Star Wars: Episode VII RPG

From across the depths of space, an Imperial Landing Craft – Sentinel-Class – emerged from hyperspace, making its presence in the Mokk system known. Not there was much for anyone to know. It was nothing out of the ordinary, as far as its crew was concerned, just another regular supply run between the local Imperial presence on the ninth planet of the system and the KDY subsidiary shipyards at the nearby Rasterous system.

Even its destination was nothing much to speak of, and probably hadn’t been for quite some time. That was the assessment Jinn Nippon made as he watched the craft through a pair of macrobinoculars, first lowering through the atmosphere, then making its approach towards and finally landing on the landing pad attached to the closest thing the Imperials had to a planetary headquarters.

“Target has landed.” Jinn reported through his comm, giving his team an eyes-on-sight report to confirm what their own intel was no doubt already telling them. A simple click followed, a nonverbal confirmation from Kailin jun Shool – better known to the others as “Warhound” – that she saw the same thing from wherever she had hidden herself.

“And right on time, too.” Said Char “Conman” Sarkoz. “Who says the Empire can’t do anything right?”

Once the shuttle came to a final stop and extended its landing ramp, a team of five exited. Imperial troopers, but their outfits gave them away as four basic naval troopers and a low-ranking officer. All of them certainly attached to whatever military presence was based at their point of origin.

Once they’d disembarked and made contact with the base personnel who’s exited the structure to greet them, a team of laborers were set into motion – Imperial prisoners, serving time for whatever reason the Empire saw fit, no doubt indefinitely. These were probably the lucky ones, getting easy jobs either out of reward, or because they were good for little else, or because they’d found favor with someone who had the right connections.

The laborers quickly began unloading the shuttles contents, the supplies it would need till the next arrival, and clearing out space for the cargo that was scheduled to be shipped out to the Rasterous shipyards. Most of it was the various results of what few labor camps remained on the planet, including parts for use at shipyards it would be returning to.

Jinn intended to add a few soon-to-be-Ex-Imperial prisoners to the manifest. And had no intention of letting the shuttle reach its intended destination.

“Alright, everyone, get ready.” Jinn said. “We are nearing go time, be ready to move on my signal.”

Jinn waited until the laborers were nearly finished loading the cargo crates that had been stacked on the landing pad. No so long that the job was finished – making lift off an easy call – but close enough to count.

“Operation is go.” He said into the comm. “I repeat, we are go.”

He checked his wrist pad, waiting till he received a counter-signal. Soon enough, it showed that a jamming signal had gone into effect – the first move, insurance that no one off world would be hearing anything about the attack for the foreseeable future. From what he could see, the Imperials on the landing pad had no idea what it meant yet or that it signaled trouble.

Warhound made the second move. If they didn’t know something was amiss before, her next action erased that secret.

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The naval officer went first, a shot from an unseen assailant hitting him in the head and killing him instantly. He hit the ground before the rest realized that they were under attack – that the idea that they even could be under attack failing to cross their mind until they saw quite clearly that the dead officer had a bullet in his head. Not even a blaster burn, but a shot from a long range slugthrower – the oldest of old fashion sniper weaponry.

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A second Imperial took a hit and fell over dead before the rest could truly scramble. Confusion spread, the soldiers having no idea where the shots were coming from – the lack of an energy trail gave them nothing to go on for reference.

That was when Jinn made his move, just as the base alarm siren began to blare to signal they were under attack. With a burst of Force energy that flowed through his body – or however it was The Force worked – the man ran towards the landing pad with a pace far more rapid than should have been humanly possible.

The planet largely a wasteland, Jinn had little in the way of cover to work with. Not that this was much of a problem – the speed he was running at alone was enough to throw off most their attempts to shoot him. Their concerns of getting shot by the unseen sniper they still hadn’t even begun to pinpoint only furthered their hesitation. When Jinn fired back with his own rifle – with impressive accuracy for someone moving as fast as he was – it was enough to force the Imperials off the landing pad, retreating back to the main compound until they had reinforcements.

By the time he was half way to the landing pad, the third wave of the attack arrived. The roar of a low-flying startship could be heard from behind. There was a temptation to look over his shoulder as the vessel approached, but soon enough it came into view on its own.

It was a Corellian YU-410, flying a far faster speed than it had originally been built for – a courtesy of the same man who was flying it, Cyrus “Mac” McKenzy. It was flying a dangerously low altitude as well, a little more than a half-dozen meters off the ground, a move that had helped conceal its approach. As it rushed by, Jinn could feel its areal wake rush around him, it was strong enough that could have threatened to knock him off his feet if he hadn’t already been running in the same direction and with as much speed as he was mustering.

“WHOO!” Came a call over the radio, the cheerful cry Mac as he did a low-altitude flyby of the posts command tower, exposing it to the heavy Quadlaser that was installed on its bottom hull. A heavy dose of laser fire pelted through the structure, almost certainly crippling it and rendering the comm-jamming signal the ship was emitting redundant.

As it completed the flyby and passed onward, a pair of TIE-Fighters made their presence known, flying past the burning command tower with their own laser cannons blazing in an attempt to shoot down the offending attack freighter. No doubt deployed to help deal with the mystery sniper, they now had a far more pressing target to deal with.

Having reached the landing platform, Jinn took cover on the opposite side of the same position that had just moment ago been used to protect the Imperals that had been trying to kill him.

“Mac.” Jinn said over the comm. “Fly the Ewok back around, I’ll cover your six.”
“Rodger that, Sarge.” Mac replied.
“What, you don’t trust me to shoot them down?” Asked Char “Conman” Sarkoz, the Clawdite who was running the lower Quadlaser.

Mac didn’t reply, instead bringing the Ewoks Revenge – a name he had been responsible for assigning the ship - into a U-Turn that brought the TIEs around with it.

Steeling himself, Jinn waited for the ships to approach. The TIE Fighters fired on the freighter as they pursued, paying Jinn himself no mind. One even scored a hit, though it had little impact, the shields holding firm. As they closed in, Jinn focused on the TIEs, then swung his arm as if he were throwing a right hook.

Ever since realizing he had a connection with The Force, there were still a great many things Jinn didn’t know about it – he had only scratched the surface of what it meant, let alone what he could do with it. But there were a few things he had certainly figured out. One of those was how to push his body beyond its mortal limits, as he had done while running to the landing platform. Another was how to move things around without touching them.

Perhaps the most notable thing about his own use of ‘Force Powers’ was a notable lack of subtlety for most of his talents – there was only an ‘on’ switch and an ‘off’ switch, with little to speak of in between. His ability to move things around with his mind, for instance, lacked a certain measure of a delicate touch; all he really had in that department was the ability to throw things around with a force that he had been told felt like getting hit by a landspeeder.

Not that Jinn really minded – while making things float in place would no doubt have been useful, what was equally useful was having what seemed to amount to having an unlimited source of ‘Force Rockets’ at his disposal.

It was with one of those ‘Force Rockets’ that Jinn hit one of the TIE Fighters from the side. Instantly, the Imperial fighter’s wing took a massive hit, bending it out of place and sending it careening into its wingman – even if Jinn hadn’t figured out levels of Force application, he had still found use in practicing his trajectory.

As the two fighters collided, both flew off course, and in short order crashed into the ground with a violent fashion, exploding and rolling about as the wreckage worked off the remainder of its velocity.

“I’ll admit.” Conman said. “That was a nice shot.”

Jinn didn’t take much time to admire his own work, even if he was glad with the results. He still had a shuttle to steal.

Leaping over the cover toward the ship, he evaded blaster fire from the area of the compound that had yet to take damage. From the looks of things, the Imperial forces were doing their best to regroup with the local reinforcements and stage a counter-attack. Time was short, Jinn had to move.

“EVERYONE WHO WANTS OFF THIS ROCK, ONTO THE SHIP NOW!” Jinn shouted at the top of his voice to the Imperial prisoners who hadn’t run indoors with their captors.

Those who were able wasted little time doing so, rushing up the extended ramp of the landing craft that was loaded and just waiting for takeoff. Jinn provided cover fire as they went, pausing only to take a few blasters from fallen Imperials and tossing them to any prisoners that looked eager to help out.

When everyone was on board, Jinn followed, and not a moment too soon. The Imperials were on the move, trying to advance and retake the landing pad. Jinn closed the ramp behind him, but that only temporarily solved the situation. While they couldn’t get on board – yet – he could still hear the sound as they shot at the hull, hoping to damage it enough to prevent take off. Even if it couldn’t fly, the shuttle still had its uses.

“Sarge, get your butt off the ground.” Mac said. Overhead, Jinn heard the Ewok as it made another fly-by, and the sound of the Sentinal-landing craft being shot at took a momentary pause.

With all due speed, Jinn pushed past the imperial prisoners that were crowded around the ships intended cargo and made it to the cockpit. While he wasn’t as good a pilot as Mac, he still knew enough to handle himself well enough. And with the ship already prepped to leave, takeoff was an easy order to deal with.

The ship shook a little as it lifted off the ground, but soon enough it was flying, leaving the Imperial compound behind. A quick stop later, and flyby of Warhound’s sniper position, and the Kalee was soon aboard as well.

“Good job everyone.” Jinn said for both Warhound and the two aboard the Ewok. “Let’s see if we can’t pick up a few more and then get off this blasted rock.”

As much as rescuing everyone would have been ideal, the unfortunate fact of the matter was that his teams raid on Mokk IX was an independent operation, leaving them with limited resources. Certainly not enough to retrieve everyone, even as diminished as a prison camp as the planet was.

The Sentinal and Ewok’s Revenge flew across the surface of the world, making a path that took them around most the prison stations until they reached the one their admittedly limited intel told them had the lowest prisoner population. With trained precision, the Revenge flew directly ahead of the stolen landing craft as they closed in on the outpost.

“There she is.” Mac reported, signaling their immanent arrival. From behind the YU transport, Jinn could hear the sounds of a defensive tower firing on the forward ship. Once they were close enough, Mac brought the ship about ahead of him, drawing the gun towers fire and giving Jinn a clear shot. He took it, blowing the structure to pieces. Eliminating the rest of the prison camp’s primary defensive positions at that point was practically a mop-up job, easily handled from the air.

Once the defenses were minimized, it was Mac’s turn to hit the ground. Jinn’s stolen ship was packed-full as it was – the Revenge, on the other hand, had lots of empty cargo space to work with. As he took up a hovering position above the camp, he saw Mac land the other ship nearby, then soon after he hit the ground himself and began the work of picking up whatever escaping prisoners they could.

While the Imperials were clearly trying to regroup and pull off some kind of recovery, their efforts were severely thwarted by a visible lack of just about anything needed to accomplish that – they were outgunned by both the forward gun position on the Ewok and Warhound as she took up a sniper post on the open boarding ramp of the landing craft, they were heavily shaken up from what they had no doubt expected to be a relatively easy day, and Jinn could tell there was a certain lack of discipline.

It made sense that the Empire wouldn’t waste their good troops on a world like this. For a brief moment, Jinn couldn’t help but wonder just what any of them had done to get stuck guarding this miserable plant, of all places.

With the Imperials pinned down, finding the bases prisoners and getting them aboard the Revenge was a relatively smooth and quick procedure. A few of the prisoners were hit by blaster fire, those that weren’t killed outright were picked up and helped by others. In short order, the last of the prisoners ran aboard, with Mac following after them. Feeling a sense of relative certainty that they weren’t leaving anyone from that position behind, the Corellian ship lifted off, and the Sentinel followed behind it.

“Mac, how we doing?” Jinn asked.

“Not good.” Mac responded. “We’re not full over here, but I don’t think we have space for another run.”

It was unfortunate news, but not unexpected. There was a definitive limit to how many people the Revenge could carry, and trying to hit another camp, only to find out they couldn’t take everyone with them would do more harm than good.

“Their time will have to wait, then.” Jinn said, more hoping that what prisoners were left on the planet would last long enough for an eventual rescue, whenever that occurred. “Let’s get out of here and not squander what we’ve got.”

Both ships rocketed away from the surface of the planet, up through and then out of the atmosphere to the black void of space beyond. A short time later, both left the system all together, the planet behind them vanishing as they escaped to safety.