Definitely Not Entering and Breaking

[Narir Solus]

What a shabby little outpost, Narir thought as he watched from a hill. Their position was about 3/4 of the way up the hill so as not to put themselves against the horizon, but also not easily in the line of sight. It also offered them easy access to one of the only roads out of the area: the road they knew the small transport speeders would take.

After scouring through the data, they had found good information on a target. An arm's smuggler had recently been brought down by the local Imperial garrison. As was the custom, all weapons, spice, and valuables were seized, which meant they needed to be transported somewhere and lost to the bureaucracy.

That was where Clan Solus came in.

Raz and Narir were in the perfect position to "liberate" some supplies, and that was what they intended to do. "I'm not sneaking this time," he said, as he lowered the scope of his rifle. It wasn't great, but the variable 3x scope offered a better view of what was being loaded. From the looks of things, he saw a lot of guns down there.

"When it rounds the bend down there," he motioned to his right, "We hit the driver and escort. We can set explosives in the road to block their path, and clean up with blasters, okay?" he asked, just waiting for her to try to tell him how they needed to be covert and stealthy. It was the classic argument that they seemed to have on every mission they ran together.

 

[Raz Solus]

Raz opened her mouth to argue, but she stopped herself. What was the point? They went back and forth on this every god damned time, and it always ended with them having to shoot their way in. In the past, Nar always humored her by hearing her out. As he was in a helmet most of the time, she always avoided seeing the bored expression on his face. This time, she decided to extend the same courtesy to him by sighing resignedly, “Fine….fine, no sneaking,” She couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice.

“Come on let’s get closer,” They didn’t have a great angle from this vantage point, and she quickly began to make her way down. She had her rifle ready, watching the vehicle beginning to turn the corner. Raz carefully aimed, looking at the driver. After a moment, she pulled the trigger, hitting him square in the face. The vehicle began to spiral to the side, and she was already on the move. This was before it ever got to the base or roused suspicion, and she knew they had a short amount of time to make their getaway.

Raz was already checking through the transport for supplies, “Go set the charges!” She knew there would be more vehicles coming this way soon. Raz began to go through the weapons, shocked to discover they were simply duds. As she moved them out of the way, she saw bags of what looked like spice. Raz’s eyes widened and she stepped back, grabbing one of the bags, “Uhhh….I think we may have stumbled onto something here. Anyone buying this will be absolutely loaded. I want to find out where this ships. Can you imagine the guns we can get?”

 

[Narir Solus]

Narir slipped down off the hill, watching Raz's shot to the fact easily take the man down. He scrambled forward, shocked by how smoothly everything was running for them. One driver, no guards, no mess. It was as smooth as could be until Raz mentioned that the weapons were all duds. "What?!" he asked, not quite sure he had heard her right. Things just had to go sideways at the last minute. "Nothing is ever simple," he grumbled as he swung around to the back to see the weapons that weren't weapons.

"Is that...?" he didn't finish the question. He already knew what it was, and she was right. That guy was going to be loaded, and they could get something out of it. He pawed through the contents that had been commandeered until he found a datapad. No doubt it was being taken to Imperial intelligence for slicing, but Narir wasn't going to let it get there.

"Get the speeder fired up, I'm going to try to strip the GPS data from this. Find out where they came from," he said as he slipped into the driver's seat. He immediately began tapping at the console as he did when he went into slicing. If his helmet had been off she would have seen the intensely focused gaze she knew well from whenever he was busy at work.

It was several minutes before the silence was broken by a resounding and triumphant "Aha! I got it!" He scrolled quickly through some additional data and dowloaded it to his own datapad. "S-17. Source of the guns isn't even on-world. You up for a trip?" he asked with a hint of mischief in his voice. "Maybe a bag of spice was lost in transport," he said with a snicker.

 

[Raz Solus]

“Up for a trip? Just like that? We’re gonna just waltz right on in and they’ll welcome us with open arms?” Raz eyed him with a humorless expression that he couldn’t see. She was folding her arms over her chest now, and she shook her head, “No, we need the landing codes from where this transport came from. This will be harder than we thought,” She muttered quietly, pondering their options.

Raz hopped into the speeder, revving up the engines and starting them towards the supplier freighter, “Right when I think something go smoothly, some new bullshit pops up. Everytime,” She grumbled as they approached the large ship. Even from here, she could tell it was swarming with guards. Raz sighed, shaking her head, “No sneaking,” This time there was a grin on her face. She parked the speeder a short distance away, gazing out ahead at the parked freighter.

“Okay, let’s see how many we can pick off before we actually have to go in,” She walked up a side incline towards a small elevated cliff face that looked out towards the ship. Raz leaned down and propped up her rifle, “Seems almost unfair, doesn’t it?” She snickered as she took careful aim. Within seconds, she fired a shot, instantly dropping one Imperial. She immediately switched over to the next one there, firing another shot. She kept doing this, picking off as many as she could before they could do anything about it.

Soon enough, there was something hurtling their way. Raz scrambled backwards, “’Nades! Oh shit oh shit!” She began to run almost comically in the opposite direction, knowing they needed to engage closer now.

 

[Narir Solus]

"I'll use my Mandalorian charm," he said with a snicker when she asked how they would get in. As she swung the vehicle around, he kept sweeping through the datapad, grabbing what he could, skimming information, and downloading the rest. "I blame you for that," he said as she mentioned that something new always popped up. He didn't know how he was going to blame her, but she would recognize the humor in his tone. "'Blame Raz' is a class," he added with a shrug.

When they made it there and saw all the guards, he didn't argue for stealth. He wanted a shootout, and he wanted every advantage they could get. Right now, the troopers were out in the open, and more than that, most didn't look like soldiers. They were technicians and maintenance crews with the occasional guard sprinkled in. While he knew that things oculd turn in the blink of an eye or reinforcements could show up at any moment, for now it didn't look like the worst thing the two had gone up against.

"I like unfair. Give me as much 'unfair' as you can," he mumbled. He had never been one for fair fights. If you weren't fighting dirty, you weren't fighting hard enough, that was what his mother had always taught him. He took a position near Raz, but with a little distance between them and propped his rifle up. The blaster fire began, and they were doing remarkably well.

As Raz pinged Imperial after Imperial, Narir did the same. His sights rested on the first guard and he squeezed the trigger. At this distance, they had a nice buffer between them and their target, and while his blood was still pumping hard, it seemed calming. Everything fell into a rhythm as the gunfire continued.

Another shot and another sent guard after guard to the ground before he heard the shout of grenade. He rolled to the side, taking cover behind a boulder, but it didn't stop his armor from taking a few pepperings of shrapnel. Move up, I'll cover you! he said into his com, pulling out a grenade of his own and sending it hurling down into the Imperial midst. The detonation was loud and created a gory scene, but opened the door for Raz to push in and fire at point blank range.

 

[Raz Solus]

Raz didn’t need to be told twice, shuffling forward and towards the freighter. She had her gun at the ready, leveled and firing off bolts at the guards she saw. The mechanics and other workers began to scatter and run in all directions and she had to work to keep from killing them. Despite who she was, she wasn’t a fan of killing harmless people regardless of whom they served. If she could help it, she’d avoid it.

She counted on Nar to provide her cover, and they had done this kind of routine many times before. Raz rushed forward and ducked down behind a boulder, another guard ducking behind a speeder as he cooked a grenade and tossed it her way. She saw it flying and immediately dove to the side and rolled on the ground to avoid the explosion. Raz didn’t waste any time, coming up behind another cover as she propped her rifle up and quickly shot the man as he peeked to assess the situation.

“I think the other two have locked themselves inside the freighter,” Raz growled into the comms. She knew they would have a tough time getting inside, and they had to think of a strategy, “Any ideas?”

 

[Narir Solus]

Narir's rifle swiveled and fired on multiple targets as Raz made her way down. Blaster bolts flew through the air, the burned smell of ozone, dirt, wood, and flesh began to fill the air, and sweat beaded on Narir's forehead. Even so, he continued to fire until the battlefield began to quiet down.

The smoke began to clear from the battlefield, but no one was moving apart from his partner, and apparently the two guys inside the freighter. Coming down, he said, shuffling quickly down the hill and looking around for further signs of danger. There was no one apart from the ship itself, but they were too close to easily be fired upon with the guns.

Shooting their way through the hull wasn't an option, and Narir didn't carry the type of explosives they would need. So that begged the question: how had the Imperials gotten inside. Look around for a plasma torch or whatever the Imps used to cut inside, he said, holding his rifle in one hand while beginning to shuffle through the surrounding crates to find a means inside. It took perhaps two minutes before he found it.

Got it! he said, making his way quickly to the ship's loading door. He fired up the torch and began powering through the hull, one inch at a time until the door was merely hanging by a thread. He had to assume that as soon as they let it fall, they would be met with a hail of blaster fire, so he sent one of his concussion grenades to prime, counting down on his fingers. He would let Raz kick the door in before tossing the grenade through the opening, detonating it and letting the two of them sweep in to finish off the men hiding inside.

 

[Raz Solus]

She hated how long it was taking to find an entrance. She let Nar handle that as she kept her gun at the ready. She kept glancing around nervously, “Any day now… we’re gonna have company pretty soon,” Raz hated that it was just the two of them. They were severely disadvantaged. Now that she had a moment to think, she began to wonder about the decisions she made for these operations: most of the time it was one or two Badgers operating at a time, and they were too stubborn to take a squad with them.

“You ever think we’re too pig-headed sometimes?” She mumbled randomly through the comlink, no doubt confusing the hell out of Nar out of the blue. Thankfully, he found their way in by then and she quickly made her way over. As the door was weakened she drew a leg back and slammed it against the door, making it cave in. She ducked to the side, dodging the explosion from the grenade. Raz slowly peeked over, dismayed to see that there wasn’t anyone there.

After a moment, there was a soft rumble humming all around them. Raz looked at Nar with concern, “Are they….trying to fly this thing?” She looked around in a panic as they slowly began to inch upwards. They had seconds to dash into an inner chamber and seal off the doorway behind them.

“We need to get to the cockpit!”

 

[Narir Solus]

I know! he snapped as she said "any day now." This stupid torch was only cutting so quickly, and it wasn't quick enough! As he carved through, he was surprised by her question. Were they too stubborn? Of course they were, they were the Solus Badgers! Kriff yeah we are! We're badgers, and we're the toughest shabuire in the galaxy because of it, he said, suddenly feeling a rush of patriotism and pride in his Clan that was probably not what Raz was intending, but very much summed up why their clan was always so short of people in each battle.

Osik! he screamed after the grenade went off and the ship began to take off. He charged inward, pushing Raz along with him. As they cleared the threshold, he slammed his fist into the controls and the door slammed closed behind them, sealing with a long hisssssss.

He charged up to the cockpit, bursting in and slamming a fist into the head of one of the men piloting before shoving his blaster barrel into the man's gut and pulling the trigger. He fired two more times and the man slumped over before Narir pulled him out of his chair. He was confident that Raz would deal with the other one as he plopped down into the passenger's seat, letting the ship follow the coordinates that the pilots had punched into the navicomputer.

Not sure where this is, he mumbled as he looked at the controls, commenting on their destination. Let's find out! he said, optimistically undeterred as he reached to grab a pair of cigars. He was completely unfazed by the dead bodies and handed one of the cigars to Raz. Come on, let's do this, he said, lighting up before following up on her earlier comment. So... what's with the stubborn question? he asked.

 

[Raz Solus]

Raz sighed and shook her head as he entirely missed her point. However, he was far too energetic and excited for her to rain on his parade. It was actually a little endearing, and she couldn’t help but smile beneath the helmet. She followed him inside, sealing the door behind them so they were in no danger of getting sucked out. The Imperials were truly desperate to use this as a measure of avoiding a fight.

She burst into the cockpit along with Nar, letting him get to work as she spotted her own guy. She dragged him out of his chair and fired her pistol directly into the side of his head. Raz kicked the body aside and looked over to see Nar plopping down on the passenger seat, “Uh uh, mister, you’re piloting this thing. I’m not doing that,” She wasn’t exactly known for her piloting abilities and it was well known that she hated flying in general.

Raz was about to say something in protest as he casually handed her a cigar. In the end, she couldn’t think of a reason to say no and removed her helmet, lighting the cigar and taking a puff. She leaned back in the seat she took, glancing over at the terminal, “We should look for clues on where to track the shipments.”

She looked back at him curiously, surprised he was still lingering on the question, “Oh just… sometimes we are so brash. I worry about our brothers. I worry one of these days our brashness will wipe out the clan,” She sighed. She wasn’t worried about anything in specific, but she hoped her charging the Imperials would rally other Mandalorians to their cause.

For now, she said nothing, wondering where this journey would take them next.

//Thread