ic Crash on Volturnus (IC)

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Starshot's kick connects solidly in the pirate’s stomach, sending him flying to the side where he struck the electrified fence, jerking as the electrical current coursed through him.  He then collapsed in a slightly smoking heap at the foot of the fence, out cold at least, if not worse.

 

Outside the fence, Soreen shouted over to Laark and the Kurabanda.  "Get down!"  As she tossed a grenade toward the corner of the fence.  She then dropped down behind a nearby sand rise, ducking down as she waited for the explosion.  Laark and the Kuraband followed suit, diving to the ground near where they were.

 

The combat robot continued forward, firing its built in blaster at Starshot once again.  But once again the canny hunter managed to roll to one side just before it shot, coming back quickly to his feet to face off with it once more.

 

A loud explosion echoed to the south of him, as Soreen's grenade blasted a large hole in the corner of the fence.  The electricity of the fence flickered and sputtered, and then ceased its crackling as the circuit was broken, taking down the entire electrical current.

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

Starshot gave a quick smile of satisfaction. 

 

"Shocking" he quipped. Not a characteristic trait of his, but he could not resist the grim humour. 

 

He ducked down quickly and turned away from the explosion, again feeling more positive. This was going well, much better than he had expected, although the solider in him knew things could change very quickly, and the longer this went on the more chaos was introduced. 

 

He spun around again and took a swing, but a little too fast - or too slow. The robot moved out of his fists admittedly rather telegraphed pole. 

 

He resolved to stop spinning. It didn't do his balance any good....

 

[Thevshi]

GM

 

As the dust settled from the grenade blast, Soreen was back on her feet.  For a brief moment she began to aim her blaster toward the melee between Starshot and the combat robot, but given the close proximity of her boss to the robot, she decided not to attempt a shot, so instead shifted her aim toward the other corner of the building in case any other pirates or robots made an appearance.  She then began to move forward, making her way through the gap she had formed in the electoral fence.

 

Laark and the Kurabanda warriors all followed after Soreen, their weapons out and at the ready, but also not trying to fire into the melee between Starshot and the combat robot.

 

In that melee, the large metallic opponent swung a metal fist at Starshot.  But the galactic hunter had decades of experience in dodging the attacks of much quicker beasts than the robot, and easily ducked under the attack, circling around the robot to make it reposition itself. 

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

Starshot could feel the initiative slowly slipping. Surprise and pace were potent factors...

 

but are lost, sooner or later....

 

Then, it would degenerate into a grinding brutal slug match. And then, they would struggle. 

 

No time for thinking. Action is needed!

 

He jumped five six feet in the air, and pulled back his fist. There was a cinematic pause of slow motion, and then he came down, slamming his hard cybernetic fist straight down, like a hammer, on to the robots head...

 

 

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Starshot's maneuver caught the combat robot off guard, and his cybernetic hand connected solidly with the robot's head, badly denting in a portion of the plating as the force of the blow knocked the robot a short distance away and onto the ground.

 

Further behind him, Soreen and Laark led the Kurabanda warriors further into the compound.  With no other targets in sight and the robot knocked out of melee with their captain, Soreen and Laark both took aim at the robot and fired.  Soreen’s shot passed harmlessly overhead, but Laark’s blaster blot caught the robot in the side, blasting a hole in its armor and causing further damage.

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

Pressing the advantage, Starshot advanced forward. In the back of his head, he was already wonderinghow to get inside the actual compound. Well, getting in was not going to be a problem with time. The problem was getting into the compound in time. Before advantage was lost. 

 

He pushed this from his mind, lest it distract him. Laser beams and blaster bolts were flying around, but he pushed these thoughts away to. Was this really any different from hunting a beast of muscle and bone? Just because it was electronics and steel, the same spike of adrenaline...the same thrill....was fuelling him. 

 

"You're terminated!" he yelled at the Robot (an unwitting reference. He hadn't seen any earth films since 1941) and ran straight into the Robot, launching a flying kick with all his strength...

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Starshot easily moved up to the felled robot, delivering a powerful kick into its already damaged midsection.  Between the power of his kick and the previous damage, Starshot managed to cave in the main paneling of the robot's torso, smashing the internal circuits and rendering the robot inoperative.

 

With no new threats showing themselves, Soreen and Laark lead the Kurabanda over toward Starshot, taking up positions near him as they trained their weapons at either the door located near them or back towards the southern corner of the building in case any hostiles appeared from that side.

 

"It appears we have dealt with any of the pirates that wanted to investigate what was happening outside."  Laark commented. 

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

"It's the inside that worries me" answered Starshot, although he was pleased enough with the start. 

 

"We can't wait for them to recover, reorientate, or call in for reinforcements" he said "We need to get inside as soon as possible". 

 

He tapped open his helmet HUD. The power was dangerously low now...but he would spend it. He switche dto X-Ray Vision, trying to scan inside. Of course, it might be blocked by high-density materials. And the power drain was significant...but even it it sucked the helmet dry, perhaps he could get a glimpse of what was inside, and more importantly how to ge inside. 

 

Failing that, brute force and blaster beams would do the trick. But that would take more time...

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Risking activating his helmet HUD and further draining the helmet's power cells, Starshot turned his attention to the outer walls of the pre-fab structure, looking for what was inside the facility and what might be awaiting them inside.

 

Inside Starshot found several rooms, but he did not focus on the details of their interiors at this point, trying to quickly locate any other occupants at this point.  The first occupants Starshot located, were two pirates that were lying on the ground near the hole blasted by the initial grenade, apparently disabled by the gas grenade he had followed up with.

 

Skipping over them for the moment, he scanned through more of the rooms inside, finally locating a third pirate in a far room that appeared to be some sort of garage area.  The pirate appeared to be prepping a hoverbike to exit the garage.

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

"One left standing" he commented to his companions. "And two down. Although how long for is another matter. The gas is clearing". 

 

He looked at the door. 

 

"Can either of you get through this? And fast?" he asked them. Lock picking was not something he ever bothered with. Yezlian snakes didn't use hypermag locks in their liars. 

 

"Otherwise its the hard way. With blasters and exlosives. Not as fast as I would like. But it will get the job done..."

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Soreen and Laark followed after Starshot as he moved quickly over to the nearest door to the building.  "This should be a problem."  Soreen commented as she quickly pulled off the panel next to the door and hot-wired it open.

Wasting no time, Starshot moved quickly through and into the dimly lit building, making his way towards the escaping pirate, easily outdistancing the others.

 

Starshot's route took him through what appeared to be a storage room, and the door to the garage opened just in time for him to see the pirate's hoverbike zip out of the garage toward the open desert.  A quick glance around the garage reveled another hoverbike nearby….

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

"He's getting away!" started Starhot, as the HUD of his helmet fizzed. 

 

WARNING POWER LEVELS CRITICAL

 

"Perfect timing" he grunted, unclipping his helmet and throwing it to one side as the last trilithium battery faded. He clenched his draws, the scar running down his left side contorting and livid. A dirty scar on a handsome face. A determined face. 

 

"You aren't getting away that easy!" he yelled, and jumped on the other hover bike, blaster rifle swinging on his back as he powered up the engine...

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Soreen and Laark were well behind Starshot when he reached the garage and climbed onto a hoverbike to follow after the escaping pirate.  They were just entering the garage themselves when Starshot sped out the open doorway, following his target.

 

The hot air of the desert washed over him as his bike speed out of the pre-fab building, taking him over the power fence and then out over the open desert. 

 

Even without his helmet, he could see the other hoverbike hundreds of meters ahead, skimming over the burning sands as it speed off towards the east.  Turning to follow, Starshot leveled out, but seemed to be falling behind slightly as the pirate on the other vehicle skillfully guided it on its path….

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

Starshot pushed the hoverbike as far as it could go; gravitic propulsion on sands was not the easiest, he realised, and the pirate knew how to handle his bike. 

 

Keeping in a straight line, he pursued. It was an even match in vehicles, and it was only the ebb and flow of dunes that made any difference as they weaved as best a line as they could. 

 

Unslinging his blaster rifle, he waited till floating up to the top of a dune. He fired repeatedly, not really aiming but just pounding out shot after shot of recoiless energy until he descended the dune again. 

 

He didn't want to hit his opponent, but he hoped to churn up the sand. Maybe obscuring his vision would slow him down...

[Thevshi]

GM

 

The pirate took a couple of glances over his shoulder as he continued to try to push his vehicle to its limits to outdistance the space hunter.  But Starshot had managed to get the hang of the unfamiliar controls, allowing him to start to slightly being to close the distance.

 

Firing several quick shots as he crested a dune, Starshot sent a shower of dust flying up in front of the pirate, who made a sharp correction to try to avoid the debris cloud, partially succeeding, but still getting a face full of sand and slowing slightly as a result.

 

This allowed Starshot to close even closer, as he managed to cut the distance between them in half.  Glancing back over his shoulder once more, the pirate reached down to try and pull out his pistol....

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

Starshot swerved over a dune with a little gravitic hop, then leaned to one side, cutting wild corners through the dunes. 

 

The distance was closing, but was not yet close. 

 

He fully expected to be dodging blaster bolts from the Pirates pistol (he hoped it was only blaster bolts, not Vortian Micro Missiles to name just one horror of galactic weaponry) and gave a few blasts back from his revolver. 

 

Just to keep him on his toes. 

 

He could only hope the Pirate made a mistake. 

 

And he didn't. 

 

So determined, he accelerated....

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Starshot managed to make several perfectly timed turns in a row, each time taking a better angle than the fleeing pirate.  As a result, he quickly began to close the distance with his target.  As Starshot made the third sharp angle, the pirate turned and fired his blaster pistol.  By some quirk of fate, the pirate managed to clip the space hunter.  But it was little more than a glancing hit, burning hole in Starshot's coat, but otherwise only singeing the skin below.

 

Pushing his grave cycle to its limits, Starshot managed to pull up next to the pirate, the pair now racing neck and neck.  However, one disadvantage of being this close was Starshot could not bring his acquired blaster rifle to bear, while the pirate could still use his blaster pistol in such close quarters…

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

"Oh no you don't!" grumbled Starshot. He kept the bike going as fast as he could, but reached down to the whip at his belt. With a snap,  he opened it up with his right hand, whilst driving with his left. 

 

The engine was screaming with the effort. He wondered, for a moment, how far he could push his vehicle. And indeed, how far could this captive push the car?

 

But for now, he tried a bold move. He snapped the whip over to his right, and tried to take the rider off the bike!

 

That would be nasty, but the sand would surely take the worst of the impact off?

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Both beings were pushing their gav-bikes to their maximum, the vehicles propulsion systems threatening to overheat.  Now that Starshot had managed to close with the pirate, he was not about to let him get away, and the pirate seemed unable to pull away just by speed.  

 

So the pirate tried to bank suddenly, to shake Starshot off, but the space hunter had already pulled out his whip and flicked it after the pirate.  The whip wrapped around the priate’s waist as he started to turn away and pulled him off the bike as Starshot began to decelerate quickly. 

 

The now rider-less bike careened away, its nose dipping as it slammed into the sand, tearing the steering vanes of and causing it to flip over several times, smashing into the ground as it tumbled close to a hundred meters off to one side before coming to a halt in battered, smoking heap, bits of the bike strewn across the hundred meter distance.

 

Over where Starshot was, the pirate had landed hard on the sand behind him, getting dragged along behind before Starshot had managed to pull to a complete stop, covering at least fifty meters before he managed to do so.  The pirate lay almost motionless on the ground, a faint moan sounding from him as he clearly seemed unable to continue to fight against the space hunter.

[Supercape]

Starshot powered down the G-Bike and dismounted. He unslung the blaster rifle and kept it pointed in the direction of the Pirate. 

 

No time for tricks.

 

His boots trudged through the sands and he felt the sweat on his brow. The cybernetic heat-dispersal systems down his spine were humming, almost glowing as they worked furoiusly to dissapate the heat. 

 

"Games over, pirate" he called out, standing a good ten paces from the fallen soul. "You can answer my questions, and maybe, if I like the answers and they are truthful, I wont empty this blaster's power pack all over your corpse..."

[Thevshi]

GM

 

A hot wind blew over the sand as Starshot dismounted and moved over to where the pirate had come to rest.  The sun was blazing overhead, bearing down on the space hunter and his opponent who lay a short distance away.

 

As Starshot drew closer, he could not see any significant movement from the pirate who was lying on the hot sand.  The pirate’s was still rising and falling, if a bit unevenly.  In the hard landing, he had lost the blaster pistol he had lost and Starshot did not see any sign of any other weapons on his person. 

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

He may be a pirate, but no man should die alone in the sand...

 

Starshot slung his blaster rifle over his back and advanced towards the man. He was not reckless, but neither was he cautious. 

 

And he was no doctor. But he ran a space safari business, he knew the basics of medical care. He started examining the man, checking his vitals and looking for injuries. His cybernetic hand, full of useful tools, micro jets, drills and clippers, also contained some medical sensors and even basic drugs complete with injector. 

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Starshot quickly goes to work examining the prone pirate.  It quickly is apparent the pirate is not faking to try to lull him over, but was not mortally injured.  The pirate had a broken arm and at least a few broken ribs, in addition to a variety of heavy bruising across his body.  Starshot did not believe any of the broken ribs had caused any significant internal damage, but there may have been some.

 

Without any materials on hand, Starshot had little to set the pirate’s arm with, but he could provide some pain medicine and otherwise generally stabilize the man.

[Supercape]

Starshot

 

Satisfied that he had done what he could, and that there was a fair chance that the pirate was at least unlikely to immediately expire, Starshot slung the Pirate over his shoulder and carried him back to his G-bike. 

 

He powered up the bike once more. After so long trudging through deserts and forests and caves, it actually felt good to have some good old fashioned technology for once. Something he would not have thought he would ever think a month or even a week ago. 

 

Driving at a more sedate pace, he powered the vehicle back to the base to see how the crew was getting on. 

 

His helmet and gun depleted of energy, he hoped they at least had a plug socket...

[Thevshi]

GM

 

The return trip may have taken a bit longer than the frantic chase out, but it was pleasant enough, the grav-bike providing quick passage over the hot sands of this section of desert.  Finally, the pirate's makeshift base came into view ahead.

 

As Starshot drew near, he spotted Laark out in front of the building, rifle in hand as he kept a watch on the horizon.  Laark lowered the rifle when Starshot brought the grav-bike closer, coming to a stop a short distance away.

 

"I see you caught the one that slipped away."  Laark replied.  "We have secured the two you incapacitated.  Sereen has been looking through the structure to see what there is that might help us."