ATWinPC-15

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==Chapter 15 - A Toreel Wizard in Prince Davion's Court==
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===Off to a Jail Break===
SpaceportEuschelus, Taurian ConcordatOctober 14th, 3025
Step one was reconnaissance. The ship they'd come in on had a tiny crew of its own, as well as carrying that part of the JumpShip's crew that had gotten the "lucky" chance for shore leave. All told, sixteen people. 
Fortunately, Chim, L'heo, and Celia had all interacted with them, living beside them for months. That added familiarity was all it took for Chim's scrying sensor to locate them, showing her Trisha and several of her shipmates in a small cell, with some sort of empty corridor visible on the other side of the barred cell door.
They didn't know where in the town this cell was, of course, but they didn't need to. L'heo would handle the rest. 
"Quick," Chim told him. "In and out. Try not to take too many risks."
"Same to you," L'heo said, with Polly on his shoulder, then vanished into invisibility before teleporting. 
Chim looked over to Celia, who was just finishing buckling her breastplate, not bothering with the full suit of plate mail. They were on a short clock here.
"Shall we go, mistress?" the paladin asked.
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===Retrieving the Crew===
There was a guard standing in front of him when L'heo emerged from the teleport. Not exactly aware of his presence, but L'heo could tell he'd noticed the brief puff of displaced air that had accompanied the spell and was looking a little confused.
He wouldn't get the chance to do much else as L'heo placed his hand against the guard's chest and sent him hurling into the far wall with a sickening crunch. 
Polly hopped down from his shoulder and went over to the crumpled form. "Still alive," he said as he tapped the guard with his forehead and released a small amount of healing magic. "Barely, but he'll stay that way."
L'heo was meanwhile moving to the door at the other end of the small hallway. He could hear people outside the door calling out, wanting to know what that sound was. L'heo had just gotten his hand on the door when another person began stepping through.
That man shouted, first in surprise and then in agony as L'heo cast his next spell. The heavy metal door swung shut, catching and crushing the man's hand as it latched and locked itself. 
L'heo exhaled. "Well this is going great," he said as he turned to the cells, taking a moment to block the sight of the blood oozing from between the door and the jamb at the latch from their view. "We're getting you out of here," he said as he pulled a bottle from his bag and pointed the stoppered end at the small open window in the door. "It'll just take a minute." Taking a stance to maximize his own stability, he gave the command word and shot a powerful geyser of water through that window, hearing shouting and thudding on the other side. "Any time now, Polly!"
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===Following Orders===
All dropships looked huge to an infantryman, especially when you stood right next to them, and this thirty meter tall ovoid was no exception. 
The thing was, it wasn't though. It was comparatively tiny. Not just relative to other ships of its type, but just in the amount of internal space available, especially when most of that was supposed to be empty space for bulk cargo.
So as Brett led a team aboard (his maniple, plus a handful of troops that had originally seized the ship), he didn't expect to be searching long. There were only two critical spaces, the small bridge at the top and the engineering space under the cargo bay. They already had people on the bridge, and the engineering space was literally only big enough for one person to comfortably move around in, so it'd be quick to check. 
The cargo bay was itself a big empty, aside from stacked crates of supplies and "art objects" the ship was transporting. It was cover, but not really a place to hide. That meant if someone was hiding on the ship, it'd be in the living space, above the cargo hold, but below the bridge. Small, confined, designed to accommodate maybe twenty people in a small number of three or four man cabins.
Small enough, he reckoned, for this ad-hoc squad to cover.
As they marched up the ramp and into the hold, Brett pointed to two of his troopers and gestured to the access door for the engineering space. "Kill the drive," he ordered. "Shut it down, scram it, whatever they call it. She turned a live fusion plant into a bomb. Can't let her do it again."
A voice came from above. "How many times do I have to tell people that was an accident?" it called out, sounding positively petulant. 
Guns went up as Brett's troops scanned the roof of the bay, looking for noise. It was well lit. The ship's powerplant was idling, and nobody had turned off the overhead lights. There also wasn't much in the way of structures for the girl to be hiding behind. But Brett couldn't se anything.
"You here to kill me?" the voice called out.
"Got orders to," Brett said. "You specifically, kill you dead the Brigadier says." He shrugged. "But he's on painkillers right now, so I got some 'not in control of his faculties' wiggle room there."
"Do you want to?"
"Don't know," Brett replied. "Should I want to?"
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Author's Chapter Notes : Reader Question 1; What class of DropShip is this? Author Answer; On a whim I decided to use my G-class cargo carrier, retrofitted to carry extra passengers. Basically an otherwise unwanted relic that a crew of scavengers willing to head into the middle of nowhere at all might use because they could get it for a bargain.Reader Question 2; Is WIS (Wisdom) Chim's dull stat?Author Answer; She suffers a critical debuff common to player characters where their common sense is reduced well below what their stat should suggest. Also Wisdom isn't a real stat, it says so on page 25. :)(Though actually, kinda, but not really. She's just very impulsive)
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