rock, which jerks his shoulder violently but stops his descent before his fingers slip and he falls again. The Force obviously has plans for him because he's able to combine what purchase he can get with what obstructions there are to turn a death fall into a painful tumble into shadow.

Eventually Fives lands hard on his feet at the bottom of a crevasse deep enough that the fighting above is only distant flashes of light, and next to the less fortunate body of a trooper who turns out to be CT-89-2874 - Fives doesn't know him and so doesn't know what his name was.

He stands up slowly, his legs screaming from the landing, his headache informing him that he may have hit that part of him on the way down. His armor is more than scratched - some of his plates have broken in clear shards, and he's entirely lost one of his  He keys his wrist comm.

"Echo? Sarge? Anyone?"

But there's no signal. And there's no reason to come look for him either, so as far as Echo and the others is concerned, CT-27-5555 is one more casualty of the Battle for Ryloth.

He leans against the rocky wall, and considers his options. 

And that's when he hears something.

Comments

[5ame_heart]

Fives peers out - the droid has emerged into the larger passage he just left and is making a direct line to whre it had last seen him. This at least gives Fives time to regroup and secure the safety of the kid...

The kid who is not to be seen.

Forcedammit.

He mentally replays the last few seconds - he said run and she ran but... she went to the nearest passageway, not their target route. This means:

He checks. The droid is approaching the remains of the rock he blasted and this means that while it's still too far away for his pistol, it's nearer the passage he's pretty sure he saw the kid flee down.

Fives steps back out.

"HEY! RUSTBUCKET! OVER HERE!

[for_everyone]

She waits against the wall, blaster toward where the droid would pass. Running again only seemed more likely to attract attention now.

But the droid is distracted by Fives' call, and passes by without noticing.

Hera waits for it to pass, but then darts to the wall across, and then slowly back the way she had run, listening to Fives and the droid.

[5ame_heart]

Fives darts back into the passageway, out of the droid's sight, and counts down its steps towards him.

As long as he can hear it coming towards him, he knows it's not coming after her. And as long as it can't see him, he can get it into range of his pistol.

Fortunately, battle droids aren't exactly known for their intelligence, and this does exactly as expected and walks at the usual pace towards him. Which means Fives knows the exact moment to step out and fire his blaster straight at the droid's head.

As it falls, he calls out: "Hera?"

[for_everyone]

Hera waits until Fives speaks to come out, but when she does she's looking at the droid. Her blaster is still in her hands, pointed at the ground, and she still edges along the canyon wall, but toward the fallen droid.

"Thank you," she calls to Fives, though she can't quite hide her distraction with the droid. The blaster bolt must've fried its core processor, but one of its 'eyes' still looks intact.

"I think I could get his head off," she says quietly, slightly raising her blaster.

[5ame_heart]

Until she shows herself, Fives stays alert and cautious, which relaxes as she approaches. Eventually he crouches by the droid in order to grab its rifle, which has a better range than his pistol and will be better in case they need to engage again.

He looks from her to the droid and back, wondering what she's after, then shakes his head.

"I've got a vibroknife," he says, producing that and handing it to her. "Save your bolts."

[for_everyone]

Hera nods, taking the knife once she's slipped her blaster back into her pouch.

She takes a little longer in slicing through the plastoid and wiring that makes up the droid's 'neck', at least looking at what she's cutting through before she starts. But aside from a couple limbs twitching, the droid does nothing as she wrenches the head free.

"The photoreceptor might still work," she says, as she tucks the head against her arm to hand him back the knife. "And the vocabulator."

[5ame_heart]

Fives keeps watch as she works, standing over her and keeping an alert eye out, inlcuding at least three likely places he can hide her if he needs to fight.

"You really want that thing's vocabulator?"

Fives smiles as he takes back the knife, without thinking that she can't see his face.

"What are you planning to do with it?"

As he asks the question he looks around again, and jerks his head towards their initial route with a grunt. They should move quickly now.

[for_everyone]

"I can study it," Hera answers, as she moves along the canyon path forward, droid head tucked against her chest.

It probably won't be much help for the broken astromech she left back home, but she'd like to learn about it.

"Maybe we can change it so someone else can use it."

[5ame_heart]

Fives follows as they head down the passage, away from the battle now. His hand stays on her shoulder same as before. He can't argue with the benefits of studying it. Studying enemy tech is practically what he does in his spare time, though droid mechanics aren't his area of interest.

"Probably could," he muses out loud. "'Course if you can get it working enough to mimic a functioning one..."

He trails off, then shakes his head. "...you shouldn't hve any need for that after this."

[for_everyone]

Hera glances back, though she keeps up her pace.

"Why not?"

[5ame_heart]

"I was thinking you could use it to trick them into thinking you're one of them," Fives says, thinking of Rex breaking into the station on Rishi. "They're stupid enough it might work in a pinch.

"But I hope you won't have any more on this planet to fool once we've cleared 'em out."

[for_everyone]

"Not for that," Hera agrees.

She is thinking something like and if they don't come back, but she decides against saying it.

"Other things use it, too."

[5ame_heart]

"Yeah?"

Fives prompts her conversationally, half listening to their environs, half curious about her plans. "What are you thinking?"

[for_everyone]

She turns down another narrower canyon path, and in this one, the soil beneath them starts to form into an shallow incline.

"It could help with a good droid."

She hasn't been around that many droids that weren't Separatist troops or a couple astromechs, but she's heard about them.

"And sometimes, there's species like - Ithorians. They use them to speak Basic."

[5ame_heart]

"Oh yeah, other uses."

He'd just been caught up in the strategic uses for the thing. Of course there's uses for it outside of the war.

"I bet you can find a good use for it."

But he's still distracted, and now he stops - fairly certain that he's been distracted by something on the edge of hearing.

"Hey, let me go first for a bit, okay? Tell me if I go in the wrong direction."

[for_everyone]

'Outside of the war' being relative, as Hera's father could sometimes attract some diverse allies.

Hera's footsteps slow, and she falls silent. She doesn't even speak her answer, just nods and shifts so that he can pass in front of her.

[5ame_heart]

Fives slips in front of her, the droid's rifle in his hands but held low, and starts forward, at least trying to be quiet but aware that he's much bigger and heavier than she is.

He turns the gain up on his helmet's audio receptors as he goes, and eventually the sound becomes something he can actually make out - battle droids again, more than one, not involved in any fighting. A patrol?

"Hey," he says quietly, "is there somewhere you can hide nearby?"

[for_everyone]

Hera glances around - there aren't many options, in an environment like this she'd usually try to just run away quickly enough that anything after her would decide it wasn't worth it anymore.

But her eyes follow the curve of the canyon walls to a dark spot, a small indent about three meters away that looks as though it were scooped from the red-brown rock. It's not especially deep, but it is shadowed enough that she might slip from view at first glance.

Again, without speaking, she scurries over to it.

[5ame_heart]

Fives makes sure he knows where she's gone this time. He checks his new rifle - good for distance but slow to charge, and puts it down, propped up against a canyon wall so he can get it later.

Switching to his pistol, he creeps forward as quietly as he can, to a place where the walls curve sharply, and crouches in readiness.

Four droids make up a standard patrol, and he can hear them talking to each other inanely now, wondering how the battle's going and if any of their officers will think to take patrol droids with them if they retreat.

He'd feel for them if they were actually people.

Fives listens for their steps drawing closer, echoing with their voices against the walls of the canyon, and counts down to himself.

Then he looks over to where Hera is hiding, nods at the shadowed darkness, and disappears behind the curve, firing his blaster in quick succession.

[for_everyone]

In the shadows, Hera sets down the droid head, and takes out her blaster again. Her eyes even flicker to the rifle Fives leaves at the canyon wall, but she doesn't want to distract him by leaving her hiding spot, not if she doesn't need to. And it's big - even with what she's been shown about blasters, she's not sure just from looking at it how fast she could figure it out.

So she waits again, listening to the blasterfire, and watching for shadows along the curve in the canyon wall.

[5ame_heart]

Fives is the first to admit that, while he's pretty good with a blaster, close quarters combat is not his ideal situation. This is why he takes out the first two droids with perfectly placed shots while charging the patrol and then has to take twice as long again to disable the other two, and part of that is pure luck that he manages to dodge in the nick of time so one of the clankers shoots the other.

He's got a new scorch mark on his shoulder - Hevy's going to need to be retouched - and his limp from earlier is back as he jogs back around the corner to fetch his rifle.

"Hera?"

[for_everyone]

Hera picks up the droid head again, looping it under her left arm so she can still hold her blaster in her right as she steps out.

She figures all the droids must be destroyed if he's walking back, so she asks, "Are you okay?"

[5ame_heart]

"Never better."

This is a lie, but a mild one. Fighting isn't the problem so much as the general battering from the fall. But he doesn't take his helmet off as he gathers the rifle up and wishes that it had a decent strap he could carry it with.

"Listen, you know this area. Are patrols normal?"

Because frankly he's suspicious of why they'd send droids out on patrol if they're busy defending the city.

[for_everyone]

Hera shakes her head.

"If they came here a lot, I wouldn't come this way."

Not least because she knows not to lead a droid back to camp.

[5ame_heart]

"Kriff."

He hesitates, looking back where the droids came from, and then back at Hera.

On the one hand - he's got to get her home safe.

On the other hand - there was no damn reason for that patrol, and while droids are stupid as hell, they're not random.

"Right," he says finally making a decision. "Come on. You might be able to get much better parts from this lot."

He jerks his head to indicate she should follow him, and heads back the way he came.

When they get there, he lets her survey the bodies, and himself crouches down by each one, searching for a commlink of some sort.