On the Wrong Side of the Line (CONTINUED)

[Master Buggie]

Continued from:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/sithlor ... html#p9423

Where we last left off:

The ship rocked violently as a flurry of reinforcing boarding pods slammed into the hull, depositing alliance marines into various sections of the ship. Alarms blared as security teams struggled to contain the mayhem, and engineers rushed about trying their best to minimize damage. Vek and his team dutifully guarded the shield generator, when he received an alert on his security interface that the bridge was in danger of eminent attack. Sighing, Vek turned to his team. "You two stay here. You-*he pointed*- come with me. We need to defend the bridge." Vek and the storm commando sprinted back the way they came, leaving the remaining two gaurding either side of the room.

[Master Buggie]

Buggie's senses detected movement, and his spirits rose considerably as the officer and two of his troopers ran off, apparently to help defend the bridge. The tremors that had reverberated throughout the vessel had no doubt been the impact of more boarding pods slamming into the Imperial cruiser. It seemed, at least for the moment, that the Alliance attack was not only gaining a foothold; it was threatening to overrun the Imperials stationed on the ship! Anything Buggie could do now to keep the momentum of the Alliance assault in his allies' favor would help to end this conflict and, with hope, force the surrender of the Imperial soldiers and the recovery of any data related to what the Imperials were doing at the edge of Alliance space.

Falling into the Force, Buggie reached out and touched the aura of each of the Storm Commandos that guarded the shield generator. As the Force penetrated their minds, he could feel their sense of urgency, their sense of alarm. From their perspective, the Alliance had their backs against the wall. They needed to fight, to claw with every ounce of energy left in them, to defend themselves. These men did not want to spend the rest of the war in a prison camp, that much was clear.

Buggie had felt enough to know their state of mind. Now, it was time to reach within each of the men and evoke something else entirely. With the lightest touch of the Force, Buggie inflamed the inner ears of each of the men, causing a sudden, debilitating loss of balance and sensation of nausea. The men collapsed, retching into their helmets.

Satisfied with his work, Buggie rose from behind one of the consoles of the engineering bay and strode toward the main shield generator. The time had come to end this skirmish in decisive fashion.

[Vek Terceron]

Vek and the storm commando who was with him listened to the conversation that was going on in the bridge as the surviving officers were corralled and the boarders gloated over their victory. They were too late. To make matters worse, the shields had gone down a short time ago. Vek bad no idea how much of the crew of the Epee' remained, but it was painfully clear the battle was lost. The storm commando next to him looked in his direction, and Vek nodded somberly. There was only one thing left to do.... this ship would not be an alliance prize today, or any other. Without a word, Vek used his portable security interface to signal the ships computer to give warning to abandon ship, then the pair set off in the direction of the armory, where there should be plenty of explosives.

[Master Buggie]

Buggie reached the outer perimeter of the main shield generator, and there he saw that the system had been overloaded and was struggling to maintain function against the Alliance assault. From this Buggie deduced that the shields had reached critical levels and that must have been why the officer and the other Storm Commandos that accompanied him had deemed defending the shield generator a lost cause. Still, the fact that the officer had posted two Storm Commandos to remain behind to defend the shield generator meant that it must have yet held some value. With the battle raging elsewhere on the ship, Buggie knew that every Imperial soldier, particularly those of the Storm Commando variety, was essential to the defense of the ship. If the Storm Commandos were meant to defend the shield generator, perhaps it was still possible that energy could be shunted from other systems around the vessel to bolster the shields.

Having brought no explosives with which to destroy the shield generator, Buggie found that the Storm Commandos that writhed on the deck plating had sufficient explosives to carry out his objective. The men were nearly unconscious when he approached, which was fortunate, as the danger of them activating a thermal detonator to destroy them all was certainly possible. Buggie carefully removed a bandoleer of thermal detonators from each of the Storm Commandos and set to work activating them around the shield generator. After the timers had been set, Buggie looked upon the prone soldiers. Dragging them outside the blast doors and into the corridor would take time, but it meant that they would not be needlessly killed by the detonation. There was time before the detonators went off, and prisoners were valuable...

By the time that Buggie had begun dragging out the second Storm Commando, his comlink buzzed with an update from one of the Alliance boarders. The Imperials were falling back to the bridge and Alliance forces were attempting to break past any perimeters that the Imperials attempted to establish. This news seemingly floated past Buggie, who was preoccupied with the Storm Commandos, and the potential danger that the Imperial retreat spelled did not take hold.

It wasn't until the signal to abandon ship went out that the weight of the oncoming danger hit Buggie; the Imperials were likely going to flee and enact a self-destruct protocol aboard the vessel. It was impossible for the Imperials to believe that the Alliance would destroy the vessel themselves with so many of their soldiers aboard. Their decision was clear; the Imperials would flee before being taken prisoner, and they would destroy any value, information, or prisoners that might come from the captured Strike-class cruiser. The Alliance forces aboard the ship would be caught in the resulting explosion, unless the Imperials could be stopped.

"This is Master Buggie," Buggie called to the Alliance forces over his comlink, "I have reason to believe the Empire is enacting a self-destruct protocol aboard this vessel. I'm heading toward the armory to neutralize any explosives aboard this vessel. Send any available squad!"

[Vek Terceron]

Vek and his companion arrived at the armory, somewhat battle scarred from the trip but otherwise ready for action. They had fortunately been able to use their intimate knowledge of the ships layout to evade the worst of the alliance boarders, but they had still encountered some resistance along the way. Punching his security code into the panel, they stepped inside. The walls were lined with racks of E-11s, personal shield generator's, and most importantly, powerful det-packs. Placed in crucial points around the ship, they would be enough to put a damper on the alliances victory. Strapping on spare bandoliers from the armory and loading up with as many explosives as they could carry, they turned to exit, but Vek stopped suddenly... he a got strange feeling, one he had felt so often when something was wrong. Trusting in his instinct, he quietly signaled to the commando, and they set a charge on the armories remaining explosives, and took up a defensive position behind the crates, weapons trained at door. Vek also programmed his wrist computer to detonate the explosives if it detected his heart stopping... just in case.