Project Boussh: Takeout by Josh Nolan Ooryl traced a map out on the paper while the Ewoks gathered around curiously. "This building here is the TIE hangar. It's likely to have heavy security - hidden E-Webs, maybe - but it should be our primary target. If they can get those TIEs out, we're in trouble." "And they're going to be on high alert, too. They sent out a team and it hasn't come back," added Josh, considering the diagram between Ooryl and himself. "But we don't have all day - they might decide to slag this place rather than send another team." The Ewoks yubbed proudly at Josh's mention of the stormtrooper team they had exterminated, and one even yanked at Josh's ear. Josh casually smashed a backhanded blow into the Ewok's stomach and murmured, "Don't." Ooryl looked at Josh. "First - how do we get in?" Josh traced out the fence lines on the map with his finger. "The fence might be elecrtrified, almost certainly alarmed. I'll get some jumper leads and some wire cutters for that." "Second - how do we proceed?" "What are the patrol patterns again?" Ooryl traced out the various patrol paths on the map, pointing out high and low ground, regurgitating what he knew about Imperial patrol doctrine. "They may be as close as five minutes, as far apart as an hour. They vary more or less randomly, so as to not open a window for invaders." "Is there any way to silence a blaster?" Ooryl shook his head. "Not with the equipment we have available." "Well - could we wait after someone has followed this path, and make a break for it?" "We would be clearly visible from the homestead. There is a reason that path is cursory." "Well then, I reckon our best bet is to sneak along this gully here, and if we hear a motorbike, hide." Ooryl sighed. "Ooryl was hoping you would see a better plan than Ooryl could." Josh shrugged. "You've been doing this sort of thing longer than I have." "It is a pity we have just the two of us to work with. We simply do not have the staff to mount a co-ordinated attack." Josh started, and stared into the middle distance as he asked, "You mean like a diversion attack? A covering assault?" "Those would be handy, yes." Josh looked Ooryl in the eye, and grinned like a maniac. "We have the staff." Ooryl frowned. "We do?" Josh parked Kronos a few kilometers from the property they were going to assault. Josh was dressed in a black balaclava, pants and long-sleeved T-shirt, while Ooryl wore his flightsuit. Josh had been startled when Ooryl said he would wear it, but when Ooryl reversed the bright orange garment and essentially changed it into a black jumpsuit, Josh had seen the light. The two of them checked their equipment - they carried a blaster carbine and a smaller pistol each, spare powerpacks for both weapons, five thermal detonators each, a glowrod and various other tools and devices stowed around themselves. As Josh and Ooryl climbed out of the car, Ooryl passed a metal cylinder to Josh, saying, "Take this. Ooryl thinks you might have more need of it than Ooryl will." Josh examined the cylinder curiously. "What is it?" "Ooryl took it off one of the fanboys who pursued us to the Nullabor. Ooryl thinks it is a lightsabre." "Ooryl, this'd be a toy. Watch, I'll press this button, and -" There was a snap-hiss as a bright pink energy blade sprang into being from the end of the cylinder. It hummed slightly in the still night air as Josh stared at it, dumbfounded. "And - it's a lightsabre. Bloody hell." Josh swished the blade through the air a few times, listening to the change in pitch and timbre of the humming. "Bloody hell," he repeated, "It's beautiful." "Ooryl thinks that if you have seen one lightsabre, you have seen them all - and Ooryl also thinks you should turn the bloody thing off before someone sees." "Wha? Oh. Right." Josh turned the lightsabre off, its blade dissipating with a triumphant hiss, and looked at Ooryl. "Thanks." "It was nothing. I think our passengers are getting restless." Josh nodded, and pulled the release for the boot. Almost instantly, the back of the car swung open, unleashing eight frenzied Ewoks into the night. The Ewoks tangled up each other, yubbing furiously, until Josh said, "Quiet, fellas." With a few sullen yubs, the Ewoks untwined themselves and lined up patiently by the car. Ooryl opened up the back seat of the hatchback, and pulled out eight more blaster carbines, and handed them out to the Ewoks, who regarded them with curiousity. "Guys," said Josh, "these are blasters. They're what the bad men who invaded the flat used to shoot at you." The Ewoks scowled, and one even threw its carbine on the ground and began jumping on it. Josh pulled the Ewok off the weapon, and continued, "But now, you get to use them to shoot at bad men." The Ewoks brightened at this, and two of them faced off, blasters pointing at each other, making high-pitched noises and miming firing them. Josh intervened, pushing both barrels skyward. "Don't point them at each other - they might go off. Now, the way you use these things is to point them at something - like this - and then squeeze the trigger - that's this bit, here - and you'll shoot at whatever the blaster is pointing at. Get it?" The Ewoks began to nod, yubbing happily. Josh smiled. "Good. Now, what we're going to do, is we're going to make a hole in the fence just over there. You sit outside that hole and wait for the signal, right?" Josh pulled out his comlink as well as a spare, and demonstrated the sound of a triple-click. "When you hear that noise, go through the hole, and start shooting at the bad men. Don't go any further in than about halfway to the house in the middle. That way you won't accidentally shoot at Ooryl or me. Okay?" Again, the Ewoks yubbed their agreement, waving their blasters carelessly. Josh nodded, handed one of the Ewoks the spare commlink, and moved over to the fence. He pulled out a few sets of jumper leads, and, in time with Ooryl, clipped them onto the barbed-wire strands of the fence. Ooryl then unlimbered a pair of wire cutters and clipped the strands between the jumper leads, and bent the wire inwards to make a hole in the fence. There were still jumper leads stretched across the gap which the Ewoks might very well dislodge, but since the Ewoks were the diversion, it was fine if they set the alarm off. Waving goodbye to the Ewoks, Ooryl and Josh circled around the property until they reached their optimum point of approach. There they repeated the breaching procedure, worming their way between the insulated jumper cables to get inside the property. Once there, Josh took a deep breath, and triple-clicked his comlink. Almost immediately, blaster fire began from the Ewoks, and people began to charge out of the homestead. Ooryl and Josh nodded at each other, and began their forked run to the hangar. Their initial paths diverged, to reduce the chance that they would both be spotted. They remained within a few dozen metres of each other, in case one or the other got into trouble - which turned out to be a wise precaution. A blaster bolt singed Josh's hair as a harsh voice with an English accent called out, "Freeze!" Three sillouhettes of humans rose seemingly out of the ground in front of him, and, judging by the fact they appeared to be pointing things at him, their intentions were not friendly. Knowing that a lightfight with these odds and at this distance would kill him, Josh opted instead for desperation. Whipping out his new toy, Josh ignited the lightsabre and called out, "I warn you, I'm a Jedi!" "And I'm a Hutt," growled one of the sillouhettes. "Prove it." "Think of a number between one and ten," Josh demanded, hoping that the lightsabre wouldn't show how much he was shaking. "Okay," said another of the sillouhettes suspiciously. "Wrong," snapped Josh. "Crap, Barry," said the third sillouhette. "How'd he do that?" As the middle sillouhette slapped the third one on the head, Josh said, "How about I predict your future?" The first sillouhette chuckled. "What, I meet a tall, dark stranger?" There was a hideous snap, a grinding crunch and the muffled sound of a blasterbolt. As Ooryl straightened up from the carnage, Josh grinned. "I wouldn't exactly say he's tall." He turned off the lightsabre, and nodded to Ooryl. "Not much point in pretending we're not here any more." The Gand nodded. "Agreed." The pair brought their carbines to their shoulders, and ran at the hangar, watching the lightfight in progress between the base's defenders and the Ewoks. The blaster bolts seemed to be mainly heading in the Ewoks' direction, but the sources of fire were steadily being snuffed out. "Ewoks - are - clubbing - them - to - death," Josh observed, puffing with the effort run. Ooryl nodded. "All the fewer for us to face, then." The pair were only around fifty metres from the hangar when a terrible whine rose into audibility. The main doors of the barn slowly swung open, and the hexagoal wings of a TIE fighter emerged, floating on repulsorlifts, slowly swinging around towards the Ewoks. "You take the hangar. Ooryl will take the eyeball." Josh nodded in mute agreement, and kept running for the barn. Ooryl veered away from the human, sprinting towards where the TIE fighter was hovering, its lasers powering up all too quickly from its cold start. Ooryl fired a volley from his carbine at the rear of the ball cockpit, knowing from experience that it would do little more than make the quadanium steel armour ring - but Ooryl was only after the eyeball's attention. The TIE fighter ponderously began turning towards this new threat, but Ooryl closed in time to slap a thermal detonator on the wing of the TIE fighter. If the Gand had needed to breathe, he would have been asphyxiated from the heat as he ran underneath the starfighter's twin ion engines, but instead he tossed another detonator upward, where its magnetic base stuck firmly to the cockpit. He ran past the starfighter's other wing and threw himself into a small depression, splashing muck and stagnant water in the air with the impact. The starfighter rocked as the first thermal detonator exploded, blowing a chunk out of the wing and destabilising the fighter. Then the second detonator went, igniting a portion of the starfighter's fuel and ripping the eyeball into pieces. The intact wing went spiralling through the hangar, and shrapnel from the rest of the starfighter rained down over the entire property. The shockwave from the explosion knocked down part of the already-damaged hangar and seemed almost solid as it rolled over Ooryl, bursting his eardrums and knocking him unconscious. Ooryl felt himself being shaken, and gradually came around, seeing by the ultraviolet of the starlight the three Ewoks gathered around him. The Gand queasily forced himself to sit up, while the Ewoks yubbed at him meaninglessly through the ringing in his ears. They tugged at him, and, blearily, he forced himself to stand and follow, taking in the devastation of the destroyed TIE. The Ewoks led him to where Josh hang, trickles of blood from his ears and nostrils slowly coagulating, a large shard of quadanium spearing him through his abdomen and affixing him to the wall of the hangar. The human was barely conscious, mouthing words Ooryl could not understand. With trembling hands, Ooryl unhooked the lightsabre from Josh's belt, and gently cut the quadanium off just above where it penetrated Josh's stomach. Even more carefully, the Gand carved the wall behind Josh, allowing the human to crumple to the floor. Ooryl crouched on the ground, trying to arrange Josh into a position where the steel would place the least pressure on his innards. Ooryl found himself chanting a mantra: "Gand is so sorry, Josh. So very, very sorry." The Ewoks gathered mournfully around the human, and one brushed its paw over Josh's contorted face. "Gand is so sorry, Josh. So very, very sorry."