The story continues from last session; heroes are in almost hopeless situation!
The group starts to create a plan, but their time is limited; Imperial troops are starting to move towards the city very soon. Ferro's plan to run freighters towards walkers inside the city shield is abandoned as finding suitable one(s) would have required time and negotiations, and they would have been easy targets against heavy walkers' main cannons.
The plan started to form. Ferro started to plan creating power interferences to hide generating power of orbital cannons, Maxmillian joined Security Chief Cadron to oversee city defenses. Chazz decided to run the shuttle through imperial blockade to the republic ships behind the moon, and young Antilles decided to join in order the upcoming battle commanding his Corvette; the idea was to engage the imperial forces in desperate battle, in order to give time for the new orbital cannon to recharge. Commander Ploo stayed on the planet, but when the planetary defense squadron later took off the planet as Imperial forces turned towards Republic ships appearing from behind the moon, he decided to jump in so he could command his frigate in the battle.
Soon imperial walkers came to firing range and battle ensued. Maxmillian decided to stay giving advice to Chief Cadron instead of taking over the command (my bad - I didn't remember the character had Arrogant, I should have pressed the matter! Maxmillian's command would have at least bought some time). The republic forces were crushed very fast, and Imperial forces advanced towards shield generators.
In the meantime, full force of Imperial navy smashed against republic forces. Part of ties engaged planetary defense squadron while others moved towards closing ships and Cavalier's fighter squadron, lead by Chazz. Single local fighter navigated towards Cavalier's docking bay, taking the ship's Commander to his command deck, while the republic force took heavy losses; Kel Dor Commander's presence might have made the situation a bit better, though Imperial forces were way too strong to win. When Ploo was commanding his ship, he saw his forces being evaporized; Prestigious Tantive IV took heavy hits and seemed to be history, and as Ploo was preparing to meet his fate, heavy cannon bolts from the planet blasted the Imperial destroyer to very bad shape, next ones finishing it.
Target. Maximum fire power.
In the meantime, an Imperial walker was reaching the point where it would be able to eliminate the city shield generator. Ferro had organized evacuation of the only scyscraper at that edge of the city and had organized setting up explosives on the basement of the building. Once the imperial walker reached the firing range and was preparing to shoot, Ferro realized that the walker came from different direction and it was in a wrong place - in a split second he decided to start running towards the set explosives to move them to better location. He moved to the building under heavy fire, moved and set up the exposives again and run to closest cover, being able to duck to safety right when the walker was empowerin it's primary cannons and the explosives were set off, and the building came down crushing the walker under it.
At the orbit, Imperial fightes turned their attention to the planet as the shields were down and the cannon had become priority one threat; Chazz and the remaining few fighters tried to shoot Tie bombers down to the best of their skill, but there were still a lot of fighters closing the city. Security Chief Cadron was sent a message to raise the shields again, but shields stayed down and no response was heard from the Chief. The destroyer got second, fatal hit, and the fighters aligned themselves to attack formation in order to cause some heavy devastation to the city. And then, the shields were back on, crushing many Ties as it emerged right front of it. The fighters that got through were intercepted by heavy firepower from turrets and the others that were able to turn before hitting the shield met Chazz and other fighters. Soon, all the imperial forces were crushed and the Republic is victorious!
Celebration
A celebration was thrown together after the victory, where the heroes could meet local administrators and Leia.
The heroes soon noticed that Leia, who had just went to balcony, was missing. Inspection revealed claw marks on the edge of the balcony and locals recognized it as Gobaaza - an underground beast that has a habit of capturing victims in hope of luring rescuers (=more food) to it's cave. Heroes got a large group of soldiers with them and they got in from a crack made by a crashing Tie bomber; apparently the beast was able to enter the town with - Imperials had indirectly caused even more trouble for the republic!
There was a network of tunnels and caves under the city. The heroes followed the track, and soon they arrived to a large cave, Leia laying unconscious in the upper part of the opposinf wall; The group got several casualties as the beast could weave web looking like stone to cover tunnels it had dug, and using these tunnels it was able to snatch a few soldiers. The soldiers and heroes shot everywhere to find these holes, and then spread out advancing towards Leia, but then they got another surprise - the beast had prepared an avalanche that took out several more soldiers and harmed many others. The beast was able to cause some more havoc before a huge amount of blaster fire took it down - damn those dice can ace!
The heroes were able to return Alessia, Republic center of the sector; Now their ship Cavalier would be resting on docks at least for a month and Heroes would have to do without it for some time. Heroes had gathered some fame and won a well-needed victory for the Republic!
And here ends the session.