New Republic Archives

Roleplay Logs

21 May 2002

Deactivation of the Imperial Communications Center and Escape from Coruscant


IP: 198.81.16.182
Posted on 05/21/02 at 20:51:39 by Michael Sampson

[ooc] This is to take place relatively at the same time as the Republic assault on Coruscant. And sorry about the last part, but I was kind of rushed for time. :D


[ic] The time had come; he felt it. Peering through his electrobinoculars, Michael saw the daily delivery transport on its way to the Imperial palace. Pocketing the device in his Jedi cloak, Michael sprinted across the rooftop, jumping from one to another as needed, until he was only a few blocks away from the transport. Using the Force to cushion him, he fell from the roof to the street, taking notice of all that was going on around him. Various venders were attempting to sell their goods to hundreds of consumers... consumers that flooded into the street and blocked the path of the transport. As the vehicle approached, Michael only now noticed the group of stormtrooper escorts that accompanied it. The troops waved citizens from the street, clearing a path for the transport as it slowly inched its way forward.

"Dammit," he thought to himself. "This would prove to be a bit more difficult than I had originally planned." After surveying the scene once more, Michael's eyes stopped upon a human merchant who was in a verbal dispute with a Rodian customer. The two were arguing very heavily, but this wasn't out of the ordinary. It was up to Michael to make it out of the ordinary. Using the Force, Michael stretched out and mentally pulled the trigger of the Rodian's sidearm, firing a blaster bolt into the ground. Startled and fearing an attack, the human merchant fell backwards, drawing his own blaster and fired at the unsuspecting and just as shocked Rodian. Soon, a handful of others joined the frey, and the stormtroopers left their posts guarding the transport to break up the incident.

This was his chance.

Michael walked to the passenger side of the transport cockpit in a very casual way. He stepped up to the door and used the Force to unlatch it. As he silently entered and sat down on the passenger's side seat, he looked over at the driver, who was watching the incident outside intently. Suddenly the driver felt blackness surround him, and before he knew it he had slumped over in a hibernation trance. Michael removed the hat the driver wore, and scooted him into the passengers seat. Michael then leaned back in the seat casually, as if he actually had been the driver of the transport. Given the shifting of stormtroopers, Michael hoped none of them knew the driver well enough to notice the switch. And as the stormtroopers signalled Michael to continue on his path to the palace, it would seem none of them did.

Upon arrival, Michael opened the transport vehicle's rear doors, allowing maintenence workers waiting at the loading bay to begin carrying in supplies from the cargo area of the transport. During the initial unloading, Michael quickly managed to throw off his Jedi cloak and put the transport uniform worn by the real driver on over his clothes, and given that the transport cockpit was well above eye level, no one seemed to notice anything was going on.

Within moments, Michael emerged with a clipboard in hand, and approached one of the stormtroopers overseeing the unloading process.

"S'cuse me, sir," Michael said in a slight accent. "We changed the expected cargo delivery manifest for tomorrow's shipment, and I'd like to take it inside and verify it with the loading manager, if that's alright, sir."

"Security's a bit tight, I think it would be better if I examined the list and took it in myself," came the mechanical voice of the trooper.

"You don't need to examine this list," Michael stated assertively, his Force powers churning.

"I don't need to examine this list," repeated the stormtrooper.

"I may take it in myself," Michael stated.

"You may take it in yourself."

And with that, Michael passed the trooper and stopped for a moment, looking down at the datapad clipboard innocently. But as he appeared to be looking at his information, he reached out through the Force and pulled the directions to the communications center from the stormtroooper's mind. With a brief smirk, Michael continued through the loading area and into the halls of the palace.

Thanks to his disguise as a transport driver, the Imperial stormtroopers inside didn't take much notice of him as he walked the halls towards the communications center. As he reached the main door, two stormtrooper guards stood at attention. They peered down at him through their helmets, as if silently asking what he thinks he's doing.

"I've got to clear the cargo manifest for tomorrow with one of the officers inside. There's been a change."

The troopers looked at each other, and one turned to open the door. The other snapped the manifest from Michael's hand and began examining it. The door slid up and open as the stormtrooper's head tilted.

"There's nothing on this manifest though..."

As soon as the stormtrooper spoke, Michael let his lightsaber fall through the sleeve of his uniform and into his hand, where it ignited in a flare of fiery red energy. Before either of the two stormtroopers could draw their blaster rifles to fire, Michael slashed downward towards the guns, slicing them in two. He then violently Force shoved both of them away in opposite directions, slamming them against the wall hard enough to knock the wind from their lungs and the consciousness from their minds.

With the comm center's door opened thanks to the now unconscious stormtrooper, Michael walked in, activated lightsaber in his hand. He deactivated the security cameras using the Force, and coughed slightly to draw the attention of the technicians inside.

"Right now," Michael's voice boomed in the relatively quiet room. "I'm giving you the chance to leave. Stay here, resist me, and you may not get that chance."

He stepped aside from the door, and all but one of the technicians left the room. Michael looked at the one remaining, a woman in her late twenties, sitting in her chair. She peered coldly at Michael as he began to approach her.

"Did you not hear what I said? I want you out of here. Now."

"You don't scare me, Jedi!"

"My intent is not to scare you. It's just my work here would be much easier if no one else was present in the room."

"Well," she said with a smirk. "I guess you'll have to adapt to the situation." She slammed her fist under the desk in front of her, and triggered the alarm. Lights flashed, and a mechanical scream erupted through the speakers. The woman leapt up and began to draw a delicate blaster from her hip, but Michael was already in motion as he extended a hand to Force push her across the room and into the corner, knocking the blaster away. With one swift lunge of his lightsaber, the blaster was cut into pieces and the woman sat helpless, shaken from the push. Michael approached, cornering her where she sat.

"I would advise you not do that again," Michael exclaimed, obviously upset at the new twist in his plan. His eyes slit in anger, he turned his head to examine the room behind him as the sirens continued. He sighed, and shut his eyes as he reached out through the Force. Then, in a flash, he leapt around and sent his blade crashing through various panels and computer terminals as he shuts down the Imperial communcations center in one of the least technical ways possible. Sparks fly from the panels and desks as Michael cuts through electronic equipment and processors. With the whole room blazing from his destruction, he made sure that no panel remained intact before leaving the main center door. As he walked out, he looked to both sides of the hallway. Nothing, but the blast doors to either side had been closed. This was unlike the Imperials, to not have come stop him, he thought to himself. Nevertheless, he deactivated his lightsaber and walked to one of the blast doors, flipping the activation switch to open it. As the doors pried apart, two teams of stormtroopers waited on the other side, blaster reticules affixed on his position.

They did not give him the chance to surrender. Instant blaster fire hailed towards him, and he was forced to Force leap to one side out of the line of fire. Troops poured through the open doors, providing cover fire for each other as they began to make their way through the area to try and block off the other end of the hallway before Michael reached it. After ducking through various halls, Michael had not only managed to momentarily escape the stormtroopers, but had gotten himself completely lost in the process. He held his lightsaber tightly in his hand, and stretched out in the Force to pick up the locations of the stormtroopers. But there were too many for him to keep a positive fix on, and he decided it would be too much of a hassle, and far less fun, to try and keep track of their positions.

Michael looked from side to side as he heard the blast doors shut in the distance. Then the faint voice of one of the troopers, "We've got him sealed in here with us now. They'll be no escape."

He smirked.

Four troopers rounded the corner, and Michael's thumb hit the activation switch of his lightsaber. Blaster bolts singed by him as he backtracked, deflecting any shots he could. As he entered an intersection in the hall, half a dozen other troops spotted him and opened fire as well. He leaped backwards to avoid the mailstrom of blaster fire that had just been sent his way. However, he couldn't escape the fire from the original direction, and a bolt made contact with his left arm. He screamed in pain, but managed to get to his feet and round another corner to escape the battlefiend for a few seconds.

As he stood there, contemplating whether or not he would be able to fend off one group of stormtroopers while he was being flanked by another, he looked straight ahead and saw... a ventilation duct. A flash of his blade later, and the duct was exposed. Michael crawled in only to realize he had very little room to navigate. But that wouldn't stop him from escaping, as he reached out through the Force and used telekinesis to push himself through the vent, nursing his injured arm as he sped away.

The stormtroopers eventually converged on the corner, and found nothing. But seeing the broken ventilation duct, they radioed into their superiors.

"Sir, the target has escaped into the ventilation shaft. We've lost him here."

"We'll deal with him from here," came the reply of an unknown officer.

As Michael reached the end of horizontal ventilation path, the duct widened as it opened in the vertical direction.

"Great," Michael said aloud. "Up this shaft and I'm out. Easy as---"

A hiss surrounded him, and suddenly, the air left Michael's lungs. He gagged for a moment, realizing they'd evacuated the oxygen from the vents.

"They know I'm here," he thought.

He prepared to Force jump up to begin his ascent to the top of the shaft, but such measures proved to be unnecessary. Above him, the sounds of a large fan began to eminate. And within seconds, the air flow lifted Michael from his feet and sent him skyrocketing towards the top of the shaft... and right towards the fan!

He only had moments to think, and no air to breath wasn't helping him. The best idea he could come up with was creating a Force shield a few feet in front of him, so that it would connect with the fan before he did, sending the fan itself up and out of the shaft, just as Michael planned to do. His eyes watering from lack of air, he used his remaining Force power to construct a suitable shield, and covered the length of the rest of the duct. His Force shield pummelled into the fan, knocking it through the roof. Michael was propelled the rest of the way, and crash landed beside the duct opening on top of the Imperial palace. He fell to his back, breathing heavily and clutching his injured arm. After that maneuver with the fan, he no longer had the energy in the Force that would be required to mend his injury.

But the fight wasn't over yet.

Two Imperial planetary patrol craft zoomed by the roof, lights blazing on the broken panel in the roof, right next to Michael's position. He opened his eyes to see the craft fly by, and his heart sunk.

"Either I didn't completely destroy the communcations center and the Palace was able to send a message to air control about my presense, or they launched patrol craft directly from the palace." He sat up as he thought to himself. "Regardless, I don't have time to rectify any mistakes I've made. I only got one shot at this, and that shot's over."

He pushed himself to his feet and looked around the roof and saw... nothing. A flag pole held the Imperial banner proudly, but no craft or vehicle was on the roof that he could steal for his escape. Time was running out, especially with those patrol ships circling around his position. He'd be spotted soon, and he needed out. With nothing else in sight, his best bet was the flagpole. He ran over to it, and slashed it from its holster with his lightsaber. Activation of his Jedi weapon instantly drew the lighting from the patrol craft, and more alarms sounded to signify he'd been spotted. But at this point, he didn't care.

He looked for the nearest rooftop and, with the flagpole in hand, began running across the rooftop. Once he got to the edge, he buried the tip of the pole into the roof and slung himself through the air towards the other building. As he landed roughly and rolled across the roof, the patrol craft struggled to keep light on his position. And even though his injured arm now throbbed in pain from the landing, he continued on his way. He ran to the edge of this roof, which had a ladder to street level, and he slid as fast as he could down to the ground. Now it was merely a matter of sinking into his background and finding a ship.

He tore the transport uniform off, revealing his clothes from earlier in the day. Then, he walked out and joined the mass exodus of people leaving the palace due to the attack. Michael made his way down the street and back to the landing bay that his freighter had originally landed in, but the freighter was gone.

"Well, time for plan B," he said aloud.

He walked through the landing bay, examining the ships that were still here and not tightly guarded. Finding an unmarked modified FA-504 transport, Michael sneaked aboard and started the ship up, flying as fast as he could from the planet's surface into space to await whatever welcome he would get.