Star Wars: AotFNPCs

The scanners hadn't said much before the small Republic transport went down, but they had a very clear message: The Republic was fucked.

On the way in to land, the orbit above Kamino had filled with CIS ships, making risky point-blank hyperspace jumps. The planet's defenses were caught completely off-guard, and at least one of the defending Acclamator-class assault ships was forcibly merged with a wayward Recusant-class destroyer – an accidental trade-off that heavily favored the CIS attackers.

The Jedi-carrying shuttle had no chance to enter the battle or flee effectively; on its way to the landing pad, droid starfighters caught up with it and shot out its engines. The ship made a Force-assisted crash landing on the roof of a building, and that was the last the Padawans remembered of anything.

~~~~~

An indeterminate amount of time after the crash, Hvalna came to in a block of holding cells. The cells were small, even for someone of normal size; Hvalna could barely move. He tried to shove the walls aside, to make a dent in the metal, or anything at all, really. The force field in front of him wasn't giving way any time soon, he knew that. Unfortunately, neither were the walls. Whatever they had been made to hold must have been pretty powerful. Failing that, he checked for his lightsaber. It was gone, obviously. Only an idiot would leave a Jedi with his saber.

Hvalna slammed a fist into the wall to vent some of his frustration, but his frustration remained, and his knuckles hurt. An Anx two cells over on the opposite wall shook his head. Hvalna recognized him as their pilot.

"You're not going to get anywhere beating yourself against your cell like an animal. Just be patient. What would your master say if he could see you right now?"

That was a very good question. Where was Master Bareil, anyway? Hvalna urgently craned his head from one side to the other, trying to see down the cell block, but all he could see were the other padawans.

"They're not here; evidently they put everyone they considered a real threat elsewhere," the Anx continued.

A door swished open, and a battle droid walked in. "Keep it quiet in there!" its tinny voice shouted. It then exited with a little more urgency than it had come in; if it wasn't just a droid, Hvalna might have thought it was nervous about being in a room with a bunch of amateur Jedi that long, even if they were all cooped up.

Leila snarled. She was not what you would call a happy and pleasant person on the best of days, and crash landing in the middle of an eternally-rainy-breeding-ground-for-Republic-meatshields wasn't her defiintion of "the best of days".

Her first thought upon waking was the sudden sensation of soreness; much akin to that one feels after a car crash, although admittedly slightly more severe. She tried to do that meditation shit that prayed the pain away or whatever, but she wasn't feeling it.

Emotions calm, my ass, Leila thought. Their masters were nowhere to be seen, that much she could sense before her eyes fluttered open, and the sound of something massive slamming against the side of a cage from nearby confirmed that the whale motherfucker, Hvalna, was awake.

"Yeah, keep it quiet, Hvalna. You heard the droid. Rusted over piece of shit. Hope you can hear me droid. I'm tearing you apart once I get out of this cage." she hissed under her breath, pushing her lekku behind her back as she stood up, stretching softly.

She had a brief mental image of her Master urging her to deal with the droid through diplomacy, through negotiations, through feelings. This was exactly where that love-the-galaxy, hold-hands-and-listen-to-the-Force shit had gotten them.

Leila massaged her temples with her fingers, trying to think. Okay, the Council had gotten them into this mess, and it was up to them to fix their fuck-ups. What else was new. Griping, however, would not help, and neither would making comments to Hvalna about how much space she had in her cell.

First things first. Who else was conscious? Having been awake for a few minutes now, the pain started to subside slightly, and she grudgingly took a few deep breaths and tried to go through the most simple rituals to get her rather...strong...feelings towards her Master under control.

Okay, only Hvalna and pilot guy look awake so far. Unless they drive a plane through pilot guy's cell, I'm ruling him out as help.

"Hvalna, let me know if you think of a way out of here. I'm going to be letting the Force guide me and shit." she ran her hand along the cool steel of the cell, gingerly keeping her fingers a few inches from the force field.

Hm. She'd heard the whale beating on the cells a few minutes ago. If he couldn't burst through with raw strength, she wasn't about to punch through the steel, either. Which meant they'd be getting out of this the old fashioned way.

There was, of course, the option of using her feminine charms to get a particularly lonely prison guard to let them out. But Leila wasn't exactly inclined to that idea, as it brought up some rather painful memories, and beyond that, these droids looked fairly content with themselves. Note to self: infect CIS droids with heterosexual programming? Must mention to Yoda upon return.

Leila knelt down, crossing her legs and closing her eyes. She felt a trickle of the Force run through her, slowly intensifying in strength as her will gathered and her head stopped throbbing. Her pain subsided a bit more, although there were still the full-body aches. Leila's forte was more getting around unseen, causing distractions, and generally irritating her enemies into defeat. Electronic systems she had some experience with, but not in scenarios like this. And she didn't have the raw Force strength to destroy the door.

She could try dragging the droid into the force field, but that would take more effort than her agonized body might have at the moment. And if it didn't work, it would just irritate her captors.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered how the battle was going. This thought was pushed to the outer regions of her consciousness as she focused harder, trying to subdue the anger that boiled just beneath the surface.

For now, brainstorming. Kicking her Master's ass came later.

Lihk had waken up not too long ago, just as groggily as everyone else has been, although it has been more easily contained. In fact, almost as contained as he was in the cell he woke up in. He rested his hand against his pounding head, and he did his best to remain calm and keep his composure during his disoriented state. He had deducted that CIS fighters shot them down, and imprison the Jedi padawans and their masters here. Lihk looked around to see if his beliefs were as he expected, but they were unconfirmed. His master, as long as the other Jedi knights and masters were gone as well. Perhaps they were in another room with more powerful containment fields. By the looks of it, it appeared that the droids had sought to separate them. But he couldn't help but wonder why they were left with their pilot...

Unfortunately, Lihk was conscious for the lethan twi'leks awakening. Leila, he reminisced. Oh yes, she was enjoyable to be around. Being around her delightful presence was like having an evening picnic next to a beautiful lake on Naboo... with a hungry rancor. This is to say that Lihk did not enjoy being around her at all, and that the only reason he tolerated her was because his master encouraged it, and while she was rather easy on the eyes, her disgusting personality pushed away any form of erotic thoughts. She even made the normally calm and peaceful verpine testy. In any matter, what he felt about her was not up to debate, and neither were these thoughts appropriate in a time like this. Lihk took a deep breath so that he may not be provoked by her tirade.

"Leila please," Lihk coaxed in his most soothing voice, "try to remain calm. Just try to be patient and you'll find that we'll be out of here in no time. Keep yourself attuned to the force meanwhile; there will be less complications."

He was of course referring to the complications that Leila will inevitably bring; and perhaps if she simply shut her mouth and be quiet, everyone will be able to remain calm. Everyone will be less annoyed, and everyone will be more focused once the time to escape arrives. Gods only know where that woman is headed... she does not have the makings of a jedi. Only the dark side may have room for her.

Yeah, attuning to the Force worked out really well for us on the ride over here. Seems like my omniscient Master would've noticed a fleet of droids coming through hyperspace at the same time we were-maybe that doesn't qualify as a ripple in the Force.

Leila rose, performing a series of quick stretches. It was a usual routine for her, particularly with the physical rigor of Padawan training throughout the day, and being limber and ready never hurt anyone. She touched her crimson fingers to her toes, before arching her back up and taking a few deep breaths, stretching out her arms.

She knelt down, brow furrowed with concentration. She ignored Lihk's comment and instead focused on a way out.

While stealth and subterfuge was her strong point, she wasn't exactly able to cloak herself in the Force, either. So simply going invisible or casting an illusion was a bit out of her league at the moment, although she grudgingly admitted such a thing might not be past her Master. An illusion wouldn't fool mechanical eyes, anyways. Damn.

Leila tried to survey her cell, and the nearby cells, to look for any security cameras or blatant sensors of some sort. Surely the droid hadn't just heard them through the wall? They had to have some form of surveillance device. While she couldn't discharge lightning by any means (couldn't some of the Sith Lords of old do that? She'd heard rumors from a few of her Knight friends, but there was no guarantee of their legitimacy when it came to these things), maybe there'd be some way to nudge it with the Force, or just twist a few of the wires inside. She was paying the price for not studying surveillance equipment more when she had the chance. Damnit, Master. Twice you've been right now in the last ten minutes, this must be a record for you.

"Great to see you're up and at 'em, Lihk. Let me know if you have any ideas for getting us out of here, although I have-I mean, the Force has told me, we're being watched. So I wouldn't verbalize our escape plan quite yet. Guess that means you're out of the loop, Xeon. Sorry."

Her apology didn't sound sincere by any means, but rather a "I'm-treating-you-with-respect-now-so-you'll-still-fly-the-shuttle-for-us-on-the-way-out". Leila knelt back down, trying to think of an escape plan. Thrashing a droid telekinetically-perhaps with the fellow Padawans' help-as soon as it walked in? No, that wouldn't accomplish anything. More subtle. Eventually they'd be let out, but likely under heavy guard. If she could just get past the force field, they'd be home free, she knew it.

Lihk left Leila to perform her exercises, however moot he believed the effort to be. He didn’t see themselves participating in any great battle soon, and he figured the only time they will deem it necessary to break out is once they obtain enough information from the droids, or some other commander. Not only that, none of the padawans was in the state to be barging out with lightsabers in hand. The group would be better off waiting for some signal than they would be stretching like she was. Her Juyo style be damned, the masters discouraged that style above all others, and for the Jedi to discourage a form of lightsaber combat, it had to be nothing good. From what he has seen of her, Juyo was aggressive and wild. There was a couple times where he could almost see her cutting off her own lekku. He didn’t particularly like her, but he didn’t want to see any of his fellow students maiming themselves. Then again… it would probably serve her right.

He watched her, slightly amused by the factor of her looking around for methods of escape. He doubted that she even had the technological know-how to disable the cage, let alone the means of doing so. Even then, it was only a matter of getting everybody else out and then escaping with their lives. He doubted that droids even needed escape pods; why would there be any aboard ship? Whatever. His master and the other Jedi knights were probably already working on their escape. Fesha was one of the most technologically experienced Jedi in the enclave – the damn Bothan made lightsabers for much of the knights and padawans. He made one perfectly accustomed to his fighting style and he taught Lihk himself the basis on how to make lightsabers. The man was a genius. He just hoped that Master Fesha would get out of there alright.

Of course there was the—dammit, Leila is talking again. Didn’t he say that she should shut up and take a nap or something? In more subtle terms, of course, but you would think she’d get the message by now.

“In fact, I probably could deactivate this force cage and everyone else’s cages. Or I can send an illusionary copy of myself to investigate. But since the other padawans currently appear incapable of even simple cognitive thought, perhaps it is an inconvenient time in general to be making any kind of moves. We wouldn’t want to endanger the others, now would we?”

Oh, there was definitely no doubt behind the fact that the tone of Lihk’s voice was in fact short, irritable, and let’s not forget condescending. He was beginning to lose his cool, and he was by no means a short fuse. But her callous disregard for the consequences that would become of her actions to those around her and even herself were so appalling it was almost frightening. He sat himself down in the force cage and began to meditate in an attempt to recollect himself. His master would no doubt he sorely disappointed for the way he has behaved just then, and Lihk would try to do his best to rectify that error.

With all the wall Slamings and conversations starting up Vincent was starting to wake up. The first thing he noticed as he regained consciousness was that his head was throbbing. Based on his last memories being the shuttle crashing it was pretty easy to figure out that things weren't going that great. Opening his eyes the situation became more apparent as he looked around at his cell. Well if nothing else it looked like most of the padawans were here together. Hopefully together they could figure things out and get out of this situation. Vincent took a deep breath and tried to calm himself and get his head back in order.
Picking himself up off the floor of his cell Vincent tried to get a better feel for his situation. It seemed like Master Bareil wasn't here and that they were pretty well on their own for now. This was pretty frustrating here they were disarmed and captured and they hadn't even got a chance to do anything yet. Listening to the others Vincent was relieved to here Lihk seemed to have a way out of these cages. "If you got a way out Lihk then wouldn't it make more sense to get out of these cages so we could help the others?" questioned Vincent.

"Agreed, Vincy. This is why I like you better than the others," Leila muttered, kneeling down. Of course, she didn't really give too much of a damn about her companions, they were more or less tagalongs in her opinion, but at least Vincent had a comparable opinion in this situation.

Leila knelt, staring at the force field in front of her. She willed up her energy and unleashed it in a surge of concentration, causing it to ripple a bit, as if it were mocking her. It wasn't her full effort, but rather like punching a solid object, pulling back at the last moment to avoid hurting yourself. Just testing it a bit, prodding it telekinetically.

Of course, it might cause the droid to come back in here, in which case she'd try and...hurl him closer to the others? Her telekinetic finesse wasn't very precise. Or really proficient with heavy objects. Hm. Perhaps she should've planned this a little better.

"Okay. My intel has led me to believe I cannot Force my way through this. Oh damn I'm hilarious." Leila continued murmuring to herself, trying to concentrate, masking her legitimate concern to escape with nonchalant snarky comments. Son of a bitch forcefield. Perhaps the steel really was more malleable?

Or was she approaching this from the wrong angle entirely? These cages were built by droid specifications to contain organics. There wouldn't be a margin of human error, or at least less of one. Granted, these were some stupid droids, the grunt level machines of the CIS. Or were these constructed with the ship, at the shipyards? Focus, Leila, you can worry about this Leila.

Okay. No memories of crashing, beyond being thrown around and thinking Hvalna's weight would throw off the landing. No memory of being brought here. Getting out means I'd need to find a navigational tool fairly quickly. Should I go for causing general chaos or slipping out unseen? Normally I'd just sneak through, but my normal means of getting by might not be effective against droids. Besides, there's no way Hvalna's getting by unseen, and Lihk won't stop bitching long enough to be quiet. I could split apart from the others, try and find the Masters, or just mess with things in the engine room. General sabotage, enough to turn the tide of the battle if the Republic's still in this thing.

Leila was broken from her reverie. Please don't let the Republic win the battle too soon. Did they destroy enemy ships like these entirely, or try and salvage them? Shiiiiit. Maybe their chaffeur knew. Leila did not want to go out like this. I'm such a terrible Jedi.


Leila knelt down, halfheartedly using the discipline techniques she'd been taught. They weren't very successful.

"Anyone have any ideas? I've got some vague plans once we get out of here, but nothing for actually getting out." she hoped they wouldn't speak them out loud, although she wasn't the most accomplished telepath, she could get the gist of what someone was saying. Besides, the gist left enough room for her to interpret things her way.

Leila anxiously brushed her lekku back over her shoulder and massaged them as a means of focusing herself. She did not like this at all, although she attempted to conceal it from both the other Padawans and herself. Fucking cells. Fucking cages. Fucking chains. Fucking...she had to get out of here. This was not good. This was getting worse the more she thought about it. Can't stop thinking about it.

She blinked and in the moment of darkness the cell became unbearably hot. Ryloth hot, even, which was worse than Tatooine in the summer.

She opened her eyes. You're in a cell on a CIS ship. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force. Okay. Deep breaths.

Admittedly, slightly calmer. Maybe some of Lihk's asskissing was well placed. She didn't mind asskissing but only if it was directed towards her-isn't that right Vincent. Just keep backing me up in these argum-damnit you weren't even awake to hear me, were you Vincent. Damnit. There is no one in this entire Order I can rely on.

Leila restrained her emotions with some difficulty and rose, projecting as much of a calm aura as she could.

"Given the battle going on outside, I think rescuing ourselves would be preferable to waiting for our Masters to come charging in. This might even count as our Trials, guys, two mynocks, one laser here."

"Well think of it this way," Lihk said nonchalantly to Vincent, thinking of a way to put his next sentence a way Leila would understand. "We have no lightsabers to defend ourselves with, nor the other padawans that could be either dead or unconscious. We're also on a massive CIS ship. Are you confident enough in your force abilities that we will be capable of marching on out of here alive?"

He was entirely confident in the twi'lek's abilities, that was for certain. Lihk wanted to get off the enemy vessel just as much as they do, but at least he realized that he had to be cautious. One wrong move, and they're all dead. He was eager to hear the opinion of Hvalna, and the anx that was their pilot. Lihk had already formulated a plan to escape these cells, but whatever is going to happen outside the prison walls was up to anybody's guess.

A low hiss escaped Ranthsk’s throat as his eyes flushed open in his cell. He’d been fading more or less out of consciousness for a while now, and it was good to finally be awake. He’d heard some while he was out, however, mangled as it might be. He held his tongue from speaking as he surveyed the room. His companions had been doing enough of that themselves, and doubtful they wanted someone to repeat the obvious.

Eventually he recalled good enough reason to speak up, “Have… have you been saying we’re CIS ship? How did we get on a ship? Sounds like a lot of extra work for the CIS, doesn’t it?” He tilted his head looking at the ones around him. It seemed rather comical to him that they’d be anywhere but still on Kamino at the present time. Maybe awaiting transport to a CIS, definitely, but to send a transport to hold prisoners in the middle of a battle seemed rather… unnecessarily risky and time consuming.

Still, regardless of where they were, they were trapped all the same. Hm… “Can any of you tell what’s feeding power into these force cages? One need only snap the connection to power. There is no need to attempt to crush the entire cage.” He was feeling in the force for the answer himself, however, that was not exactly his strong suit… he needed his lightsaber. Still, he was hoping any of the others were more skiled in the force than he, and could prove his hypothesis.

((War: Sorry if I didn't make this clear, but Master Bareil was simply Hvalna's master, not everyone's.))

Throughout the entire previous exchange, Xeon hadn't stopped staring at Leila. To him, her aura was a tangible wall, not necessarily of evil, but of raw attitude problem, honed to a sharp point. Of all the padawans here, she was the most dangerous by far.

Reviewing the list of what they had to work with, there was Lihk; he seemed decent enough, though he was letting Leila get to him easily. Vincent was being analytical, as was Ranthsk; that much was promising. Hvalna just seemed lost, though, like a duckling that had lost its mother.

Hvalna, meanwhile, had few ideas for how to get out of the predicament; if there was something within his cell that would get them out, he couldn't very well get to it, and all he could see were other cells. The controls weren't inside, but the only thing obviously connecting the inside to the outside was that droid, and he heard the standard ones, at least, weren't very smart.

Vincent was glad to here that at least some of the others thought getting the hell out of here was a good idea. Thinking over what Lihk had said Vincent was pretty sure he could put up a pretty good fight himself. "I know I can handle myself, but besides if some of the others are dead we certainly need to figure that out and it's not like they're just going to gives us back our lightsabers for good behavior." Vincent responded. He had never really been all that great at the whole patience aspect of being a jedi and Vincent was hoping they'd be able to get out of here and maybe turn this whole situation around. While they didn't seem to be in a good situation Kamino couldn't be fairing all that better and if things went bad here this could do some serious damage to the whole war as a whole.

"I dunno, I'm sure if they say pretty please they'll give us our shit back." Leila said, agreeing with Vincent. "Let' stop bickering, and even I can't believe I'm saying that, and focus on getting out of here. Whatshisface had a good idea of just cutting off the power supply. Those droids could be back here any minute and decide we aren't useful as hostages or, you know, think of something else like that." she muttered, her voice trailing off.

It was uncomfortably warm in the cell. She distinctly felt sand slip into her shoes and get stuck in her clothes, the way one's t-shirt always manages to take in several sand dunes' worth of gritty dirt when one leaves it on the shore at the beach. However, this was far from the beach, and Leila forcibly reminded herself of that.

Regaining her composure-only a momentary lapse, deep breaths-she continued. "Seriously. Hvalna, I know you probably can't move too much in there, you big oaf, but get some Force action going. Likh, Vince, Ransky, hop to it. Once they see us get through, we won't have much time. Of course, we don't have much time as it is."

Leila really didn't like taking charge, but the pilot wasn't doing much (You're supposed to be a leader figure or some shit in situations like these, man) and she felt like living. Continually bickering and waiting for everyone to wake up just wasn't happening. If any of the other Padawans were still asleep, it sucked to be them. They could break them out when they got the chance, but they were all going to die if they stayed.

Leila knelt, closing her eyes and focusing her energy. She wasn't very familiar with shatterpoint, the technique where you could destroy objects, split them apart by finding their inherent seams and weaknesses through the Force, but she'd heard it mentioned once. Of course, that was far from being able to replicate it entirely, but it gave her a general direction in which to go. She began psychically prodding the area around the forcefield for any weak points, maybe a wire that she could tug out of place or shred telekinetically, or a circuit she could nudge into overflowing itself.

Such brilliant simplicity, the reptile's idea had been. She could see why Trandoshans made for such good slavers with that kind of lateral-minded resourcefulness. Yes, none of them had the Force aptitude to straight up break through it, but just tearing apart the weak points. Hmm. Seems like something they would go over in Jedi training. Although it was a miracle they hadn't been drugged or otherwise restrained-perhaps the grunt level CIS droids that had taken them in weren't of the best AI, or maybe the rusted fuckers just hadn't thought they were Force sensitives. No, wait, we had lightsabers andiJedi robes. Damnit, Leila, focus.

Lihk sighed in resignation. He didn't see the point in arguing anymore as his reasoning didn't seem to go over well with the other jedi students, where they could have simply waited for them to be released from their cells and surprise them with an immediate attack, rather than just setting off an alarm as soon as they realized the padawans escaped. But since the others had different plans, it was just best to avoid conflict with each other in general so they weren't distracted in the future.

"Very well, just give me a moment to concentrate..." Lihk resigned as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He focused his thoughts towards the force cage around him; first he would have to understand how the cage was wired, and then it all be smooth sailing after that. All he had to do was focus... focus... ah, yes.

"Mmm..." Lihk bemused. "These force cages we're stuck in, while powerful, are actually quite... simple. Basic construct, but appears to have an enhanced emitter."

Lihk set a hand on a solid part of the cage he was in and his eyes squeezed shut in concentration. His master taught him a useful force skill that would assist him in lightsaber construction... and was applicable in many other situations, such as this one. Through the force, the young jedi did his best to manipulate the cage's wiring in an attempt to shutting it down. "Let's see," he murmured to himself. "A little notch to the lift... cut the current... that leaves the transmitter... ah!"
The force field that surrounded the verpine padawan had slowly dimmed and faded away completely. Taking his chance without hesitation, Lihk quickly ducked down and rolled from his cell to the other side of the room between Leila's and Vincent's cages before setting his hands up on both cages on either side of him to start the process of shutting down the cages once more.

"Once you two get out, I'll need you to keep watch while I free the others."

As far as he was aware, the control panel was outside the room. It would make sense; there's no reason to have the control panel inside where all the prisoners would be... but Lihk hadn't wasted any time to make sure, he could be wrong.

Leila grudgingly smiled.

"This is why we keep you around, Likh, " she muttered under her breath, so as not to distract him. "Keeping cover of a door I can do. However, long-term plans. We are unarmed and I think the immediate order of business should be changing that once everyone's out. If the armory's the next room over, even better, but if they have any sense and separated us by a distance, I can try and find them with some help, or we can all go. If we have to, we can just use blasters and grenades until we get our hands on our lightsabers again. The Force will guide us and whatnot.

Barring that, we should make a few decisions now. Do we go loud or try and hook up with our Masters before tearing everything to shreds? Or just sneak out altogether, I guess. I'm more inclined to sneaking out, although if we caused a significant distraction, it could help the Republic fighting the CIS to gain the tide. Damn, I wonder how the battle's going."

All of this was beginning to impress upon her with a growing sense of panic. They were going up against some pretty long odds, here, even for Jedi. She closed her eyes and reached out with the Force, trying to discern how the battle was going, but to no avail. Too excited. Farsight wasn't really her thing, she was more into the practical uses of the Force. Causing distractions. Tripping someone up to slip by unseen. The usual. Although, she mused, perhaps Likh could show me that trick someday.

Leila had scarcely finished talking when the door to the cell block opened and a battle droid carrying a rifle stepped through. They both shared the briefest "Oh shit" moment before the droid bolted back for the control panel, which was just barely visible by the left side of the door.

Ranthsk was going to make a comment about the offhanded mangling of his given name, but he was distracted by the sudden appearance of much bigger fish to fry. "Lihk, I would suggest you save myself and Hvalna as soon as you can." he said, extremely matter of factly, before wiggling his claws. "We're the closest we have to weapons without lightsabers. Someone needs to disable that droid now, before it calls for reinforcements."

He slammed his fist onto the shield wall, before he set to work trying to free himself. Lihk would get to him when he could, but he may be capable of saving himself faster. With all his might in the way of the force, and how little that was, he attempted to rend a cable, something, asunder within the cell. If he could just make something... anything give way.

"Fuck my plan, Likh, get them out of the cages!"

The cage had barely been down for a second when the droid walked in, and Leila took off after him. This was fucking stupid. Really. Fucking. Stupid. She paid this no mind, a mixture of adrenaline and a feeling of...was this the Force? perhaps, telling her what to do, that even though this was the kind of thing that made for a really great "I once had a Padawan who..." story, it would turn out okay.

Leila reached out a hand and thrusted it forwards, surging forth all the will she could muster at the droid to try and knock it forwards or off balance. While it was slightly difficult, given that she didn't have eye contact with the blaster, she focused and attempted to wrest it upwards and out of the thing's clutches-hopefully she could catch it on the way down if this happened, and if not at least it would throw off any attempts to shoot her.

Barring that, her efforts would at least distract it for a split second to keep it from getting to that control panel.

The droid squawked in surprise as Leila's Force push knocked it over like a ragdoll. However, down didn't mean out, and though Leila managed to get a mental hold of the blaster rifle and start pulling it back inside, the droid hung on for dear life, screaming "No! No! Help!" and futilely kicking its legs. Perhaps the worse thing, though, aside from that racket it was making, was that it pulled the trigger and held it down, spraying blaster fire along the left side of the cell block, which ricocheted off the force fields and bounced about the room.

Leila promptly let out a rather admirable string of curses as she forced herself to go a bit faster, refusing to slow down and fighting down her instincts as she threw herself at the droid. As she did so, she attempted to gather the Force around her in a kind of wall, to try and lessen the impact of the blaster, but decided it'd be better to simply try that around the blaster and contain it.

Unfortunately, this split-second's hesitation cost her and she wound up getting hit in the leg by a richocheted blaster bolt, slightly throwing off her trajectory. Instead of landing square on the droid with all of her force (no pun intended), she landed slightly to the right, pinning it to the ground (causing some pain to herself) but not instantly crushing it as she'd hoped.

Body aching and leg stinging, she used the Force to slam its arm down into the ground and grabbed for the gun, trying to flip the safety on or just get a hold on it and point it towards a wall or...something. Their cover was blown at this point but she could at least keep her carelessness from killing any of her friends. Well, acquaintances. Fellow Padawans. Yeah, that sounded right.

With her left hand struggling to grab the blaster and shove it towards the wall, she kept its other arm pinned with her right hand (assisted by the Force) and endured quite a wailing against her shins and quads from the droid's thrashing legs.

"Some help would be nice! Someone with claws or someone half the size of a kriffing krayt dragon would be really nic-damn you!" the droid had managed to slip a bit further-Leila was in good condition, but by no means a body builder, or exceptionally strong, and without an easy way to channel her focus, the Force wasn't assisting her much. Ten more seconds and it might slip free (how much ammo did this rifle hold?)

Well things kicked off pretty quickly it seemed thought Vincent as he let the force guide him. Making quick movements he dodged the blasts as they ricocheted around. Well the situation wasn't ideal but at least they were out of the cages. It seemed Leila had gotten the situation mostly under control but if any more enemies arrived it would be from that direction. Gathering his strength in his legs Vincent moved forward ducking when the force warned him. Making it over to the droid Vincent slammed his foot down on the arm of the droid to separate it and the blaster from the droid.

Lihk ushered as he quickly moved over to Ranthsk's cage, keeping a careful eye on the droid that had walked in, and an extra eye outside of the prison room. With all of that racket, more droids were bound to come by. He set his hand on Ranthsk's cage and concentrated as hard as he could so he could deactivate it, but... all that noise that the droid was making... it was so obnoxious, he could hardly focus! Holding back his frusteration, his focus was broken as a stray blaster bolt shot through the room and injured Leila. What the hell had they been doing? Trying to wrestle a blaster from a machine's grip?

"You two are making this harder on me than it should be," Lihk calmly yelled over the droid, "stop your rough housing for a second!"

Lihk's other hand was raised and was aimed towards the droid (yet away from Vincent) and focused carefully before promptly using aforce technique called "Ionize". It was another technique his master taught him. It was only fitting since they were in a war with droids that he best learned how to defend himself against them. To anybody that witnessed Lihk, it would appear to be something along the lines of force lightning, yet was a single current and didn't branch off. It looked just as erratic however. If he succeeded, we would intend on getting back to Ranthsk to deactivate his cage.

The rapid escalation of events was going to get too far out of hand unless someone did something now. Ranthsk was thankfully not one to panic under pressure, as he entered a sort of meditative trance for but a moment, biding his time. He struck suddenly, and swiftly. If he could not locate specifics, a thin force “cleaving” through a section of the wall should have done it, as he caused his own force wall to eventually flicker, and die. Certainly not on his own of course, Lihk had done most of the ground work, but there was no time for worrying about that now.

With a combat roll out of the flickering cage wall, narrowly avoiding his comrade, Ranthsk made his way down the hall way towards the control panel. Leila had the droid fine, it seemed. If he could figure out how the control console was supposed to work, well… everyone else needed out too, and Lihk could only work so fast. The blaster fire was still hanging around, but easy enough to dodge, if one thought about it.

Leila was vaguely aware, psychically, of Ranthsk's presence as he left his cage, but such things did not concern her at the moment. The droid was putting up a fiercesome resistance, at least until it suddenly stopped, sparking a bit.

Leila glanced behind her, sensing the energies used by Likh and the result on the droid. Huh. Another trick she, grudgingly, admitted that he knew. Somewhat selfishly, Leila grabbed the rifle from the droid's defunct hand and picked up a few extra magazines of ammunition from the droid as well (unless anyone has any objections, the rifle will be an E-5, which wookieepedia tells me was in use by the droids. Maybe, I kinda skimmed).

Leila shouldered the E-5, getting a quick feel for the weapon. While she enjoyed lightsaber fighting, she felt there was some value in traditional gunslinging. She'd been meaning to see if there were any instances of Jedi using blasters over lightsabers, but now really was not the time for such deliberations. She quickly loaded the rifle after a moment or two of observing it (her intuition and prior experience enhanced by the Force guiding her, at which point the foreign weapon became almost natural to her in its workings).

"Sorry 'bout that. Don't worry, everyone, my leg will be just fine." she pulled up her pants leg and saw the scorch mark on her thigh; it was not serious, but was causing a bit of pain now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off. Her leg hurt slightly to bear weight, however Leila closed her eyes and focused, managing to repel it for now. She knew it was forbidden, but besides, she could always use it to open herself up to the Force, later. The dark side had its uses, let's be honest here, Masters.

"Poor Hvalna. Biggest of us and last out of the cages. I'll cover the doors while you get him out, Likh. Nice trick with the lightning, by the way," Leila added somewhat stiffly as she moved to the door, pressing up against the side of it to rest her weak side. She had the rifle gripped tightly, ready to unleash on anyone that stepped through. Meanwhile, she reached out with the Force to ready herself for more droids approaching-or their Masters.

"I'm not the one who got myself shot; it must have taken some incredible programming for a simple droid to hit such a high and mighty Jedi such as yourself," Hvalna retorted. Though he didn't like to admit it, Leila's words stung. Frankly, there was no way he would have gone outside while the corridor was a cyclone of blaster fire; he was, out of all of them, the most likely to take a random blaster bolt in that case, all other things equal.

"I would hardly fault *him* for being the last one out," their pilot chided, standing in his own cell. "Good job everyone, some more than others; Ranthsk, there should be a lever on the control panel that opens the entire cell block. I would appreciate it if you would give the rest of us a hand."

"It's the one on the far right; the blue one," Hvalna chimed in. That was the other thing he had been doing while the fight was going on: trying to probe the control panel, which he had been able to see.

There wasn't any obvious sign that the other droids had noticed the disturbance, at least not that the Padawans could see; that much was good, and one of them now had a weapon. One thing, however, was readily apparent. While the cell block had been made of utilitarian, simple metal, the outside of the hall was a characteristic bright white, scored with the occasional blaster mark. They weren't in a CIS ship, they were in a cloning facility that was overrun with droids.

Ranthsk would notice that the control panel wasn't all levers; there was a computer readout there as well, from which he could possibly access some security records.

((Ji, check Skype.))

"Yes, I hear they've really improved the targeting systems they use in droids. Of course, they didn't improve the reasoning abilities. If they had, every droideka on this half of the galaxy would've been running from the crazy Twi'lek with the gun."

Leila didn't break her concentration from the door: she was used to playful (at least in her opinion: there was a slight degree of malice, but nothing truly harmful. Leila figured if she wanted to break someone, she'd do it more creatively than petty insults) banter amongst the other Padawans. She attributed most of their insults to her as jealousy, which was understandable.

She knelt down, not peering out around the corner but instead sensing out around it.

"When we break out of here, I can cover us a bit. Not with the rifle, well, that too, but I've been working on some techniques. Unlike us, they aren't trained to hit what they can't see."

Leila focused her energies and her hand glowed intensely for a moment with a bit of effort on her part: she felt the Force coursing through her, focusing in the tips of her fingers, and then radiating out into the air, like the electric current Likh sent to the droid or the raw energy that hurled chairs across rooms, albeit in a different form. She wanted to learn malacia as well, which was particularly nasty-albeit useful, but a bit too advanced for her. Her control of the Force wasn't precise enough to just affect equilibrium quite yet. Soon.

She saved her energy for later, and didn't want to scorch the retinas of her comrades as well, but couldn't resist a bit of showing off. It'd instill confidence in her abilities if nothing else, and the light would blind the cameras and droids for a moment. If only a moment, which would be all the time they needed. A group of Jedi, armed and bristling for a fight? And not even on a CIS ship? Surely clone reinforcements were nearby, although she'd leave tasks like sensing them to others. She was focused on what was coming around the corner, and making sure it had a sizzling blaster scorch in its chest if it was a droid.