Combat
Cook and Tower hit the ground immediately upon hearing blaster fire from the buildings above. 28 along with 9 are able to get a better idea of where the fire is coming from, able to narrow it down to specific buildings. Sarge commands the troops to get under cover back at the AT-TEs and gives the troopers permission to fire hostiles. Tower sits up and begins opening fire with his blaster canon while 9 sets up the bipod. Rat runs off with Tinny behind it. Sarge, Hal, Trip, and Doc are all falling back while Cook, Tower, and 28 provide cover. The hostiles seem amateur, there’s no order to the gunfire and it seems clumsy. There’s some people in the crowd throwing satchels at the parade, bombs begin blowing off in the crowds or as these satchels make their arc. Very few are making it to the parade, but there are several civilian casualties. Sarge gets nails with a well placed shot to the shoulder. Cook, Tower, and 28 are able to provide cover, stopping the hostiles for the time being, and 28 is even able to get a headshot off one of the terrorists.
Rat makes it to the AT-TE and gets its way inside, allowing itself and Tinny in through a service elevator. Tower shrugs off a heavy blaster shot to his armor and 28 realizes there’s a sniper among the separatist rebels. The squad and Sarge are able to finish retreating under the AT-TE as Cook, Tower, and 28 are providing more cover fire. Several more explosions go off further down the road and sirens begin blaring. Cook, Tower, and 28 arrive under the AT-TE. Rat takes its place in the Astromech’s pilot seat, letting itself tap into the sensors of the tank having a wider degree of control and perception of the world. Rat asks for permission to shoot, getting conflicting orders. A yes from Sarge and a no from another squad leader. Rat takes that as a yes, going a little manic with the power from being part of an even bigger droid. It shoots at the cluster of blaster fire coming from the buildings. The large gun recoils and shoots a large blue streak through the streets and half a second later, the sound of a large explosion emanates from the tank. A cloud of debris, blood, and limbs come from the 3rd floor of this nearby building. Unfortunately, while Rat was busy blasting, Tinny was sniped, dying instantly. And then there were eight.
Over comms, the squad gets word that the terrorists are focusing fire on their queen, the clone commander, and the Jedi general. 28 is able to locate the sniper, who seems like one of the only trained soldiers in this group. Tower targets the sniper specifically, shooting the walls until the barrel of his gun turns a bright red and part of the building collapses. The sniper stumbles out of the way of the destruction, giving 28 a perfect shot to shoot the fucker between the eyes. Unfortunately for 28, the helmet stops the bulk of the blast, but the Quarren sniper scrambles to rip it off as it burns into his head and water shoots out of the open space between his chestpiece and where his helmet once was. Cook attempts to finish what 28 started, but whiffs and shoots the nearby wall, taking down some more debris. Luckily, this causes the sniper to make his escape quicker and he drops his rifle. Rat is able to narrow in on where the bulk of the separatists who are attacking the queen, and it shoots another blast in that direction. It hits yet another building, causing another collapse and a lot of collateral damage. Tycho, the Jedi general, commands the ceasing of artillery, and Rat begrudgingly agrees.
Tycho and his men are able to break into several of the buildings and blaster fire is slowing down. 28 takes one more shot at the sniper and is able to take him down, satisfied with himself. Tower spots a vehicle rapidly approaching, probably full of explosions, and attempts to shoot it to explode it before it reaches the crowd. A luck shot from the rebels, however, severed the cable from his gun to its battery pack, initiating an emergency shut off. Rat takes the liberty of using the AT-TE’s smaller guns - which Tycho said nothing about! The gunfire doesn’t stop the vehicle, however, it overcorrects and rams into a building. Luckily not triggering any explosions. The militia has begun their retreat, they had driven the majority of their supplies attacking the queen’s vehicle. They’ve taken heavy losses, but the queen is safe. Compared to the other squads, these fellas are a-okay. Which the unfortunate exception of Tinny. In total, 20 dead clones and about 100 clone injuries. Over half of the royal guards have been taken out, and an unknown number of dead civilians are left. Though the crew can see dozens of dead bodies laid out in the street.
Cook takes off Tinny’s helmet as his body gets loaded up to be cremated. He salutes him, proud that he fought valiantly in the line of battle protecting his brothers and commanders. Rat interrupts this but very loudly descending the elevator. There is now no one left who can understand Rat! They also still have a large vehicle full of bombs that haven’t gone off. 28 calls it in and Rat cannot communicate to anyone that it knows how to disable bombs. Sarge is bitching that his armor is painted to denote his rank, effectively giving him a large target on his head. Tower is promoted as second in command after the death of Tinny - previously second in command.
Warehouse Raid
The squad receives their new orders. Find the remaining separatist rebels and kill them. 28 is able to catch they went east vaguely. They’re also given a map created by the higher ups with some specific points to check out. The group make plans for their scouting mission, 28 plugs in his datapad into Rat’s torso to have a live translation of what its saying. As they are ready to take of, Tycho approaches and speaks with the group. He says he will go with them to the warehouse where 28 had seen them retreating to. He offers for them to join him on his gunship and they take off to a nearby air yard. Tower asks for an explanation into how Jedi and the Force works - though he doesn’t get it. Cook actually has a really deep comprehension of it! Rat and 28 get the jist of it, though 28 doesn’t care and Rat is only able to understand emotions and feelings so much. The other clones don’t really care and are preparing themselves for combat. 28 plugs his datapad back into Rat. They decide to let Tycho do the talking, just in case this is a civilian warehouse.
They exit their airship, letting Tycho lead the pack. Strangely, this private airfield is.. deserted. There’s no one here, no passengers, no workers, no receptionists or pilots - not even any droids. While taking a look around, Cook sees that everyone who left left in a hurry. Briefcases, suitcases, even food was left. It’s odd that there’s no one left. Tycho, Hal, Doc, and Trip check out the airfield while Tower, 28, Rat, Cook, and 9 check out the hanger. Rat opens up the large metal door to the hanger - which is just as empty as the airfield. Tower finds a crate and opens it up, its full of MREs. The same kind of MREs the clones eat! After cracking open a few more crates just to find toilet paper, engine grease, and powdered eggs, they feel safe in saying that most of these are fairly normal fare. They begin exploring further into the hanger, hearing sounds of welding and blurbling speech in an unknown language. Rat figures out he can use text to speech on the datapad and entertains himself with being able to finally say slurs out loud. Too loud. As the sounds of welding and blurbling suddenly stop. The group takes their places hiding behind cover at the top of the ramp leading further into the hanger. After a tense several minutes, eventually, the people hiding below make their way up. Quarren with guns sneak up and 28 gets a shot off one of the Quarren and rolls a smoke grenade through the doorway. The first Quarren backs off, though Cook throws a frag grenade inside doing some amount of damage back to them. In response, two grenades are thrown up at the party, Tower, Cook, and Rat have used Force points to add boons to their agility rolls after Carver accidentally nearly TPK’d us.
Anyway, two Quarren are now standing outside the doorway. 9 shoots them both in the legs, downing them, and 28 shoots one in the head. Tower and Cook try and fail to kill the remining Quarren. “Mon Calamari, eat my ass!” Tower screams, trying to draw them out. Though in the corner of his eye, he spots two Quarren rapidly loading crates onto a ship. He yells again, “Ship! Get them off the ship!” Rat comes alive after hearing his favorite word, and beelines to the Quarren with his taser. Tower stabs the final Quarren in front of him and the party focuses fire onto the two Quarren loading crates on the ship and Rat desperately begins hacking into the ship. The final Quarren raises his hands in surrender. Rat is ascending the elevator into the ship while 28 desperately calls for his datapad back. They communicate with Tycho and take in the surrendering Quarren after stunning him. Rat also gets permission from Tycho to requisition their space ship. Not that he needed it. They take an MW82 “Stargazer” - a heavily armored freighter with two laser turrets. It’s bare bones, seems like many of the features it was meant to have have been removed.
It appears similar to the following ship, with thicker and blockier wings tall enough to stand in.
The group hold up inside the ship while they wait for the rest of the crew to meet up with them. Rat runs a diagnosis, the reactor is functional and the power systems are damaged, though everything else is perfectly in tact. They take an opportunity to search the Quarren and remove all weapons and armor. They notice an emblem on his chestpiece picturing a Quarren skull and the words “Free Dac Legion” surrounding. Tower recalls Free Dac, he knows of the Free Dac Engineering Corp., a Quarren organization who creates ships, weapons, and supplies for the separatists. After looking around, it seems like this ship is brand new. Probably just bought, though the ship is definitely quite old. Tycho checks out the ship and says it’ll be good enough for an undercover vessel. Tycho has the rest of squad 20 load up into the Stargazer after picking up Tycho’s ship. He gives Rat the directions to the royal airfield to get it some much needed repairs and refurbishing. Rat is thrilled. As long as he can behave and fly well, he’ll have some amount of say in what happens to the ship. He therefore flies expertly while the rest of the crew debate what decals they should add to it.