Log:Iridonia: Evade
The Jedi evacuate an enclave that had been stranded on Iridonia
OOC Date: August 16, 2023 (Optional)
Location: Iridonia
Participants: Galen Dawnstar, Zev, Rey and GM'd by Qutha Buvu Pah
Malidris was chaos, since the riots had escalated to armed conflict - a powder keg had been lit off that hadn't been helped by Imperial weapons having gotten into 'civilian' hands.
The fighting had been sporadic, the civil demonstrations were constant. Police and military forces had been worked beyond exhaustion and spread thin as if being dared by the rebellious populace to engage in even more vicious tactics. To emulate Palpatine's Empire. Arrests were constant where disobedient civilians refuse to disburse.
The guerilla attacks and the violence of them were inconsistent but each one a bloody exclamation point.
Now two full Jedi with a dozen young initiates were being hustled from a section of the city reserved for waste processing and reclamation. A zone forcing the hiding practitioners to make due in dangerous 'living' conditions that had been a temporary camp when the violence broke out. Then a bunker. Now a place they want to forget.
Their numbers had been twice what they are now before accidents, crossfire and disease from their surroundings had run through them.
Rushing down a side-street, cramped by close set buildings, with the echoes of the city in turmoil around them, they seek a clear path for the starport.
Situations of war were not one that Rey took lightly. Getting even IN to these kind of zones was a challenge, let alone surviving inside of them. With her hood up, her saber close to her side, Rey adjusted her satchel to hang just behind her left hip. Her eyes were sent back to the others with her, her voice filled with a clear and present level of caution.
"Be light footed. Keep your senses open. We need to be careful not to step long and stride our way in to traps." She states to the rest with her.
Rey's right hand went down to her left side, where her saber hilt was plucked up off her belt with a quiet clip of the latch being released.
She draws in a breath, reaching out with her mind to keep her sense about her, hoping the direction will continue to stay visible within her mind's eye.
There's a lot going on all at once. Zev had come along to try and help out however he could. He was still showing the wound from a few days prior on his head, but he was up and about and he could still move, and still help.
He follows along, hearing the advice from Rey, and nodding along, "If we don't draw attention we should be alright."
Galen's looking around the initiates that he's helping escort to safety and a quick glance towards Rey as they move towards the starport. A nod towards Zev, "I agree however lets be prepared for when that falls apart." His hand reaches down for his own saber leaving the hilt in his hand unlit as they hurry along prepared for whatever may come next.
"N'be ready t'try'n solve things any other way than sabers, if we kin he'p it..." Qutha was, as expected, with the youngest of the initiates. Several papoose set up to become slings for him to carry a pair of toddlers hands-free so he could tuck a five year old against his hip, allowing the teachers time without such physical burdens.
The children older than twelve were helping with some of the younger and the two adults were looking to Galen, Zev and Rey for what to do, exhaustion etched into their face tooled copper plates.
The side-street only seemed to grow darker as it stretched further onward, creating a false sense of depth for the sliver of light at the end. A sliver of light that would soon resolve itself to a street littered with debris, with slow moving banks of smoke from the slow approaching firefight roving some city blocks away but closing in distance.
"Not that we ain't possibly have the choice..." the Zelosian adds, looking forward into the gloom.
Rey's own saber doesn't ignite either, not yet, not without any clear danger facing down upon them. She looks down the way toward that sliver of light, toward the smoke wafting in a ghost-like fashion down the street ahead, then looks back to those with her.
"We just need to get back to our ships. Watch out for one another, trust in the Force, and we will be wrapped in warm blankets in a safe place very soon." She tells, specifically, the young ones.
Her eyes shoot back out to the directions available to them, and she nods toward something up ahead. "Come on, we can make our way across the rooftops. The buildings are close enough together, and linked by archways..." She thinks anyway. Many of these types of settlements do seem to follow that general architectural design element.
Rey scurries along in the shadow, moving toward a fire-escae, that she jumps up to to grab hold of the ladder with her metal left hand. She pulls on it, causing the ladder to descend down to a safe access level for them, and begins to motion everyone to climb.
"I'll see if I can spot the starport." Zev says, as he moves up towards one of the alleyways. He bounces up against a wall, scrabbles a little bit, then kicks off of it and jumps onto a ledge. Once he's able to steady himself, he gets up to the roof.
A moment later he comes over comms, <"I see the starport. We'd have to zig-zag around a bit to get there along the roofs, but it's better than trying to navigate without visuals."> There's a brief pause, as he gets down below a nearby vent for the building, <"Also someone or something is up here."> He turns around and starts looking for a way to lower something to the rest down below.
Galen points towards the fire escape that Rey has directed the group to use so they can all make it to the rooftops, "Quiet up the ladder then keep low. Don't go straight to the peak of the roof you'll make a bigger outline. Quiet and quickly now." When he hears the someone or something is up there from Zev he pauses a bit before he continues to usher the kids up the ladder.
"I want soup!"
A child's voice in the chaos, gently shushed by one of the older kids as a dozen pairs of eyes are on Rey before she leads them across the open spaces of the street - the whipcrack and scream of blaster fire threatening to get closer. With Galen and Qutha picking up the rear to get the kids up the ladder to the hands of their minders.
"Is it far?" "I'm tired!"
Finally up with kids hanging from him, Qutha sighs as he looks about, trying to see what Zev had mentioned.
A flash of crimson is spotted at distance, at roof level. In opposing direction muted tones and motion. The violence in the streets continues to escalate and the whine of repulsors dopplers past, below, mixed with weapons fire and then the unmistakable clatter and crunch of a Walker moving down the street in pursuit.
Nothing can ever be simple.
Rey exhales softly when there comes the signal of something or someone already being up on the roof. "Stay out of sight." Rey says back up to Zev before she looks to the others still on the ground. "Wait one moment. Do not wander off." She warns them, ignoring the children's complaints for now, as moving quicker is the only way to truly answer them.
Rey steadies herself for just a moment before she takes a pair of quick steps, then leaps. With the aid of the Force as her ally, Rey exceeds any natural Human's ability to get quite that vertical, and with a soft rush of her clothing's fabric, she lands upon the edge of the roof above. Taking a step forward, her eyes begin to search it's contents, as she steps past where Zev was. In situations like this, Rey wanted herself to be the first one seen, if any of them were going to be seen. She wanted all the danger to fall down upon her, idealy, before it would go to any of her people. Zev was already injured still, afterall.
With her hand slightly sweaty, clenching her saber, Rey scans the rooftops. She is soon to find a glimpse of Sith soldiers across the roofs, but still within the ability to see them if they looked this way. She sees some civilians moving stealthily along another rooftop. Rey releases a huff before she looks back over the edge. "Come along, keep coming. We have to be sneaky once you're up here. Just like when we're playing Hide and Seek." She tells the children, though the older ones will likely pick up on there being impending dangers.
As Galen settles onto the roof with the kids and the other Jedi he looks around quickly keeping low along the roofs before he blinks just a bit, "Oh... Keep moving more towards the right through here please." He motions with his head towards some roofs off to the left, "Looks like trouble to the left there firebombs gonna get hurled soon down towards the street I think."
Zev helps get the kids up onto the roof, and then makes sure they're all settled in. Once he spots Rey jump off to another roof, he moves up to the edge of the one she jumped from. He doesn't follow across, keeping an eye down on the street below, and more importantly that walker. Those things can't look up, right?
"Is that like seek and find?"
"It's exactly like that."
"Shusha..." leaving Rey and Galen to scout, Qutha begins moving low and scootching onward, trying to make passage in the direction of the starport. The lot of them herded from cover point to cover point. Seeking to keep out of sight as they look for the path from one roof to the next.
In a moment there is a sound that is pure emotion from an Iridonian followed by a crashing sound and the unmistakable growling thump of flames bursting to life. The activity stirring the crimson armored figures getting closer.
It's a shame Zev got a little too close to that ledge, because one of the red armored figures seems to have spotted him. He does his best to duck back down behind a vent, hopefully they'll think it was just a shadow and they'll move on.
Galen continues to move along with the others keeping low and out of sight however he's not quite able to keep quiet knocking a can and bottle over as he goes along the rooftop, "Keep an eye out for those throwin firebombs. They could draw some attention our way as well."
The children, their minders and Qutha move with Rey still, avoiding sight and evading making noise, the lot of them trying to keep under general cover as they edge towards one rooftop path and then to the next. Their passage marked by the rattle of glass and aluminum from sources close to their position.
The noise of it enough to turn helmeted heads and focusing pitiless black lenses on the cool blue fur of the lepi standing out in their pack.
<"You there!">
A blaster rifle is raised and two of the trooper heads peer over the ledge to the burning flames below. At the peace keeper vehicle abandoned by its crew to find something to put the flames out.
<"HALT!">
Rey's eyes were scanning the debris on the roofs, knowing full well that sneaking up here itself was a challenge all alone. When she heard some of the others triking the debris, she knew they were evidently going to be in trouble in a matter of mere moments.
That trouble was soon arriving, as her eyes caught the look of Sith Troopers turning their way. She heard their commands, she saw their rifles raising, and she dropped to one knee...
Rey's right hand shoots out, her fingers spread wide, and with a thrust of her mind's attachment to the flowing energies of the Force around them, Rey summons a telekinetic wave that she sends across the rooftops!
The blast hits the entire line of troopers, sending their red armored bodies flailing as they're cast over the edges of the roof they were perched upon! One after the other, arms and legs wildly responding to the blast of energy... they disappear.
Rey drops her hand to her side then, her eyes going back to the children. "Keep moving." She softly tells them.
Oh no. The troopers have him lined up, Zev slowly raises his hands up, getting ready to try to talk his way out of it, or at the very least get into a fight. Then all the troopers are gone. His head tilts in confusion for a second, before he looks over to Rey. He's lost count how many times she's saved his fuzzy behind.
He quickly gets caught back up to the group, "Thank you, Rey." He says, once he's within earshot, slowing his run to keep up with them, "Gotta work on hiding behind things better I think."
Galen sighs as he kicks over some cans but when the troopers sight in on the group his saber starts to come out his stance shifting to move from a stealthy one towards a more defensive until Rey's actions send the troopers over the edge... "Well time to move then." Shifting gears once again he moves to keep up with the others, "You work on the hiding better and I'll work on keeping quieter. I think I drew their attention towards us and you were the visible one sorry."
The staccato impacts of armored figures far below is lost when the Jedi begin moving at speed.
Robes, rags and loose clothing flying out behind them as the opportunity for expedience is presented to the lot of them. The Zelosian accepting others being willing to engage in conflict while the more pacifistic Qutha takes the opportunity to heft up his charges and begin moving.
Several of the children and their minders doing likewise to start a full tilt rush for the star port across the roof tops. The madness of a city at war with itself rising up to meet the moving figures on their path for, relative, safety.
Above the mid-day sky erupts as crimson TIE craft scream past, chasing towards a rising column of smoke from closer to the city center.
"Thank me by continuing to focus on your training!" Rey loud-whispers back to Zev as she looks back to Galen to see him keeping up as well. "We're almost there... keep going!" She points to the next archway that they all need to rush across, their forms scurrying individually over the large duracrete expanse that connects the structures together.
When the TIEs scream overhead, Rey motions for everyone to pause, and she drops to one knee to watch the crimson hued ships.
She takes in another breath, then looks to the group. "Okay, this is the home stretch. Everyone... run as fast as you can. Follow the quickest of us, and we'll be in the stars within moments." She states, her mechanical hand touching one of the children's shoulders lightly before she says. "Go, go now!"
And then she's off too, right behind the slowest of the bunch.
Zev is booking it as best he can, finally feeling a lot more steady as he moves across the rooftops towards the light of the starport and the safety of the ships.
As he moves along, he starts to jump and hop over obstacles, nearing the front of the pack, "You heard her, nearly there!" Just one final push and they'll be home free.
Galen continues to run with his wards offering assistance past little obstacles in their path as he points towards the starport, "Almost there. Keep up the good work and then you can rest." His gaze does occasionally move towards that TIE flying overhead.
The skyline and shapes of Iridonian rooftops blur past as the figures when they run. Children corralled by adults in the winding path over the heads of the citizens huddling inside of their homes. Over the heads of those planning to join the frays that erupt and disappear from the streets.
Air speeders modified by insurgents shriek overhead, a desperate challenge for the Imperial fighters that they throw plasma fire at haphazardly before angling off. A wild gamble? A distraction?
It's unclear.
But at last the path leads to where the Jedi can leap to a raised causeway, overlooking the edges of the starport that is a flood of bodies that the Sith are trying to hold back. Leaving gaps to be exploited.
Gaps further expanded by the ships taking off and splitting Imperial attention.
