Cruising along wistfully through the star-filled blackness of space where the brief fighter confrontation had taken place, Khyber carefully keeps his E-Wing along the Assault Shuttle's port-side, engines humming in typical, unspecial fashion -- a sign of good maintanence.
When orders came down the pipe to board the unmoving Imperial cruiser, Khyber was caught a bit off-guard by his sudden inclusion of the team. Not that he minded too terribly much, mind you, but rather that the nigh middle-aged Kiffar would have preferred to know ahead of time. Udo would just have to make do without his blaster rifle; besides, being the little fish in the big pond full of bigger, more prominant fish sporting stripes, bars, and stars, you simply don't ask questions.
As the troop-laiden shuttle makes its way into the interior of the prior Imperial threat, Khyber performs another pass around the enemy ship before following suit, docking alongside the shuttle just as the Republic Marines disembarked. It was nostalgic, really. While not too terribly experienced with the act of boarding orbiting cannonades, Udo nevertheless was familiar with the shuttles, unpleasant memories of cramped confinements and the constant racket of stowed weaponry and chit-chat amongst the troops; but this was neither here nor there.
Unusually empty might be putting the sight of the hangar bay lightly, but nevertheless, it was uncharacteristically quiet for any ship its size. Droids galore, however, seemed to be the only entities milling about. The last time Khyber had seen so many droids in one sitting was that time back at the Lucky Star Casino, back during his mercenary days, but that's a story for another day.
Popping the hatch to the E-Wing and hopping down to ground level, the brutish Ensign garbed in the facially obfuscating flight suit peered about, making a second observation of the droid managerie before drawing his ever-trusty DE-10 from its holster.
"Huh. I was kind of expecting the boys in white, or at least a Case Yellow." Ensign Udo says with a grain of sarcasm, his voice slightly warped by the helmet over his face. Turning to the R7-Model Astromech idling in the E-Wing's slothold, Khyber barks out to the mechanical bucket of bolts, "Keep the engine hot just in case we need to burn sky till' we see lines, Arseven. I smell trouble."
After the other two Jedi escortees dock their ships, Khyber plods along to form up with the Force-Sensitives. Awkward introductions were never his forte', and despite the fact he'd seen the bunch aboard the Taelros on more than one occassion, it did little to quench that turbulent tossing embedded in his gut.
"Hey." greets the Kiffar bluntly after the pilots abandon their respective fighters, careful not to address the Jedi formally or by rank. Nothing says "big fat target" like an officer, thus one of the first things the Republic Military teaches its trainees. Not like the lightsabers lazily dangling by their sides werea clear giveaway or anything, after all. "I'm Udo. Orders are that I'm your... attache'." Udo states cynically through his pilot's helmet, the prospect of serving under Jedi seeming incredibly frivolous.
"Aww mom, but I don't need a babysitter." Istara transmits in a falsetto in the private frequency for one flight. The Corellian jedi flew her fighter ahead of the shuttle taking the point position in entering the landing bay. With her headstart the young jedi was the first to dismount, though she was wearing her flightsuit in case one of the imperials got the bright idea to space the cargo bay and blast everything out with the evacuating air.
"Vape, if any imperials approach you, I want you to take off and had back to the Taelros." Istara murmurs into her suit's internal commlink. The jedi simply nodded at Udo's introduction as she pulled her saber with a crook of her finger, "Stay behind us, I'll try to provide cover if things go bad. First we should jam the doors open if we can, wouldn't want to get vented out."
Upon boarding the assault craft with the other marines, Gunny Colton went through his kit, checking the load on both his sidearm and his rifle. While kitted out similar to the other marines, Wes stands out due to the fact that his kit is just a bit different, here and there, then the others, mainly minor customizations or special parts, such as scopes, triggers, and so forth.
Once his gear is in place, he casually checks the gear of the other marines, many of whom know that it's the Gunny's job. Once that is done, Wes sits down, rolls his neck, which issues a series of snaps, crackles, and pops, before he casually waits for the landing.
As they draw near the ship, near the dock, Wes says to the marines near him, "Heads down, eyes up, assume nothing, stick together and we'll come home. Good to go?"
Zenith scratched her head, mussing up her short hair even more as she did. Droids scooted all around the flight deck of the small capital ship, making her wonder where they'd kept the fighter complement. Why would they ever need so many droids?
"Hey, Istara, you speak that crazy droid language, right? Why don't we ask some of these what's going on? Why there's so many of them?"
As the shuttle touches down on the docking bay, Storm steps down on the head of the squad. It wasn't overconfidence nor enthuasiasism, he just knew that he was best suited to take the possible hail of bolts that turned out to be not coming at all. Standing before the boarding ramp, on the ready stance of Soresu with his blue saber ignited, he scans the room and quickly takes on a more casual pose. "Clear", he calmly informs those behind him.
"I don't speak binary, no organic can, some can understand it though I'm not one of those. Then again they could have vocabulators...feel free to ask them."
If it weren't for the tinted visor and respirator piece on his helmet, Udo's expression of whimsical eye-rolling and exasperation would have otherwise been visibly open.
"Not really my forte'." Udo croons in regards to jamming the door, an emulatated shrug following suit to further dictate his self-deemed lack of affinity for such things. Almost as an afterthought to this, Khyber adds with a tone of utter seriousness garnered from the situation "I can understand Binary. You ask, I'll interpret if needed. Maybe you could start by telling one of em' to keep the doors open."
"I don't suppose I have to tell you all to keep your eyes open?" Rosa jokes as she looks about the empty hangar. She looks at the repair droids as they mill about the group, keeping a close eye on them on her way to the nearest door.
__________________ "Sometimes things must be broken in order to be rebuilt." --Sith Proverb.
"No ma'am," says Wes as he disembarks the shuttle. His eyes and ears peeled for trouble, if the droids, speaking binary, say anything tactically useful, Wes will make sure to share it with the Lt.. "Those folks gave up the ghost some time back and never got it back, these boys are good to go."
"This is a fully automated docking and repair bay. Your ships are not standard Imperial designs. Do you require fuel or repairs?" The droid doesn't seem too bright.
"Hmph. It says our ships aren't Imperial, and wants to know if we need fuel or repairs." Khyber cloats, a bit perturbed that the droids were being problematic.
Rosa frowns a bit before turning to two marines. "You two, watch the ships. Something about this whole thing stinks." She looks around the remaining group, checking their preparedness before heading towards the exit.
__________________ "Sometimes things must be broken in order to be rebuilt." --Sith Proverb.
Once they have arrived on the Imperial ship, Sarcia grabs her equipment and follows after the others. She pauses when the droid replies to the question. Then she nods and is ready to proceed into the ship.
Storm nods at his fellow jedi as they meet at the bay and then follows Rosa to the exit. He ignites the blade again and waits for someone to open the door.
OOC
Meaning, Storm will position right next to the door, ready to "storm" in
"Going up? Are we going to seperate to cover the bridge and engineering, or will we stick together ma'am?" Istara asks shutting off her saber. Riding a lift wasn't very conducive to 4 lit energy swords after all.
Zenith, having been thoroughly perplexed by the droids, accompanies the others to the elevator.
"We need to find some actual living crew if we're going to find out what's going on here," she points out. "Splitting up's the fastest way to do that...lets just make sure we have a path to get back to each other in case we find a squad of marines waiting for us."
"So lets go level by level. Each level we'll split into two groups and stay in contact."
Keeping in tow with the pair of ever-moving Jedi, Khyber merely stands in silence inside the turbolift alongside his younger supreriors, the oxygen outflow from the flight helmet echoing in a slightly eerie sound reminiscent to a branch scraping ever so slightly against a piece of metal. Regardless of whatever orders the defacto XO decided upon, his orders remained unchanged -- stick to the Jedi girls like a Mynock sticks to power cables.
"We should split up." Udo rasps out, blunt and cocksure in his statement. "One group secures the bridge, the other scopes out the missing bucketheads. Boarding One-Oh-One." the burly warrior grunts, careful to muffle the last bit just in-case it was out-of-line.
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