Nightshade: Return to Karvis III

[Nightshade]

Zero hour was almost upon him, and the Shinobi knew that he would have to make a move now to disrupt these troops as much as he could before the rebels arrived, since he could see no safe way to contact them and advise them of the waiting ambush. 

Keeping a weather eye on the monitors he waited for the first sounds of the attack to start before moving.  His plan was to pop two of his smoke grenades, one at the barricade on the right and the other on the barricade at the bottom.  Trusting to his gear to help him make out targets in the smoke, he planned to fire one neural dart at the right most trooper at the bottom barricade before rushing the ones on the right to close to melee distance and dispatch them both.  He knew that he would need the blessing of the Ancestors to pull off something so audacious, but he also felt that this was the best way to disrupt the ambush and protect his people of interest. 

A few deep, calming breaths to steady the adrenaline already starting to course in anticipation and he coiled his muscles, ready to spring and strike.

Actions: as described with one sword attack to each trooper on the right.  Seems like a good time for the FP. 

[GM Craig]

While Nightsahde is planning tactics, a light starts flashing on what appears to be a communications console. The light is accompanied by an audible alert.

*beep beep*
*beep beep*

[Nightshade]

A less emotionally controlled person would be cursing up a storm at the interruption, but Nightshade knew that he would have to act fast before the noise drew the attention of the troopers.  Unless he could find some easy way to stop the beeping he would jump into action immediately with his plan while he could still claim any element of surprise.

[GM Craig]

[OOC: The beeping indicates an incoming call. You could answer it to silence the beeps. Or strike now.]

[GM Craig]

Nightshade scans the console quickly, and finds a "silence" button. Stabbing it, the beeping stops.

Good enough for now.

[Nightshade]

With the call silenced, the time to strike was now.  Especially if the attack at the front end gets called off, then a clear escape route might become essential.

Actions: Attack! For Pony!

[GM Craig]

Nightshade takes a deep, centring breath. Saying a quick prayer to his ancestors, he bursts into motion.

As he rises from behind the console, his arm is already throwing two grenades. They land not exactly where he wanted, but pretty close. They burst into clouds of smoke, which should provide some cover. He levels his other arm at the closest trooper, and launches a neural dart. The dart hits the trooper in the neck, and he twitches and starts to go down.

As Nightshade fires his dart, one of the troopers behind the far barricade swings his rifle around at Nightshade, spots him, and fires. With the partial smoke interfering, and Nightshade's partial cover, the shot misses.

A trooper at the far end of the bottom barricade also spots Nightshade and raises his rifle to fire, but the shot also goes wide thanks to the smoke and partial cover.

Nightshade vaults over the barricade and starts a sprint to the right side ambush point. As he srpints, three more troopers open fire. Their shots come dangerously close, in two cases actually singing parts of Nightshades gear, but thankfully the smoke helped throw off their aim just enough.

With both targets within range, Nightshade whips out his vibroblades, and attacks. Both troopers bring their rifles out to block the strikes, but Nightshade (barely) manages to get past their defences. Both troopers stagger back, wounded but still in the fight.

[Actions?]

The very near misses on your run caused cosmetic damage only.

Name	Status
Nightshade	-
Intel Trooper #2	wounded
Intel Trooper #4	-
Intel Trooper #3	-
Intel Trooper #6	stunned 1d6 minutes
Intel Trooper #7	-
Intel Trooper #1	wounded
Intel Trooper #8	-
Intel Trooper #5	-

[Nightshade]

Now was the time to press the attack.  Nightshade had to get these two out of the fight for good before the other five still standing had a chance to regroup and push their numerical superiority. 

Looking to make a move to put one enemy between him and the other, he lashed out twice with his blades as he drove forward.  He wanted to use the soon to be corpse to push the second enemy off balance as he moved to hit him with a third strike.

Actions: two melee attacks at first enemy, one at second.

[GM Craig]

Nightshade is under pressure. A hail of blaster bolts lash out at him, and he is forces to dodge and roll to avoid them. The smoke, and the barricade certainly help, and he managed to avoid 5 shots, popping up beside his first target trooper. Nightshade lashes out with both blades at the first trooper, two scissoring slashes from each direction. The trooper catches the low slash with his rifle, but the upper slash is unopposed. In a moment that fight as over, as the trooper's head arcs spinning through the air. His body stands for a moment before it collapses to it's knees and falls over, a fountain of blood spouting out of the neck.

Nightshade has no time to savour the victor, and has to immediately duck and dodge more blaster fire. He manages to stay untagged, and pops up beside his second target with a full arm thrust, with the flat of the blade parallel to the ground. Nightshade evades the attempted block with the rifle, and catches the trooper between the fourth and fifth rib. The trooper stiffens, and slides off Nigthshade's blade.

Two down, six more to go.

[Actions?]

Name	Status
Intel Trooper #2	dead
Intel Trooper #4	-
Intel Trooper #6	stunned 1d6 minutes
Intel Trooper #5	-
Intel Trooper #3	-
Intel Trooper #7	-
Nightshade	-
Intel Trooper #1	mortally wounded
Intel Trooper #8	-

[GM Craig]

*** Cutscene ***

Command Shuttle CJ-207
On approach to Amarin strike point

"Lieutenant. All teams reporting ready, except Besh. I cannot raise them on the comlink."

The Lieutenant narrowed his eyes, working through a rapid risk assessment. Things had been going well for months, ever since the destruction of the rebel headquarters. Those free-agents that has been making life difficult were gone from the area. But that should not make him complacent. The ambush at the rebel exit point was a key safety valve if the frontal assault failed to catch them all.

"Ensign, change orders. Re-route shuttle BH-996 the Besh objective. The platoon is to secure the building. Weapons free, watch for friendlies, kill anything not giving the counter-phrase. Remind them I want some prisoners. Give all other units the 'go' code."

"Yes, sir."

The Lieutenant leaned into the cockpit. "Pilot, re-route to point Besh. Set us down on the roof. Linger for air support." Without responding, the pilot nodded banked the command shuttle to the right.

The Lieutenant then went to the troop bay of the command shuttle. "Sergeant, I'm following a hunch. Prepare for deployment. We're coming in from the roof. There will be a platoon assaulting from the exterior, so check your targets."

The Sergeant saluted. "Yes, sir," and smartly went down the line to pass the word.

This may be nothing. A faulty comlink. However, in his risk assessment, the loss of a platoon was not going to significantly impact the frontal assault. However the loss of team Besh could allow the rebels to escape entirely, which was unacceptable.

The Lieutenant checked his weapon, and strapped himself in to his jumpseat.

[Nightshade]

Nightshade mentally decides to spend some time with a blaster when he has opportunity again.  He makes a quick check over the dead troopers to see if they have any grenades on them before deciding on his next move.

[GM Craig]

Nightshade is not the only one thinking of grenades. As he crouches down to search the first trooper, one of the troopers lobs something. It falls short, hitting the barricade Nightshade is hiding behind. Immediately after there is an ear-splitting concussion, and a burst of flames and light. The barricade moves a full meter, shoving Nightshade and the two troopers with it like the scoop of a bulldozer.

Shaken but unhurt, Nightshade catches movement out of the corner of his eye as one of the troopers runs to a flanking position behind Nightshade.

Another grenades lands a couple of meters from Nightshade. With few options, he grabs the body he had been intending on searching first, and twists, rolling the body on top of himself. Continuing the roll, Nightshade effectively smothers the grenade with the body. There is a *crump* sound, and Nightshade is kicked free from the body flying up a few centimeters, but the blast was contained.

Another grenade lands between you and the trooper trying to flank you. You dive to the deck just as the grenade goes off. It was far enough away that you are able to shake off the effects of the blast. Through the swirling smoke, you the trooper raising his rifle is also unhurt.

You hands quickly cover the headless body of the trooper and find two grenades clipped to his belt. You liberate those and crab to the second body.

As you reach the second body, you spot a second trooper appear out of the smoke near where the techs had been operating. The two techs effectively have you in a crossfire. You can admire their tactics and training, even as you contemplate the difficult situation you find yourself in.

The two troopers fire. You roll to the side, and watch as one shot flies between your feet, and other passes between your left side and your arm. You catch the mortally wounded trooper's body to stop your roll and go a quick search, coming up with 2 more concussion grenades.

[Actions?]

Name	Status
Intel Trooper #4	-
Intel Trooper #8	-
Intel Trooper #5	-
Intel Trooper #3	-
Nightshade	-
Intel Trooper #7	-
Intel Trooper #6	stunned 1d6 minutes
Intel Trooper #2	dead
Intel Trooper #1	mortally wounded

[Nightshade]

The Ancestors were showing him a large amount of favor, Nightshade realized.  In a stroke of pure serendipity, he found four grenades and he had four targets! 

It was time for last ditch efforts...he had to clear this place before either the rebels or reinforcements arrived.  Taking the briefest of centering breaths he sprang into action one more time like an uncoiled spring.  One grenade was lobbed at each of the soldiers nearest to him before he vaulted over the barricade and tossed another pair at the two remaining groups of troopers. 

At this point he was looking for cover...preferably using the grapple to get back up a floor, but failing that, an all out run towards the lift and as much distance between himself and the troopers as he could muster.  He hoped that they would be too busy dodging hot shrapnel to get an accurate bead on him.

Actions: FP, toss one grenade at each set of targets on the map, try to disappear.

[GM Craig]

The troopers appear to have the drop on you. The one near the external wall fires first. One of the troopers at the far end of the bottom barricade breaks to the right to get a clear field of fire, dropping to a knee in the clear and drawing a bead. Then Nightshade palms a grenade in each hand, flinging them in exact opposite directions at the two closest troopers. The first grenades heading north lands a couple of meters beyond the target. It goes off, but the trooper appears none the worse for wear, having executed a forward roll to clear the blast radius. The southern trooper has the grenade land a meter in front of him. The grenade goes off, and when the smoke clears that trooper has taken a knee and is coughing. Other than scuffs and soot on his armour, he appears more shaken up than hurt.

The other trooper at the far end of the bottom barricade moves forward, trying to get a clean firing angle, and raises his rifle to his shoulder.

The trooper by the barricade takes a shot at Nightshade. The shot grazes Nightshade's suit on the shoulder. No damage, but it was a very close thing.

Nightshade then leaps into a forward roll, coming up almost in the face with one of the troopers. Too close for a grenade, he ignores that one and flings his arms out at the remaining two troopers. Both grenades land at the feet of the troopers and explode. Both troopers are thrown to the ground from the blast. They groan and roll back and forth, but are effectively out of this fight. Also caught in the blast was the trooper hit with the neural dart. He is thrown like a rag doll and slams into the tech barricade. He is not groaning.

Nightshade then extends his arm and fires the grapple. It connects with the support beam over the raised walkway. A moment later, he flies into the air. It is not graceful - he collides with the safety rail, but manages to topple over to land prone on the grating floor with an audible thump. Not exactly a vanishing act, but he has some cover for the moment.

[Actions?]

Name	Status
Intel Trooper #8	-
Intel Trooper #3	incapacitated
Nightshade	-
Intel Trooper #4	-
Intel Trooper #7	stun
Intel Trooper #5	incapacitated
Intel Trooper #6	mortally wounded
Intel Trooper #2	dead
Intel Trooper #1	mortally wounded

[Nightshade]

Nightshade recovered as quickly as he could and started rolling to his feet to the left.  It was time to formulate a new plan of attack for the three troopers that remained.  He looked for a dark corner, or some other feature that would let him take up the cloak of the shadows once again to wait for a time to strike.

Actions: Find a way to go stealth again if possible.  Willing to move up another level if that helps.