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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3540827" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 462: A Little HelpThe city was burning and the streets were littered with bodies. Humans, Bothans, Duros, Twi’leks, Mon Calamari, Quarren, at least a few Wookies, and Yuuzhan Vong corpses made it hard for an injured Rulae Nok to backtrack and hopefully get back to where what was left of his new command had gone to. On the way, he’d run into pair of Vong and managed to come up behind them and taken them both down with a quick burst of blaster fire...but before the second warrior dropped, he launched a beetle-like creature at him.    Rulae had ducked, but the buzzing thing whipped past his head, then actually turned around before slicing through his right shoulder as it came back. Thankfully, though, the creature hit the ground after and didn’t move again. Apparently it just wanted to draw some blood. He had cursed it, and continued forward towards the mostly-destroyed center of the city, his left hand gripping the wound on his shoulder to limit the bleeding while he right tried to hold the weight of the blaster rifle. This was ignoring the fact that he was still limping thanks to the amphistaff’s poison. At least he was alive.    And then, strewn across the street amongst the rest of the debris, Rulae found what he had been looking for. Two bodies, clad in the armour that identified them as New Republic soldiers.  One of the men was face down, his armour scorched, cut, and eaten away by some kind of acid. The red puddle under his head made Rulae decide not to turn the body over to have a look. But he didn’t need to. He knew it was one of them, because the human body next to him was face up. His helmet was shattered, face left cut in two places, but it looked as if the deep wound in his chest had been what had killed the poor kid.    The gore of all of the bodies Rulae was seeing, especially these two, was jarring. As a pilot, he had the luxury of not having to see the faces of the kids when they were killed. The fireball that accompanied the screams over the comm were terrible, yes, but he was able to accept it much more easily without having to see them...like this.    A sound of movement in front of him caused Rulae to look up again to see a group of six Vong rounding a corner at a larger intersection. They were coming straight for him, too. He raised his blaster as best he could considering the shoulder injury and squeezed off a quick series of shots from his kneeling position.    Two of the shots hit one Vong square in the chest...but they didn’t take him down. He was wearing some of that damned armour! It was at least as strong as plasteel and looked like a giant grab wrapped around the upper body of the massive humanoids. Thankfully, though, his third shot was high and caught the same Vong in the face. That brought him down.    Of course, there were still five others coming straight for him, amphistaves raised and ready to come down in a few seconds. Rulae knew he couldn’t move fast enough, and so instead just held down the trigger on his rifle and let loose another volley in the hopes that it would do some good.    A deafening and distinct sound echoed to Rulae and the ground under the Vong suddenly erupted. He quickly shielded his face, but found that nothing but dust came down. Looking back up, the bodies of the Vong were scattered across the street. Rulae got to his feet as he heard a distinct mechanical sound getting closer, and then, around the same corner came a two-legged AT-ST. Its top hatch was open and a human in a New Republic Army uniform was half visible, a blaster in one hand and a pair of electrobinoculars in the other.    The officer that was visible seemed to quickly catch sight of Rulae, and called out, “Need a lift?”    Rulae smiled, though he doubted that could be seen, and nodded, “I wouldn’t complain. Looks like you had those Vong on the run. Haven’t heard of that before.”    The AT-ST walker took a few steps to where he was, and a long wire slowly dropped from its head to take him up. As it came down, he heard the voice of the human yell down to him, “I don’t think they were running from us, actually.”    Not liking that, Rulae looked over his shoulder. Rulae had never seen that many Vong before, but there were enough to completely fill the street. Not to mention that he could see enough black dots heading his direction to really not like it at all. Quickly, Rulae reached up and latched onto the cord that had been dropped for him. Immediately, it started rising up and taking him with it.    As he was going up, the twin-cannons on the walker’s chin lit up, firing loud salvos of blaster bolts into the approaching Vong formation. Rulae didn’t see the effect that the shots had, as he was up to the top and being helped inside by the officer. Once he was in, the hatch at the top was closed and four of them were crammed inside the small cockpit with only the two small windows in front to see through.    A loud series of thuds and pangs echoed through the cockpit and suddenly one of the pilots cried out. The other three turned to see a Vong thud-bug squarely in the man’s face, having gone straight through his half-helmet. Next to Rulae, the officer growled, “Seal those ports now!”    The remaining pilot did so quickly, the two small hatches quickly closed over the two windows that provided view for the pilots. The officer then got up and pulled the now-dead pilot out of his seat and took it instead. He sighed and then looked back to Rulae, “Can you help us out? These things weren’t designed to be piloted on instruments only.”    Letting go of his blaster rifle, finally, Rulae stepped over between the two seats and asked, “What can I do?”    The other pilot pointed to a series of consoles that was in between them, “Concussion grenade launcher and the side laser cannon. Left is the grenades and right is the lasers. Should be able to fire those based on the sensors.”    “Right,” Rulae then knelt down between the two seats and looked over the systems. They were similar enough to starfighter consoles that he could figure it out easily enough. As he familiarized himself with the controls, he could hear the main chin-gun still firing and asked, “Where are we going?”    “The transports in the east need cover so we’re heading that way,” the officer said.    “And this city is lost,” the pilot commented quietly.    He was right. There was a whole planet to defend and this one city was definitely gone. Hopefully they could help in other places. So they headed forward, back down the way that Rulae had come, but this time with serious firepower. He hated not being able to physically see what they were firing at, but he was very thankful for the extra few layers of armour of the AT-ST. It was also nice to be off his leg.    Rulae just hoped that they would be able to make it out in one piece.</blockquote>

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