The door closed behind Del’Nor but he was oblivious to it. His eyes were focused on the parts in front of him. He was so lost in the potential of the parts that he didn’t make any noise and wasn’t noticed by the pirates on the gantryway above.
On the other side of the door, Loor, Antares and Jal made fast plans to rescue the drall from the pirates, despite being fairly injured themselves. When they tried to contact him over their comms, he denied seeing any pirates but was emphatic that they come and help him with the parts as he was certain it was a hyperdrive motivator of some sort.
Unconvinced that the pirates weren’t there, they tried opening the door only to find it had auto locked again. Deciding that it was time to leave, Antares and Jal modified the plan to stun Del’nor and escape. Jal lied to Del’nor and told him that the grav-sled was there already and being so eager to get the parts onto the shrike he believed him.
Loor opened the door but Del’nor was wily and managed to close the door before Antares could get a shot off. They went back and forth like this a number of times almost comically before Antares managed to shoot him and knocked out the stubborn drall.
Once he was out, they searched to see if the pirates, and Antares’, nemesis was still there but it looked like they had left through another bulkhead door while Del’Nor was distracted.
As they had no idea what the engineering marvel Del’Nor had been ranting about looked like, they reluctantly woke him up.
They instantly regretted their decision when he threatened to kill them all in their sleep if they didn’t help him take his precious parts back to the ship. Jal was uncertain if the little drall had been affected by some strain of rabies and wanted to run some tests but Del’nor shook him off. In an effort to appease the old scientist, they found a grav-sled and loaded the parts onto it. Antares was certain that it was junk and muttered under his breath about wasting time.
Once the scrap was loaded, Del’nor did a sweep of the room to see if they’d missed anything and found a couple of heavy ship lasers. They argued for a bit about what had more immediate value and ultimately decided to make two trips. They had tried to recall Jarek, Nik and the Droideka but discovered that they were lost in the bowels of the ship with Rhee and the protocol droid D3.
They first took Del’nor’s prize and then headed back for the lasers. The trip back to the ship was slow and so quiet it bred an overcautious paranoia in the group that was only diffused by the almost comedic comm chatter from Jarek and Nik as they tried to manoeuvre the droid through some tight spaces and back to the surface.
Eventually they reached the surface and began crossing the long stretch of hardened magma between the crash and their ship. Their heightened awareness paid off and they caught a glimpse of movement on the ridgeline. It seems they’d found where the pirates had disappeared to.
A firefight broke out and the pirates demanded that they surrender the Shrike. To emphasise their point, Rickard Anzac planted a well aimed shot at Antares’ feet.
The fight was brutal. Jal made a break for the ship while Del’nor, Loor and Antares used the grav sled as cover and inched towards the ship. Antares returned fire and was pretty sure he took out Rickard when the sniping stopped suddenly.
Loor rigged a surprise to the grav sled as a last resort and Del’Nor slowly pushed it towards the ship.
The panthers were released and came racing down the slope towards Jal along with their handler who was brandishing a wicked axe.
Jal made it to the ship and got it open but wasn’t able to get inside before the cats were upon him. As soon as the ship was open Loor abandoned the sled and raced past Jal into the ship, giving Del’nor the briefest of warnings “If you leave, don’t come back for it”.
Antares also abandoned the sled and used the recoil from his last shot to propel him into the safety of the ship. The cats pounced. One leapt heroically over Jal and into the cargo hold and the other gave Jal a nasty slice.
Loor, in his infinite wisdom, pulled out a plasma grenade and dropped it at the cat inside. He grabbed Antares and made for a hasty exit back outside but was ill prepared when the cat swatted the grenade back towards him. He shielded Antares from the blast using his own body and they both tumbled back outside.
Antares got up and took a shot at the axe wielding pirate before he closed the gap. Del’Nor finally abandoned the grav sled and took a shot at… something. Loor slammed the door shut trapping the one cat inside as Jal dispatched the other one.
The axe wielding pirate was overcome with rage as his pet went down and swung with all his might at Antares. Antares went down hard and Jal scrambled to patch him up while Loor dispatched the pirate.
With his crew gone, the pirate captain sounded a retreat and disappeared over the ridge line, the party too hurt or tired to care.
As they sat there wondering how they were going to deal with the cat still trapped in their ship, they felt a series of explosions deep underground and the ground began to shake dangerously. Turning towards the wreck, the survivors saw Nik, Jarek and Rhee covered in black dust and running towards the ship, followed by D3 and the Droideka stumbling behind.
“RUN!!!” They screamed…