[D6 SMR] Anxiety over Depression

[Kannon]

Meanwhile, the carryall was fleeing toward the west. The spice expedition was being aborted after downing of one thopter.

[Players' Turn!]

[Ahmina]

Ahmina fiddled with the offworlder's commlinks ''SANDWORM INCOMING!'' she yelled ''Get the thopter off the ground of close all the shields if you don't want to get chomped!''

She began preparing what she needed to deal with the Vengeful maker

---
2 threats for comms

[Kannon]

The unaffected thopter was also departing, escorting the carryall away. Had they spotted the sandworm too?

[Players' turn until the end of round!]

[Cuyler Gray]

The Sardaukar made his way to the thopter as quickly as he could.


- - -
[D6 SMR] Anxiety over Depression, Move (7)/Duty (8), Swift: 2#1d20 12 18

[Dorian Drake]

The call of 'SANDWORM' brought some sense back to Dorian. A man, or even a squad of men, he could face off against, but the force of nature he witnessed early was one of the few things his training on Ginaz did not prepare him for. He promptly made his way to the thopter.

[Kannon]

The Sardaukar made his way to the thopter as quickly as he could.


- - -
[D6 SMR] Anxiety over Depression, Move (7)/Duty (8), Swift: 2#1d20 12 18

And that was quick enough. [Swift decreased difficulty]

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar does what he can to fix the controls while the others approach.

2 threat to remove complication

[Kannon]

[Round 3]

[2 Threat to go first]

With the remaining aircraft gone from the view, Rabban raised altitude and killed light in his cabin while circling around the spot. He had probably seen the wormsign and prepared himself to take delight in the clean demise of all those who remained on the ground. He didn't make it easy for anyone not yet there to return to the thopter by drawing a cricle of fire with his remaining lasgun turret around the thopter at a distance that didn't risk the interaction with the shield.

[4 Threat: Circle of Fire, Any Move to or fro the Thopter requires Move Subtly or Move Boldly and the Difficulty is +2; Everyone gets +1 Advancement Point]

The sizzling beyond the ring of fire was dying in the lasgun shot, and so there was no telling when the worm would arrive.

[Players's turn all the way!]

[Ahmina and Cuyler are outside the Ring of Fire, Dorian, Bom and Iqbal are inside.]

[Cuyler Gray]

"I'm not making it through that!" she waved those within the circle off. "Get off the ground!"

She moved away towards Ahmina.

- - -
Subtle Move

[D6 SMR] Anxiety over Depression, Moving away, Move (5)/Duty (7): 2#1d20 19 17

[Kannon]

[Reaction]

Rabban broadened the circle as Cuyler moved away to keep himself on the safe side for possible interaction with the shield. He wanted to see the worm feed.

[Kannon]

Rabban's manouvring as he circled and maintained wide, continuous fire made it both easier and harder to target that golden spot between all the sub-atomic futures of a single lasgun shot...

SMR6. Move/Power 6/8. Make Haste. Lasgun focus. Thopter Quality 2.: 2#1d20 19 1

[3 (Quality) +1 (Make Haste) +2 (Roll) = 6]

But even he couldn't both remain a mobile target and maintain the continuous shape of his killzone...

[Complication: Break in the Circle of Fire]

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar notices that the angle of the Sardaurkar's shot could be improved if the enemy thopter was shifted a bit to the side, so he gently nudges their own to the right by a few feet. Causing a subconscious desire to keep the shield in the center of the circle for fear of nuclear explosions. It allowed the lasgunner to get a slightly better angle.

[Bolster: +2 threat, Reroll for Saurdaurkar, if his skill is less than 7 he can use Bom's 7 from Discipline]

[Dorian Drake]

While the thopter above widened the circle, closing in on the auditor and their fremen servant, Iqbal took a knee and brought his weapon to bear, aiming for the lasgun turret firing down on them. It was a risk, firing on a shielded thopter in motion, but they would be sitting ducks when they took their own shield down to board. Plus, there were the two under his protection still held off by the lasgun fire. It was time to do or die and he wasn't scared of consequences. Worst case scenario he would take the enemy down with them. The auditors should've realized the danger they were putting themselves into.

Just before he took the shot, their thopter shifted along the ground, giving him a better angle at his target above.
-----
SMR6, Fire the "Laser", Battle 8 + Duty 8, Focus lasgun, TN 16, +6 threat for 3d20: 5#1d20 16 20 6 12 18
Bolster Reroll

SMR6, Fire the "Laser", Battle 8 + Duty 8, Focus lasgun, TN 16, +6 threat for 3d20, Bolster Reroll: 5#1d20 5 12 5 16 2
Passed 8 successes vs 6 difficulty, +2 momentum,
2 momentum to create trait [Overheated] on enemy thopter from blowing up the lasgun turret.

[Kannon]

It was a master shot worthy of the Emperor's troops mystique; the shield wasn't connected, the death ray stopped immediately, and...

[2 more Momentum to use from Iq's Lasgun Quality]

[Dorian Drake]

Dorian cheered loudly when he saw the Sardaukar shoot out the lasgun turret. He wasn't a big fan of shooting lasguns so close to shields, but said lasgun turret was just firing close to their own shield. With the path cleared, Dorian yelled to the two who were previously stuck beyond the circle, "Get on the thopter now, we need to go!"

After making his declaration, he turned and drew one of his kinjal, slowly forcing the tip of the blade into the shield and then dragging it downward, shearing a rift through which he could quickly pass before it sealed itself. It was not a technique many knew about, another of the many talents he had learned from his time on Ginaz.

[Ahmina]

[Ghosting]

Ahmina had already shut off those calls; mounting Shai-hulud was always a dangerous task, and no Fremen would do it will less than full focus and commitment. On top of everything, this one was enraged.

Bless the Maker and His water.
Bless the coming and going of Him.
May His passage cleanse the world.
May He keep the world for His people.

As she planted a thumper in the right distance from a modicum of dune to crouch on that she hoped would suffice, all she could count on was that the worm's impetus would slow down at the debris of the fallen thopter, and - more importantly - that the auditors' thopter would get off the ground before it would be too late. Every Fremen child had called a worm before the age of 12 or so, but after that there was still a long way before one could become a true Sandrider. Ahmina wasn't one, and so she found her own Tahaddi al-Burhan that night. If she'd miscalculated or any of the myriad of factors would change the worm's trajectory, she'd be crushed. Knowing this and accepting the fate, she couldn't be more ready.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bom turns the shield off when the enemy lasgun stops firing, so that he can let the Sardaurkar onto the thopter.

He encourages Cuyler to move so that they can all be on board as soon as possible.

[Kannon]

[Round 4!]

To his boundless rage, the Beast, struggling with getting his thopters' systems in order after his weapons' power support had got fried, could temporarily do little about his prey getting away...

[Players have the first turn, and they can Keep the Initiative without cost for the next because of Overheated.]

[Cuyler Gray]

Cuyler ran for the break in the circle, hoping to board the thopter quickly.

- - -
Move Subtly
[D6 SMR] Anxiety over Depression, Running for the Thopter, Move (5)/Duty (7), 1 Momentum: 3#1d20 8 12 4

[Kannon]

Cuyler seized the moment; through the acrid smoke of burnt salt and silica she set on running, and emerged by the thopter too suddenly for the plasteel bird-of-prey about her to do anything about it!

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Iqbal attempts to usher Cuyler onto the ship, but too many things are in motion and when he gets to Cuylerhe his footing fails him, causing him to slip. He doesn't go down but he misses the opportunity and timing to get them both on the thopter.
-----

D6 SMR, Moving Cuyler, Move/Duty 7/8, Swift, TN 15, Difficulty 2, -1 momentum: 3#1d20 2 17 18
Failed, -1 momentum

[Kannon]

Regardless of what was happening on the ground, Rabban gave himself more altitude to sort out technical problems, moving out of Iqbal's lasgun range. Now that the fiery mayhem receded, the approaching sound and smell of rapidly abraded ground could be heard...

[Your turns.]

[Dorian Drake]

As Iqbal approaches the thopter with Cuyler, Dorian reached out and pulled the two of them in just as the Sardaukar started to lose his footing in the melange slurry.

With everyone on board, minus their reluctant Fremen guide Ahmina, Dorian suggested to Bomilcar, "Perhaps we should let our escort take the controls and get us out of here."
-----
SMR6, Get Over Here, Move 6 + Power 7, Focus escaping, TN 13, Assisting Iqbal: 1d20 6
Passed +2 successes to assist, +1 momentum.
Scene Momentum: 2

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar turns the shield back on once they were all in, then took to the air. He wasn't going to wait around for the Sardaurkar with Ahmina still out there. He needed a better sight line to find her.

[Kannon]

[Out of structured time.]



The liftoff happened moments before the salty ground they had trodden on started creaking and breaking; as the ornithopter got some altitude the volcano of minerals finally exploded in their direction, a humongous maw armed with hundreds of teeth, behind which fire was burning as if in a giant furnace. Suddenly pocketed in the cloud of melange-infused debris, the suffocating heat, the deafening rumbling, the nauseating odour... they found themselves at the precipice of hell.

And just then, when they could be hopeful that their rotors would have enough thrust for a vertical rush to outpace the engulfing tunnel of all terrors, from above Rabban sent his final surprise their way: the last missile!

[Move (Piloting); to avoid being blasted right into the sandworm. This is Contested but can be Assisted. Thopter Quality provides Initial 2 to the Defense.]

SMR6. Last Missile. Battle/Power 7/8. 6 Threat for 3 Dice, Bold Reroll for any of those 3.: 6#1d20 10 16 3 12 9 19 [4 Successes + Brutal and Vicious = 5]

[Advancement Point to all for my Threat splurge.]