Buoy was looking up, trying to catch a better view of where these shadows were coming from. He almost opens coms when Saddle and Graphite arrive. Flinches, but only a little, and turns to face the newcomers, standing at attention when seeing Saddle.
“Sir! Glad to see you made it. The Captain and others have yet to arrive, but we might have problems.” Buoy says, looking back towards where he saw the shadows.
“Gh … Thank you … s-” His voice was shaky and hoarse, distracted, like-
Graphite bent over, ripping off his helmet, and spat out a splatter of blackened phlegm and saliva. Clone helmets had filters, but buried under three feet of rubble could be considered an extenuating circumstance. He stood again, wiping his mouth with a self-disgusted sneer.
“Augh. Thank you, sir." The clone’s rank had never been quite clear to Graphite, but he felt it would definitely be disrespectful to call him by his name … if he could even remember it. He turned away from Saddle and spat out another glob of the sickeningly colored saliva, and then re-donned his helmet. He was shaking with adrenaline now, and it showed in his voice.
He took a few slightly unstable steps in the direction he thought was the hangar, and then paused to survey the debris of the medical gear that he had been trapped under. He knelt to collect some of it into a larger backpack, and then followed Saddle to the rendezvous. On the way, he would pause to collect weaponry from two corpses of his fallen brothers.
Graphite looked out at the jungle, scanning the treetops for the advancing droids that Buoy spoke of. “We should notify the Captain, though it might be wise to take cover. If the Separatists find out there are survivors, this place and the jungle will be crawling with droids in minutes … if it isn’t already.”
Stepping back some feet, Quips sprinted towards the elevator, colliding with the cut out chunk of roof, and while it budged a fair bit more then when Tesz attempted to push it out, it still refused to give in. Perhaps a beam from the inside of the elevator came loose and was keeping it in place. Looking around under the faint glow of the elevator, Quips saw a large, metal beam. He attempted to lift it up, but to no avail.
“Hey Bravebird, a little help here?” @TheCobaltCorsair
The two clones, metal beam in hand, took some steps back, then charged at their target, forcing the chunk of roof to bend up, but it still wasn’t enough. They repeated the process, forcing the roof up even more. With one final ram, they forced the janky metal circle into the elevator, providing the group with their entrance.
A large, dented gash greeted them on the other side of the elevator’s roof. Luckily, the crash seemed to have already taken care of the floor.
Tesz hurriedly stepped through both holes in the elevator, igniting her lightsaber on the other side for light. She was greeted by an upward facing hole in the ceiling a few yards away that, judging by all of the twisted debris and bodies, used to be the main hallway leading toward the other Bridge’s elevator. There was enough ruble on the ground that the group would easily be able to reach the hole, but traversing the now vertical hallway the rest of the way up could prove a challenge.
(@Ghid@Brickbot99@TheCobaltCorsair )
Duke stepped out into the hall, motioning for Legacy, Rook, and Boomstick to follow as he began a hurried, and painful, jog toward the end of the ship.
(@wild_toa@N01InParticular@GoodGuy2006 )
Buoy, Saddle, and Graphite would soon have any suspicions confirmed as a loud humming sound vibrated into earshot, and three vulture droids arced down, zooming past the clone’s position before circling around and doubling back at about 300 yards in the air.
(@ajtazt@Keplers@Winger )
Wannabe vaulted through the holes in the elevator, immediately dropping to one knee next to the largest pile of bodies. It didn’t seem to be empathy which drew his attention, as his eyes spent only a couple seconds on each corpse before jumping to the next, and the next…
“How shall we ascend?” Wannabe asked, unable to look directly upwards due to the design of his neck.
Before he got a chance to respond to Graphite, the vultures were soon upon them. If Buoy managed to make any sort of defensive cover before the droids came, he tries to hide behind that. Otherwise, he follows Saddle’s approached and just drives behind random debris. If there isn’t enough for all that, just falls over and pretends to be dead, hoping that works well enough.
Once the droids turn back, he opens up coms.
“Captain, this is CT-8604, Vulture Droids are patrolling the area. Might have been spotted. Front unsafe, please advise.”
Graphite was already moving towards cover when he was first notified of the droids. Now, as they passed overhead, he did his best to get entirely out of the sight of the droids’ photoelectric eyes - and their possible infrared sensors.
“Copy that soldier. Stay down and avoid engagement, we’ll be on our way.” Duke said over the comms before turning to Rook and Legacy.
“Double time men, we have eyes on droids.” The captain said grimly, quickening his pace.
Two of the three Vulture droids peeled off to presumably search the rest of the ship, while the remaining fighter circled the general area at the front of the ship. If the droid had spotted the clones, it wasn’t making it obvious…
Tesz glanced up into the vertical hallway, frantically scanning for anything they could use. In addition to some think sheets of metal beneath them, there were a few dangling wires hanging out of some damaged side panels farther up the hall that could be of use, as well as some exposed structural beams running halfway up the corridor’s side in a ladder like pattern. (@Brickbot99@TheCobaltCorsair )
Saddle sighs. “Would be nice if one of us had an RPS. Guess we’ll have to wait for the others to bring one. Hopefully the droid will just leave by then.”
Graphite paused, keeping his eyes on the vulture. “That likely wouldn’t be wise. Taking one out now would just seal our fate. We’d be overwhelmed in no time.”
“If this one finds us, the other two won’t matter nearly as much. It doesn’t matter if we don’t have a rocket, though. Best we can do is hope it doesn’t spot us.”
The vulture droid landed on a near by heap of smoldering scrap, overturning sections of metal with it’s front legs, scanning for any signs of survivors. If Saddle, Graphite, and Buoy didn’t act quickly, it would discover them in only a few minutes.
Buoy tries to determine if this Vulture Droid is the kind with only torpedo launchers on its central body or another variant. He communicates on coms with his brothers to not reveal his location.
“With the hardware we’ve got, legs are gonna be hard. Maybe impossible. If one of us can pull off a clean shot to the neck, I think that’s our ticket.”
Saddle carefully – slowly – reaches for one of his ion grenades.
“I’ve only got two. This one might do the trick. If it doesn’t down the bird, it’ll stun it long enough to get our shot right.”