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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 4185311" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 577: Fall BackThere was a rush of movement off to Rea’s side as Obrack Loro bolted down from the roof above to where she stood, blaster aimed at the failing door and injured pilots unconscious behind her. Before the Mon Calamari could say anything, she called out over her shoulder, “The fleet’s on the way. Just have to hold out until they can get to us.”    Loro’s yellow eyes shifted from Rea and then to the door, which was still taking a beating from the Vong forces outside despite the fact that the Rodians and Harken were above, firing mercilessly into the mass of Vong and Chazrach. He then knelt down to construct a crude barricade out of the remains of the table and said to her, “How far out are they?”    Though she was still hurting from the long run and the various small injuries she had taken through the day, Rea did her best to assist Loro in piecing together the table in front of the door, which took another sudden, loud hit, “They didn’t say...how bad is it out there?”    Loro’s eyes darted to her again, but before he said anything he knelt behind the barricade and aimed his blaster rifle at the failing door. Looking down the sight of the weapon, he kept his voice low, “Bad. No sign of the Vagh Rodiek but I’ve never seen that many Chazrach before. They just keep coming and...well, before I came down here, Harken spotted a group of Vong warriors headed our way from the north.”    “How long do you think we can hold them off?” it was not a comforting question to ask, but it was the reality of their situation. Rea pushed one of her head-tails back off of her shoulder to stay out of her way and raised her own blaster pistol, ready for the door to fail and the swarm that would undoubtedly follow.    Loro opened his mouth to speak, but there was another violent bang at the door. The two of them tensed, but the door somehow held against whatever had hit it so hard. From the looks of it, though, it wouldn’t survive another. Not relaxing, however, Loro finally said, “The cannon up there is going to be out of power cells soon. After that...probably a few minutes.”    What was there to say to that?    Rea couldn’t think of anything, and so just kept her mouth shut, eyes watching the door and every part of her ready. It was terrible to wait for the attack, something she’d never experienced in the cockpit. It didn’t help that the entire recon mission to Rodia had just seemed like one disaster after another. The only thing good that seemed to come out of it was the fact that they’d found Loro and he was alive...too bad that didn’t look like it was going to last.    And then, finally, it happened.    One more loud, powerful crash and the entire door buckled inwards before an odd oozing substance could be seen melting it away entirely. Before anything could come through or even be seen, Loro’s blaster rifle came to life, sending a stream of blaster fire through the opening. Rea squeezed the trigger of her pistol, following suit and also trying to keep her head low. It proved to be an intelligent move, as a moment later the distinct buzzing sound of a flying razorbug could be heard. Her eyes caught the movement go right over her head before hitting the wall behind them.    Cries, snarls, and blood-thirsty growls echoed into the small building from outside, all nearly drowned out by the loud sound of blaster fire. Two of her shots caught a single Chazrach in the face, sending the reptilian creature back and into four others that were trying to pile through, miniature-looking amphistaves in hand. Loro’s rifle took down one after another easily, as none of the Chazrach seemed to be wearing any kind of armour. They were just piling in one after another, getting shot in time for a handful more to try to climb around.    But the rather primitive tactics were working.    For every Chazrach shot, it seemed as if there were four more trying to get through.    But before they could get through, more blaster shots started flying over Loro and Rea’s heads. Risking a glance behind her, Rea saw three of the Rodians coming down the stairs, blasters helping to lay down enough suppressing fire to keep the Chazrach from getting in. As one of them reached the floor, he yelled in a nasally voice that was hard to understand over the din of blaster fire and cries, “Fall back to roof! Safer!”    “There are wounded down here!” Loro yelled over his shoulder as razorbug hit the barricade and stuck into it, its little arms flailing for a moment before it went still. After taking out two more Chazrach, Loro quickly added, “No way in hell we’re leaving them down here!”    “We know!” it was another of the Rodians. The only way Rea could tell was that this one’s voice was, somehow, higher pitched than the other’s. She didn’t bother looking behind her, though, as the Chazrach were getting closer and closer to breaking through and the power pack on her pistol was being depleted with each shot she took. She had a backup, but it would take precious seconds to reload it and that was something they definitely didn’t have.    The blaster fire from the Rodians began to change, though, as they moved to the injured pilots behind. Movement behind her confirmed that the Rodians were moving as quickly as they can to get the stretchers up the stairs and to the roof, but the second they started up the stairs they would have no cover...    Suddenly, however, that no longer mattered.    Rather than a blaster bolt, Rea’s pistol emitted a soft, but horrifying, click.    The power pack was dead.    That short moment in which only Loro’s blaster rifle was holding back the horde outside was it. Two Chazrach got through first, one taking a blaster bolt to the chest and dropping right in front of the barricade, and the other diving straight for Loro, blade-first. Somehow, Loro raised his blaster and caught the strike aimed at him on the stock of his weapon. He then whipped it around and connected a heavy strike with the butt of the weapon to the Chazrach’s small, confused face.    “Up up up!” the Rodians were yelling at them from above now, having used the distraction of the Chazrach breaking through to quickly get up to the roof.    Before Rea could get to her feet and run for the stairs, however, more Chazrach poured through in the opening caused by there being no blaster fire at all. Rea ducked for complete cover behind the barricade as a Chazrach pounced at her and went right over. Dropping her blaster pistol, Rea’s hand quickly withdrew the vibrodagger from her belt and immediately dug it into the Chazrach’s leg. She got a kick to the face in response to that, which sent her back into Loro, who had been moving to get them both up to the roof before they were overwhelmed.    Sadly, it was too late for that.    Rea’s eyes caught movement from the stairs again, though, and two of the Rodian’s came charging down again, blasters spraying red bolts at the swarmed entrance. Using this opening, Rea dove at the Chazrach in front of her, driving her blade into its neck before Loro grabbed her and pulled her onto her feet. He was yelling something but she couldn’t hear it, and instead just found herself being half-drug, half-running on her own up the stairs and past the two Rodians as razorbugs flew in behind them.    When they reached the roof, the Rodians were right behind, the last one up hitting a switch that sealed a small door and, from the loud click sound, locked it, too. It was then that Rea noticed the blaster cannon was no longer firing. Instead, Harken and the other Rodians were down behind the small, meter-high ‘wall’ that surrounded the roof and provided very minimal cover. All of them were facing different directions, firing down into the masses of creatures now piling easily into the room below.    “That seal will hold for two or three minutes,” Loro growled angrily, his eyes looking up to the sky above, which was dominated by the great sphere of Rodia.    Not turning away from where she was firing, Adria yelled back at them, “About twenty actual Vong over here! Something tells me they’re not looking for a surrender!”    “Why they take so long to kill us?!” one of the Rodians asked to no on in particular between taking shots of his own down below.    “Doesn’t matter,” Loro answered swiftly as he crawled over to find his own place to fire over the side and hopefully thin the numbers more...even though it was obviously a futile effort, “Rea tells me the fleet’s in orbit and on their way so we need to hold this position until they get here!”    There was a momentary pause in the conversation as that sunk in, but it was Adria that spoke up to make things worse, “I think I see something coming our way...but there’s no way those are our ships.”    Everyone turned to see what she was talking about. What they saw were four objects coming in across the sky, likely a many kilometers away still. They were, however, very obviously Coralskippers. They were moving fast and coming right for the building with no sign of any pursuit.    Processing this new information, Rea found only one response was left, “Well, dammit.”</blockquote>

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