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]

She's still too close for Fives' absolute comfort, but it's very convenient when he can grab a droid and turn it towards her so she can get a decent shot.

His armour is taking a battering from the close quarters combat, and hjim in side it, but with his sword lost he draws his blaster and shoots the last few droids.

The last droi standing, though, he doesn't shoot. He launches himself straight at it and rams it against the wall, holding it by the neck with the hand that isn't holding his pistol at its head.

"What's going on here?" he demands.

(Are battle droids programmed to respond to intimidation? He has no idea.)

[for_everyone]

Hera turns, looking down the way they came for any sign of movement. It's dark, but she doesn't see or hear any stir in the tunnel, other than Fives behind her.

And the droid, which whether or not it could feel fear, still makes a lot of frightened-sounding 'ehnnn' noises at being slammed into a wall.

She glances back, briefly, but tries to keep her attention on the tunnel beyond, just in case.

[5ame_heart]

"Come on," Fives is saying. "I know you're programmed with some self preservation."

The droid's vocaliser splutters in that freakishly organic way they do sometimes. "You'll never stop us, clone."

That's when the stolen commlink in Fives' vambrace bleeps into life, and the voice of another tactical droid speaks up:

"Device activated."

"What?" Fives pulls the B1 back away from the wall inorder to slam it back. "What device?"

[for_everyone]

Hera, however, finally turns from the tunnel beyond, stepping back into the room lowering her blaster, kneeling to the ground instinctively to touch it.

"I can feel it," she murmurs. It's not with any idea of what it is, but she can pick out mechanical vibrations from natural ones.

[5ame_heart]

"I can't disarm it," the droid is saying. "I'm just a B1..."

Fives glares at it, and drops it from the neck to turn to Hera. "Can you locate it?"

The droid scrambles on the floor, finds a blaster and lifts it to point at Fives. Fives shoots it in the head without even looking over.

[for_everyone]

Hera does jump slightly at the sudden burst of blasterfire, but she also quickly answers Fives' question

"I think so, it's -"

She goes quiet again, listening again, trying to guess what makes it feel almost echoing, louder but harder to follow. As she realizes - "- part of it's in the ground. Close to here."

Hera gestures a direction, though with Fives looking at her, she's pointing into the dark.

[5ame_heart]

Fives lifts his head up to shine his helmet lamp down the corridor she's pointing in, and holsters his blaster.

"I feel like I should be telling you to get out of here," he says, before he does anything else. "If I tell you to run, will you be able to, in the dark?"

[for_everyone]

"I can run if I have to," she says, lifting her blaster again.

"Even if I can't see."

[5ame_heart]

"Okay."

He heaves up his sword again, walking in front of her, but close enough that she can lead from behind, his lights illuminating not much, but his helmet is beginning to pick up the sound again. That an a few omnious beeps.

"Think we should make a move, though."

[for_everyone]

Hera steps forward into the dark corridor, her blaster raised in front of her, moving as fast as she can in the cave while trying to keep her steps silent. She hopes she's not imagining the vibrations as growing stronger, though it's not long before she can also hear a faint beeping.

And then a loud, animal groan that makes her freeze in her tracks.

[5ame_heart]

Fives stops, not quite a freez, and takes a very definite step in front of her, his vibrosword up and in front of him, ready.

"Was that one of those things outside?"

The beasts with the armor that blasters couldn't penetrate, who fought a unit of droids ot a near stalemate.

[for_everyone]

"Yes."

It's quiet, but certain. "I think there's just one."

There's no real 'just' about that, but though her voice stays quiet, it's just as certain, like she's made a decision. She's silent for a few seconds, listening for movement, but also taking light steps to the edge of the cave, where she lays down the blaster.

And then, she draws out the knife. "But no one can fight one alone."

[5ame_heart]

"Hera," Fives says quietly, but firmly as he stands still, his sword gripped tightly.

"It doesn't get to have both of us, okay? If anything happens to me, you drop everything and run."

[for_everyone]

"If something happens to you."

It's reluctant, but still an answer. She stays quiet another second - the beeping continues, and there's another thick, huffing groan, but it doesn't sound any closer yet.

"I know how to try, with two people." Or at least, she's heard those worst-case-scenarios, hope you never have to do anything like this story. "You have to get close to kill it, so I have to confuse it."

[5ame_heart]

"Okay."

He tries to imagine what those things would be like when they attack, slots himself and what he knows about Hera into the possible approaches.

They have armor plating, he remembers, and armor plates have to intersect.

"You need to get its attention away from me, without getting close."

[for_everyone]

Again, she stays quiet. For now, there's only the beeping, and vibrating, but that doesn't calm Hera at all.

"Let me walk in front of you," she whispers. "Then after I'll jump out of the way."

[5ame_heart]

He hesitates, because he really really hates the idea. Walkig behind people is fine if they're a kriffing Jedi, not okay if they're a tiny Twi'lek child, the protection of which shoudl be priority aurek.

But as soon as he realised there was something down here that could affect the entire campaign, Hera's life became priority besh, and Fives hates himself for that.

He nods, and lets her go in front, staying so close behind that her head is just a shadow at the bottom of his visor view, and the occasional flick of her lekku against his gloved hands is all he can feel of her.

[for_everyone]

Hera stays ahead of him, but moves away from him, to his right. She holds out a hand and hopes he won't move to stay directly behind her.

But she doesn't have much time to think about it before there's a rustle on the sand, and another groan in the dark. She keeps her eyes ahead, toward Fives' light, figures that's what it will notice first, and tries to let her arms hang loose at her sides. And when shadows weave into the light, she keeps looking forward, looking for the glint of the only part of the gutkurr that isn't protected.

The hardest part is brief moment, no more than a second, when she has to keep walking. Because that's when all she wants to do is run right at it, and slam the knife into anything she can reach.

Instead, when the glint is large enough, she throws the knife out, in an arcing motion, and doesn't wait to see how it lands before she falls to the ground and rolls across to the other side of the cave. The knife doesn't land square on, but slashes the gutkurr's eye before falling to the dust, and the creature screeches and lunges at where Hera had been a moment ago.

[5ame_heart]

Fark, that thing is big. Fives had seen the size of the bodies outside, but alive, and trying to kill Hera in the confines of a tight burrow it looks so much bigger.

He feels that difficulty as well - the overriding need to rush forward, put himself between her and the thing, to cause some damage now rather than waiting for the moment. He's not supposed to be in this role - he's supposed to be the bait, the disposible one. Every instinct in his blood is trying to get himself killed right now.

He heaves the sword up slowly, trying above everything else to keep his head steady, the light constant. Let her bring it close to him without it what the light is attached to.

Come on you kriffer.

[for_everyone]

The gutkurr still screeches, blood dripping from its eyes, clawing at the space where Hera had been before rounding on the light from Fives' helmet.

Hera waits on the ground, in the dark, her fingers digging into the dirt until she lets herself climb up, and search for the flash of her knife. She scrapes one foot into the ground, the sound enough to halt the gutkur, but only for a moment.

[5ame_heart]

As it turns towards Hera, Fives takes the moment and throws himself forward. He turns the vibrosword towards the thing and throws the weight of it and himself behind it, aiming at the section between where the armor on his head is overlapped by the armor on its back.

He thrusts in and it digs in maybe half a meter before it hits resistance, and entirely fails to kill the thing, but it does make it very angry.

Fives lets go of the sword hilt and his momentum carries him down long the ground, sliding in the dirt under the gutkurr's head and just out of reach of its short forearms, until he can scramble to his feet on the other side.

The creature gargles a roar and turns to him, but its ability to move in the narrow tunnel is somewhat limited now there's a meter of vibrosword sticking horizontally out of its neck.

[for_everyone]

Hera finds the glint of the knife and takes it back up in her hand.

Eyes were the softest target, albeit just above a set of very sharp teeth, but those are turned away from her now. What else can't be covered by that hard insect plating? Joints.

The gutkurr turned completely away from her, Hera steps silently along the tunnel, without the hesitation of someone ready to run. It goes out of her mind until she drops to against to the dirt, and reaches out with the knife again, slashing deep into the narrow slice between the creature's leg and base claw, and rolling back as the gutkurr screeched again.

[5ame_heart]

The hilt of the vibrosword scrapes along the wall of the tunnel, scratching itself a groove as the creature snaps at Fives, and hopefully driving the blade slightly deeper into the neck.

Fives falls clumsily backwards in his hurry to get up, but he grabs the lamp on the side of his helmet and twists it as much as he can to get the beam into the beast's good eye.

It's nearly completely rounded on Fives when it screeches and rounds again, trying to get at the thing that attacked its leg. Fives, now on his feet, races to the other side, thinking of nothing except how he needs that sword back. He grabs the edge of its carapace and hauls himself up and over, landing on the sword with both feet hard enough to rip a deeper gash in the flesh, bounces off it and grabs the hilt with both hands.

Holding the sword now, he scrambles backwards, his feet struggling to get purchase against the ground until he hauls it out with a gross sounding squelch.

Of course now it has plenty of room to fully round on him.

[for_everyone]

Hera slips forward again, making a go for the gutkurr's other leg.

She manages it again, slashing at the bit just above its claw, but this time the gutkurr's reaction is quicker, its leg lashing back toward her as she rolls away. Its claw catches Hera's arm, slicing her skin at her shoulder - the girl lets out a gasp of pain as she retreats back into the dark.

And though the strike hits, it also leaves the gutkurr unbalanced.

[5ame_heart]

"Hera!"

Fives' distraction doesn't translate to his body at all. He charges forward, plunging the sword directly into the creature's neck, widening the gash already made and spraying him with blood, and the lunges again with his fist, punching the thing right in the eye.

It staggers under the weight of the man, and unbalanced from the attack on its foot it tumbles to the ground, where its claws flail wildly.

Fives's armor slices embarrassingly cleanly, but the claws can't get through to him beneath is. Still, the violent swing does throw him bodily against the wall.

He doesn't stop, drawing his blaster and rushing forward again, firing at the bleeding eye like he's Rex taking down a Rishi eel, and then again into the wound left by the sword, until eventually the creature stops moving.