Collan and Niil: Rescue on Chabosh

[Niil Spaar]

Niil snagged a pair of headlamps, the tool kit and the lift hook and headed over to the lift where Colllan waited.  "The panel's just a monitoring station, but the power generator is below."  He pointed a finger at the hatch on the floor, donned one of the headlamps and handed another to Collan.  "I'm going to check the hatch to see if it isn't wired first, and then I'll try and pry it open.  I might need a hand heaving it open, though."

With that, Niil hunkered down with the lift hook in hand and closely examined the hatch.


(OOC:  Examine the hatch first to see if it has any booby-traps.  If not, try and pry the hatch up about an inch and check again.)

[Collan]

Collan put on one of the headlamps as well and followed Niil over.

“Hopefully, there’s transpo down there. I’d hate for this to be a wasted trip.”

[Niil Spaar]

Niil snorted as he checked out the seam to the hatch.  "You and me both.  I'm not that bad at driving repulsor vehicles, but shuttles?  Fighters?"  He shook his head in self-disgust.  "The Old Man was right," he muttered, referring to General Kota.  "There's a drek-load of skills I need to bone up on, and quickly.  My technical and mechanical knowledge are both crud, and that's a dangerous liability in our field."

[GM Craig]

You pop open the hatch with the puller, and see the top rungs of a ladder descending below you into the dark. There's a few glints of reflection down there, about 30m. Your headlamps don't reach far enough down to light anything, but the ladder looks sturdy enough. It is recessed into the wall of the lift shaft.

You climb down, and the air gets noticeably colder as you descend. Finally you reach the bottom. According to the diagrams, main power should be off to your left. Your headlamps reveal a large machine shop, or perhaps a garage. There is a large vehicle off to one side, a powered down repulsor truck of some kind. There are lots of other shapes in the gloom - mostly storage crates and equipment shelves, but there are a couple of things covered by tarps.

Niil heads over and find the main power generator. It takes a couple of minutes, but in short order the generator is activated. Slowly, overhead lighting comes on, and you get a first good look at the area. The repulsor truck in front of you looks to be serviceable - there is no obvious damage, and it is not in pieces or anything. The rest of the room is filled with what appears to be farming equipment. There are a few powered down labour droids against one wall, and several pieces of speeders bikes and swoops in various states of disassembly.

Collan goes to one of the tarps and has a peek underneath. He lets out a whistle, and pulls the tarp off. Beneath is a very well cared for swoop bike. The basic design follows the standard swoop philosophy of a chair mounted on a massive engine, but this bike has a stylish pain job as well. A quick check confirms the other tarp covers another swoop bike, this one only half-painted.

[Niil Spaar]

Niil turned at Collan's low whistle, and found himself echoing his friend's expression of appreciation.  Even from his untrained eye, the two swoops screamed the word POWER.  Strap a seat and a set of controls to an overpowered repulsor engine and shoe-horn an ion-engine afterburner in the arse, and you had a grotesquely fast hover bike that accelerated like a TIE fighter and cornered like a terrified womp-rat. 

Niil shook his head; driving repulsor trucks, landspeeders and even speeder bikes was one thing, but swoops required another class of driver altogether.  Niil was sure that he could handle one if he drove it at relatively low speed, but if he cracked the throttle open and had to do some high-speed maneuvering, he'd likely turn himself into a red smear on the plain or against some canyon wall.  Still, perhaps someone back at the camp had the skill to handle these beasts.

He walked around to the back of the hover truck, eyed the cargo bed, and looked back at the two swoops.  "Collan . . . think we could get those two swoops loaded into the back of this truck?"


(OOC:  Would one or both of these swoops fit into the cargo bay of the truck?)

[Collan]

“I believe gamblers will call this jackpot,” Collan said, “We better hurry as my gut tells me that the holder here probably knows or will know shortly that we are here.”

He took a look at the swoops.

"We should try to get at least one of these onto the back and any power supplies that we can as well. If we can make this move quickly, we should."

[OOC: how long to assess if the truck and swoops are operational and to load them to get out of there?]

[GM Craig]

[OOC: Sorry guys. I suck. On the plus side, the new job is working out very well. The downside is that I don't have reliable internet access from work anymore.]

It'll just take a few minutes to assess the swoops. Loading them and getting them out would take a little more time, depending on how you want to transport them.

You might be able to fit two, but it would be a little like a game of tetris.

[Niil Spaar]

(OOC:  No prob.  Great White Northerners are used to loading 2 snowmobiles on the back of a pickup truck.   )


Niil cocked his head to the side as he alternated his attention between the truck and the swoops, and nodded to himself.  "We're going to need something to serve as a ramp to get the swoops on to the truck and some rope or bungee cords to secure them . . . maybe the cargo lift? . . . but I think we can get both of them on the truck.  Once we activate the swoop's repulsor, all we have to do is push it on to the truck and turn it sideways.  Rest the arse end down in the bed, and have the forks stick out over the other side."

He thought about that for a moment, then shrugged.  "Or . . . if there's enough room . . . put one in butt-end first and the second one along side it nose first."

[Collan]

"Let's do that," Collan agreed. He wanted to be gone quickly at this point. It was past time to move out; especially since it was easier to offer plausible deniability for the holder if the holder thought everything was stolen to begin with. Of course, it could also sour him/her/it on the Rebellion too...but that was a concern for down the line. They'd have to make a record to reimburse whoever lived here when they could.

"Even if we get only one, we could use it as a missile or distraction," Collan noted, "If we can get them on fast, let's take both..."

[Niil Spaar]

Niil nodded.  "Let's move the fully painted swoop on first.  I'm guessing it's race ready, so it should give us the least trouble."

[GM Craig]

It's pretty heavy going. The swoop's thrusters are way too powerful and touchy to be of any help in manoeuvring it, but the repulsors can support a 5 meter gravity column, so it should be workable. With a great deal of sweat and exertion, you manage to wrestle the first swoop into position. It's going to be a tight fit, and there may be a little cosmetic damage, but you should be able to get both swoops in the back. You'll need to take the second to the limits of the repulsors and settle it down into position from above.

It's easily 30 minutes work, and you're both exhausted, but you finally manage to wedge the second swoop into the back of the truck before finally taking a break to lean against the hull of the truck to catch your breath.

There's a few fuel cells in the shop for the swoops, which might come in handy. Other than that, it's mission accomplished. Well, this first step accomplished anyway.

[Niil Spaar]

Niil felt regret at stealing the truck and swoops from the owners, but he had to take comfort in the fact that the vehicles would likely help a great deal with the evacuation of Vessen's people and the medics.

He wiped sweat from his brow as he tightened the last strap holding the swoops in place on the truck's bed.  "Karabast!  I think it would've been easier to load a stubborn nerf than these racers," he chuckled.  "Let's snag whatever fuel cells we can stuff in the back and get going.  I don't want to be in the general vicinity when the owners show up."

[Collan]

Collan wiped the sweat off his brow. At this point he wished for a great big glass of Corellian ale. Tired. Hot. Sweaty. His body wanted a break but he needed to keep going.

"Yeah...let's grab what we can and go. I'm hoping we were quiet enough but I keep getting a bad feeling. I'm probably just paranoid. You know? It's been too easy so far," he noted to Niil, "Surely we'd have tripped an alarm by now."

He shook his head but reached out into the Force. He took a moment to set himself and get a feel for it.

[Danger Sense...take an extra round]

[GM Craig]

Collan's awareness expands. There is a generalized sense of danger, probably from the ongoing fighting on the planet, but nothing immediate.

[Are you keeping it up?]

You activate the lift, and the old mechanism creaks and shudders before slowly climbing to the top level. As it nears, the doors open, and the lift comes to rest at the ground level.

So far, so good.

[Actions?]

[Collan]

[Yes...keeping it up for now]

"Niil...how good are you are security stuff? We should probably make sure there's no security features on this like tracking or alarms," Collan asked, "It's been so easy so far and that's just not how things go for us."