Star Wars OPEN Star Wars: Black Sheep (Always Accepting New Players)

IC: B Flight: Kayn, Zara, Joy, Max
Ripping Things Up

"Baker flight provide cover for Charlie and Echo."

Kayn grimaced at Flagg's order. He was distinctly uncomfortable at turning his back to the Carrack cruiser and TIE's escorting the ferryboat liner; they were in the distance and headed away, but only a fool would bet his life on that situation not changing.

"Badluck Flight, this is Lead, you heard the Boss, form up on me and we'll head back to Charlie and Echo. Joy, you and your droid keep long-range sensors locked on the Carrack and the liner. If the liner jumps to hyperspace, the cruiser might come back to us at the worst possible time, so watch out."

Kayn pulled his A-wing up into a vertical roll, making himself plainly visible for the rest of the scattered flight to find him and rendezvous.

Joy jinked her Y-wing to avoid an emerald blast directed at her. It grazed the shields but they were still holding. They had gotten too close for comfort but she needed to continue the scan. She wished she could take a shot with her torpedoes but could not risk destroying the cargo. If only they brought more freighters or at least a Gallofree to pick the containers. Seeing the contents of the loot made the mission to get luxury food pointless. But what to pick?

"Copy that Badluck Leader." she replied. "Will need cover if those Squints go after me."

"That's what I'm here for, Joy-joy," said Max, eyeing the gun turrets of the cruiser wistfully. "Think we should take a pass before Cresh flight shows up to spoil the fun?"

Jocelyn snorted hearing being called 'Joy-joy', she was not amused, but there was no time for pettiness right now. She made some adjustments to the scanners and turned her attention back to the battle. "Copy that Black Eight." she decided to send a small jab at her as she remembered that the woman was superstitious.

So much for mission comm protocol. Zara rolled her eyes at both Joy and Max's words as they regrouped; at least she expected it from Max. This was going to be a long assignment.

"Looks like that Guardian is the biggest threat to Charlie and Echo right now. We'll surround it and hit it from all sides, make them spread their shields out thin and weak. Zero, circle around behind him, get in his ion wake, sneak up on his aft and kick him in the exhaust port. Max, go in head-on with guns blazing and don't spare the torpedoes. I'll go in from the port side, shooting and jamming. Joy, hit him from starboard, and when you get close, ionize that cargo pod. Everybody copy?"

"Copy that," said Max, grinning. All her systems were online, and this, at least, wouldn't be a waste of torpedoes. She brought the nose of her fighter up in a wide loop, slipping along the hull of the Madyline and throwing a few blasts of her laser cannon at the gun turrets. She thought she saw an explosion, but she was past it now, bobbing up and accelerating. She was going to have to loop to get in front of the Guardian, which was the lead. The other Gozanti cruiser was listing, with a lazy roll suggesting that the stabilizers were toast, giving off sparks and smoke which quickly dissipated in the vacuum of space. Charlie flight had hit it pretty hard; Max hoped that the pods they wanted weren't among the ones burning. She slid up along the spine of the Guardian, bobbing and juking as she aimed at the top gunports. A few shots, she couldn't see if she'd hit anything. But they hadn't hit her...so far. She pulled up into a broad loop so that she could come at the Guardian from the head, sparing a look at the scanners. Still clear, the squints hadn't shown up yet. But they would.

<<Right, here we go,>> muttered Max to herself. The bridge screen was a nice big target for her torpedoes and she let off two. That was half her load, she thought she'd save the others. At this range, there was no chance of missing the Guardian, really. The top gun turret was smoking and not shooting back, she must've hit it. She saw the impact, explosions, and she banked off to the top of the hull again, looking for the deflector shield projectors.

Zara double clicked her comm as she swung away from the group, looping around to the Guardian's tail and switching to her missiles. She hadn't had a chance to use her concussion missiles on Hoth or since; it'd be nice to see how this batch held up. The ship took some shots in her direction but they fell behind her speedy craft. As she approached the rear, the auto-tint in her visor didn't quite negate the intense brightness ahead of her and she had to squint to see. Computer targeting was clear, however, and chimed a lock almost as soon as she was in range, which meant those repair crews deserved a drink or five. Despite the lock, she drew closer before firing, trying to avoid any ion interference.

"Two missiles away." She fired, and without waiting for a response, Zara opened up with her lasers and headed straight in through the ion wake.

Kayn swung out wide to the Guardian's flank, then rolled his A-wing and goosed the throttles to close in from the port side. Picking up Imperial tracking sensor signals, he tweaked the frequency of his jammer and cranked it up to maximum output. He jinked and dipped wildly to avoid the incoming anti-fighter fire. One bolt still managed to score a solid hit and Kayn's forward shields instantly dropped to 20%. These shields are pitiful! Guess that's the price I pay for flying the fastest ship in the fleet.

His own lasers returned fire. Accuracy was pretty much non-existent as he continued to jerk the A-wing around in evasive action, but at least he was splashing the cruiser's shields with weapons fire. As he hurtled in to point-blank range, X-wing Black 8 danced across the top of the Imperial ship, so he dropped his nose to go underneath. A high speed collision between fighters would be guaranteed to ruin what was left of his day.

Jocelyn turned the Y-wing back towards the Guardian. She could see that it had already sustained damage, its top turret was shot, probably the gunner was dead too from the discharge. It was her turn to give it the "killing blow" and disable the ship with her ion turret. "Shadow, transfer controls of the ion turret." she commanded her astromech and could see that it was being done. Joy activated her targeting computer and could see the reticle moving over the hull of the enemy vessel trying to get a lock on a critical area. It did not take long and there was a chirp so she pressed the trigger sending several blue blasts towards the Guardian. Blue streaks coursed over its hull and the second blast hit the container, the clamps lost power so they let go sending it floating freely in space.

"Holy frack!" As Kayn skimmed under the belly of the cruiser, electrical discharges shot across its hull like lightning bolts. The starboard cargo pod had come loose and drifted downward into his flight path. He slammed his joystick full forward so hard that the negative G's slammed his horns into the top of his canopy. There was a timeless moment of slow motion as the container passed over his head and he held his controls full forward, waiting and wondering for an endless split-second, not sure if his upper fins were going to be ripped off in a collision. Then he was clear, accelerating away, and still wondering if the damn thing really was full of bombs and if it was going to explode and blow him all the way to Naboo.

TAG: @Rebecca_Daniels, @TheAdmiral, @Mistress_Renata​

 

OOC: Many thanks to @galactic-vagabond422 and @TheAdmiral for the joint post.

IC: Louise "Lou" Gray
Freighter K-219

"Inertial dampener?" Lou asked C-8 reading the droids responses on her MFD.

<Fried>

"Communications?"

<Functional>

"Engines?"

<Operational but overheated>

"Hyperspace capability?"

<Operational>

"Targeting computer?"

<Disabled>

"Weapons?"

<Functional>

"Structural integrity?"

<A few minor stress fractures. Take it easy out there.>

Lou's conversation with C-8 was cut short by a sharp rap on her window. She jumped and looked up to find herself staring up at an Imperial Stormtrooper. She tilted her head slightly and did the only thing she could think of doing: waved.

The stoic trooper didn't repeat the gesture but she could hear his synthesized voice through his helmet.

"Step out of the Y-wing, hands up," the stormtrooper stated.

Lou pointed to her ears and replied, "Can't hear you!"

"Open up and step out with your hands up," the stormtrooper ordered.

"Everything's fine here," Lou said, "we're all just fine."

She instinctively locked her canopy so if the Imperials wanted in they'd have to pry the frakking thing off. She quietly turned on her comm. unit and was pleased to note she was picking up the Black Sheep's squad chatter. So far, it seemed, the mission was proceeding nicely.

"Joy, Ianna, you out there?" Lou called out.

"Confirmed hit, Kid." Veteran called out as Ianna brought her craft around for another pass on the Gozanti.

"Woo," she shouted pumping her fist into the air.

"Black Sheep, Bossman, Listen up." Ianna heard as she lined up her shot. "Primary target for Charlie flight to disable is Glowworm. It's a Gozanti so once disabled the pods she is carying should de-mag and drop clear. The cargo we want is in her starboard side pod, Pod Bravo."

The young woman's face brightened as she let off one more torpedo, just to make sure that this cruiser wasn't getting up again. She banked hard, well as hard as Serica could manage. Checking her scopes she looked of any sign of Ditch and Turncoat, the other half of her flight. Were they already heading towards their objective? She hadn't heard a peep out of them. As she rocketed forward, target locked firmly in her sights she saw another Y-Wing dealing with a missile on their tail. Her green eyes widen looking back at her sensors once again, trying to get an ID on that fighter.

Her blood ran cold, it was Lou's.

"No, Nononononono" she muttered quietly to herself. She knew she had to stay on mission, had to complete her goal but, she was still worried.

"Vet stay close still got some eyeballs looking at us." she said over the flight com channel angling for a pass on the Glowworm. Her ion cannon was already spooled up and ready to fire. Just before she pulled the trigger she saw Lou's Y-wing fall off her scopes. A wave of anger and sadness flooded Ianna's heart before she unleashed it upon her target. Blue bolts sparked across the shields. A green blast glanced off her own but, it hardly phased her. She finished her first pass and came down with another, when a voice came over the comm,

It was Lou, she was still alive.

"Fudge, Lou," the chandrilan blurted out on the Black Sheep's channel, "I thought you were dead." Ianna's heart was still pounding in her chest though it was slightly relieved. "Where are you, what do you need?" In a panic she tried to switch back to her flight's channel but, gave up on it quickly, there was no time to fiddle around with that. "Vet cover me, I'm going to save Lou's behind." She let off a few more ion shots watching them dance across the hull of the Glowworm, the glow from the inside going out, it wasn't fully disabled but, there were more important things to deal with.

"Joy...You with me?"

Her attack on Guardian was a success. She managed to liberate the container and prepared for another attack run, her Y-wing swung sluggishly and sent a volley of blue beams, liberating another container. The rest of the blasts struck the hull sending a cascade of sparks but not enough to disable the whole ship.

Something got her attention, it was a transmission from Lou calling her and the Kid. That was the worst possible moments for chit chat between friends. Lou should know better. Joy traced the transmission, it was coming from an Imperial vessel. What the blazes was Lou doing there!? Was she captured, but since she was transmitting there was a still a chance. Then the Kid contacted her.

"Yes, Kid, I am with you." several years ago she would have been surprised taking such a decision, in the Empire they would have left Lou to her fate, everyone was expendable. The Rebels did things differently and besides Lou was her friend and she would not have anyone hurt her.

"B Flight Leader, will assist Lou and the Kid. Will keep sensors on." she informed Kayn before turning her craft in the necessary direction.

C-8 sent Lou a message on the MFD.

<Targeting computer operational>

Lou powered on her targeting computer in a low cycle. Just enough to get a read on the freighter that had become her temporary home. Outside her canopy the stormtroopers were growing tired of her lack of cooperation and had begun to bring out the heavy equipment to rip the canopy off her Y-wing. She needed to go and fast.

"Joy, Kid," Lou called out, "you'll find me in freighter K-219. Repeat, freighter K-219. The shields on the hangar bay are still up. If there's anyway you could punch those out, I might be able to get back into the fight. My wishbone is a little fried but we're not done yet. I don't know who fired that missile at me but watch your six. Good luck, and thank you."

Jocelyn got the message as she was navigating between the enemy vessels. Emerald blasts criss-crossed, some of which grazed the shields making her Y-wing shudder. She needed to be careful, as she can't save her friend if she ended up dead. 'Blast it Lou!' she expected a stunt from Ianna, but from Lou?

"Kid, prepare your ion turret, we will try to disable the shields."

"Uuuhhh..." Ianna started, angling Serica to make her run on the freighter. Another laser blast shook her bomber. With her free hand she patted the instrument panel, "Come on Big Sis, we gotta save Lou." the you woman whispered, encouraging her craft to hold up, to withstand the withering fire coming her way.

"On it Joy." She replied over the comms swapping her trigger over to her disabler. As she closed she let off a string of blue bolts the electricity dancing across the shields and impacting the hull. Her shields flashed again, they couldn't take another hit like that but, she had to save Lou...she had to.

Joy joined the Kid and sent a stream of blue shots. Their combined attack overwhelmed the shields and her friend was free at last.

"Do you need cover?" she transmitted to Lou.

The hangar shields buckled and phased out. Lou flashed an obscene gesture to the storm trooper trying to get into her cockpit and punched the throttle forward.

With a war cry Lou erupted from the hangar and punched her fist in the air. She activated her comm unit.

"I owe you two drinks! I can't thank you enough!"

"I could use the escort until I form up with Lead," Lou replied.

Lou angled her craft back toward Taab's B-wing which was still thundering through their assigned targets. She was pleased to note that C-8 had been working his dome off to make her wishbone flyable again and before long she was back on Taab's wing.

"Sorry for the delay, Lead. I nearly got roasted by a missile and had to make a pit stop. I wasn't carrying any decoys this time and nearly paid for it."

Tag: @Anedon (per Kid's request), @Bardan_Jusik

 

GM Update​

​

IC: Commander Arick "Boss" Flagg
Leading the raid on convoy THX-1138, outskirts of the Naboo system

Flagg pulled gently on his X-Wing's control stick keeping up his place in the figure eight formation he and his wingman, Ghost, were flying around Vixen's stricken X-Wing. There were still two TIE fighters in the immediate area, and he knew they would love to avenge their fallen squadmates by picking on easy meat. Meanwhile Vixen's own wingman, Wolf, had closed in to provide close escort with her own B-Wing. It was a dangerous gamble, but one that the heavy firepower of the B-Wing made just as dangerous for any TIEs that decided to rack up an "easy" kill on Vixen. Even now the large fighter/bomber was putting up a wall of fire out towards the incoming TIEs. Flagg pulled back on the control yoke a little harder, preparing to engage any TIEs that got through.

A missile emerged from within the blossom of death Wolf had created, arcing across the dark sky before impacting one of the incoming eyeballs. The other TIE pilot lost his nerve at the volume of fire and the swift dispatch of his own wingman and pulled off, beginning to accelerate up and over Able flight. His new course brought him out of Wolf's field of fire, but right into Flagg's "Ghost, Lead, I got this one." He applied just a hint of left rudder bringing the unsuspecting TIE right into his sites. Flicking a switch on the control column he set his lasers for quad fire and pressed just once. The four laser bolts converged perfectly on the enemy fighter vaporizing it immediately. "Target negated," he commed out to his flight. That was it for the immediate threats, now was time to look out for the progress of the overall mission while Wolf took over protecting Vixen.

He could see that Baker flight had engaged one of the Gozantis, the Guardian, and actually disabled her already. The Imperial freighter/cruiser was awash in internal explosions even as her power failed and the cargo containers sluing underneath were released. Either of those would make for a good capture, but their mission was the food. Looking to his scope he could see the Glowworm was still running under power while Echo flight was still standing by, though running interference for those incoming squints. Time to get them involved in a way more in line with their reason for being here.

"Echo flight," he commed out. "Don't worry about those squints, one of you grab the starboard side pod that was just knocked loose from the Guardian, and standby for the Glowworm to be disabled so we can grab what we came for." He paused for a moment before comming out again. "Charlie flight, quit screwing around and disable Glowworm..." he took a deep breath ready to order Baker flight to take on the squints when he Wolf's voice came through over the channel.

"This is crazy but Vixen, power down what you need for repairs and close your attack wings to cruising configuration. I want to mag clamp the bottoms of our crafts together. You might not be piloting until repairs are far enough, but I can at least keep you semi-mobile." Wolf's words came through over on the flight frequency and at first Flagg couldn't believe his ears. The immediate threat had passed, but there were more TIEs inbound, squints this time from Intruder Lead's report. Clamping the two fighter's together would make them both easy targets, was she trying to get them both killed?

"Wolf!!! All good, I have control back, its gonna be a hard slog, the circuit board has been bypassed and I can control manually, but no fancy moves left here!" The signal from Vixen was weak but readable and looking back over his left shoulder Flagg could see her X-Wing powering up as she tested the control surfaces. "OK Able flight, we're clear here, but we've got those squints inbound, let's go give them a proper greeting."





IC: Major Beskaryc "Iron Hand" Taab
Attacking Convoy THX-1138, outskirts of the Naboo system

Taab watched with grim satisfaction as the torpedoes from Lou guided true and struck the already burning Gozanti in front of them head on. Internal explosions ripped through the ship even as the Mandalorian continued to pour light turbo-laser fire into it's broken hull With a burst of bright light the Gozanti's back broke and the ship separated into two large burning sections as incoming fire from it ceased. "OK, Lou, now the..." Taab's words were broken off as his threat warning receiver went off, beeping at him rather insistently that a missile tracking system was sweeping the area. He was confused for a moment, nothing they had encountered so far was capable of firing missile, unless one of those freighters had been modified. Or maybe it was one of their own?

A quick glance at the RWR showed an ANs-7e/PG-7u going active, that meant one of the A-Wings was locking missile on something, but that was well away from the beams playing over his fighter. Those were something he hadn't seen before, but the bandwidth was Imperial, and it was coming from the far end of the convoy, back where the Carrack and the ferryboat were making good their escape. "shab," he jerked the Iron Cross over, putting one of the destroyed sections of Gozanti hull between he and the scanning beams before pulling around it towards the Guardian. Keeping his eyes open for the still prowling TIE fighter he opened up on the Guardian with his light turbo. His shots impacted hard on the shields as other fighters got in on the action too. The Iron Cross flashed underneath, just as the Gozanti's shields failed. Watching the hull struck by ion blasts he barely noticed when the fire control signature on his warning detector flashed that a missile had been launched from long range homing in on Lou.

"Black Sheep," the now recognizable voice of Intruder lead came though over the squadron freq. "Be advised, a flight of fighters just launched from the SSD and went to hyperspace..." That was concerning, but they didn't know their destination. Maybe they were being sent off somewhere else. It wasn't unusual for a Star Destroyer to have fighters engaged in several battle at once. Until they showed up here Taab couldn't worry about them.

Switching his selected weapons to the trio of ion cannons Taab pulled around, ready to add to the disabling fire on the Guardian. "Lou, go ions..." He saw what the other Black Sheep were doing, and though he wanted to kill, not disable, he knew they were on the right track. Besides, he could kill the ship just as easily after it had been disabled. "Lou?" Taab repeated, looking for a response, but there wasn't one. It was then that he finally noticed the missile on her trail, it must have come from that far off unidentified targeting computer, shab. He was in no position to help, and the escorting wingmen of his flight were no where to be found. "Lou, turn into it Lou," he commed out to her, but she was far too busy to acknowledge his message, if she even heard it. Her Y-wing ducked behind a K-Type freighter, the only one in the convoy and Taab lost sight of her. A moment later the blip representing her craft disappeared from his screen. She was down, either caught by the warhead or purposefully crashing into the freighter to kill a few more Imperials. Taab hoped it was the latter, it was what he would do. She had died with ho...

*BANG, BANG, BANG*

A series of loud crashing bang reverberated through his B-wing's cockpit as a TIE fighter screeched overhead. The last TIE that had engaged his flight. Blast it, he had hoped the X-Wings had taken care of it, but no joy there. He checked his shield status as the craft swiftly pulled around on him for another pass. 40%. Not good. He tried to pull the Iron Cross onto the TIE's tail, but that too was no good. The B-Wing was too slow and cumbersome to engage in a turning fight with the more nimble TIE fighter. The enemy craft pulled back around, getting behind him as it prepared to fire again. Other comm traffic was coming in now, but Taab ignored it, he had other things to worry about. In desperation Taab poured all his engine power into the shields, pumping them up to 57% before chopping throttle. The Iron Cross shuddered as it dumped speed and then the TIE flew right by, without firing a shot. Taab's maneuver must have surprised him. The Mandalorian mashed down on the firing stud, and was greeted by bright blue ion bolts spraying across the TIE's large vertical wings. The fighter's engines died as it began to coast forward, disabled.

Taab's eyes narrowed as he brought power back to the engines and throttled up. His maneuver would have been certain suicide if there had been other threats around, but for now he was surrounded by only freighters, who were too busy tracking the fighters actively attacking them. He'd gotten lucky that it was just one TIE on his tail. Flicking another switch he selected his auto-cannons and pressing the trigger ripped through the disabled TIE fighter with a long burst of rapid fire bolts. The TIE exploded as Taab let out a loud "oya!" before turning to bring his craft around for another pass at the convoy. He was alone now, and being alone was dangerous, but he didn't care so long as he got to keep killing Imperials.

"I could use the escort until I form up with Lead," Lou's voice suddenly filled his ears and Taab noticed the Y-Wing accelerating towards him. She had survived...somehow. "Sorry for the delay, Lead. I nearly got roasted by a missile and had to make a pit stop. I wasn't carrying any decoys this time and nearly paid for it." Pit stop? Taab didn't waste time thinking about it, though he was sure it would make for a good story in the ready room if they all survived this. The Iron Cross was still not up to speed, making Lou's intercept easier.

"Echo flight," a comm signal came in from the Boss. "Don't worry about those squints, one of you grab the starboard side pod that was just knocked loose from the Guardian, and standby for the Glowworm to be disabled." There was a pause as the squadron commander broke to issue more orders. "Charlie flight, quit screwing around and disable Glowworm..." There was another pause, this one longer than the previous one before he issued orders to his own flight. "OK Able flight, we're clear here, but we've got those squints inbound, let's go give them a proper greeting."

Taab waited as he finally got the Iron Cross back up to speed, wondering if he had further orders. Things had gotten crowded there with everyone attacking the Guardian at once. Some direction from Black Sheep Lead could head off any further duplication of effort, but there was none. "OK Lou, lets destroy..." Taab looked at his scope, scanning for the closest freighter. "K-219." He flicked his controls again, selecting his light turbo laser as they prepared for a pass at the lightly damaged vessel.

​

IC: Commander Arick "Boss" Flagg
Leading Able flight towards the incoming TIE Interceptors

Keeping an eye on the rest of his flight Flagg told himself that things were going well, about as well as could be expected anyhow. They hadn;t lost any fighters yet, though there had been a few scares with Vixen and lou, and they had effectivly wiped out the TIE fighter screen around the convoy. There were still a couple of those flitting about, but they could get mopped up by Baker while Charlie was disabling the primary target. Meanwhile Able flight would engage and destroy the TIE Interceptors.

Accelerating his X-Wing to attack speed he glanced to his scope to see two formations of Interceptors approaching at hight speed. That was unexpected, Intruder Lead had said about a half dozen, but his scope clearly showed eight, separated into two flights, both onrushing Able flight. "Frak," he muttered under his breath to himself. "Can't Mandalorians count?" It made for a force that outnumbered his flight two to one, and one of their one was already damaged, but they were commited now, nthing more could be done but to get through it. it was kill or be killed out here.

"Able Flight, press." He gave the order to attack as he pressed the firing stud on his stick, just as bolts of green laser fire began to reach out towards him...



IC: Major Beskaryc "Iron Hand" Taab
Attacking Convoy THX-1138, outskirts of the Naboo system

"Oya!" Taab let loose with another war whoop as the K-219 exploded in the wake of he and Lou's attack. Missions like this were child's play for a craft like the Iron Cross, and now with the fighter and cruiser screen scattered or destroyed while Charlie and Echo flight's corralled the cargo they were after, the remaining freighters in the convoy were at his mercy. And Taab was not a merciful man.

"Lou come right." Taab ordered as he selected their next target. "The Viraxo Madyline..." his words were cut off as his threat warning receiver again lit up with the same unidentified missile scanner. This time though it was much closer in. Taab jinked his fighter, hoping to break the scan but it quickly went from just a scan to a lock. "Lou, got a problem here..." he commed out to his wingman, again wondering where his X-wing escorts were. The threat warning receiver flashed red at him and a warbling ping filled his helmet denoting a missile launch at his fighter. Pulling towards where the shot had come from Taab blindly opened fire with his auto-cannons hoping to get lucky just as the close in explosion of a missile warhead rocked his fighter.

It wasn't a direct hit he was relieved to note, but his spray of blaster fire hadn't detonated the missile until it had gotten in close, too close, causing damage to his forward shield which now stood at 48%. Still, it could have been much worse. "Lou did you see where..." he began when a shape flashed by him at high speed.

Spoiler

He could barely make it out, some sort of TIE that was for sure, but one he wasn't familiar with. It was obviously the source of the missile that had almost struck him, and probably the one that had been launched at Lou. Whatever it was, it was fast and deadly, and it was not alone. Taab counted 11 others that slashed their way into the interior of the convoy, intent on hitting Charlie flight they could accomplish their mission.

"Black Lead, Iron Hand." The Mandalorian contacted Flagg even as a pair of the new fighters peeled off after Taab and Lou. "We have 12 new contacts inbound to the convoy coming from the direction of the Carrack." Taab didn't have to say it, but they had been caught in a classic pincer maneuver, with the squints coming in from the direction of Naboo, and these new brights coming in from the opposite direction, from deep space. Now the Black Sheep had been caught in the middle. But how?

Taab dumped a bit of his laser power into the shields as it came to him. These were the fighters that Intruder Lead had warned them about, the ones that had gone to hyperspace after they had launched. Her warning to them hadn't been received until after they had arrived and fired that first missile because her signal had been a radio wave, sent at the speed of light, while these fighters had accelerated well past that when they had jumped.

"Roger that Delta lead," the strained voice of Flagg came back. "Baker flight, engage the new hostiles, keep them off of everyone."

​

IC: Baron Ric Vonoften
Skull Lead, Leading the 282nd TIE "The Death Head" Squadron into battle.

For the first time since the squadron's launch from their SSD, Baron Vonoften allowed himself a slender, insincere, smile. It appeared the Rebels had gone through quite a lot of effort to attack what was in the grand scheme of things, a relatively minor convoy. Upon viewing their disposition he had immediately recognized the blocking force put into place to slow any aid from Naboo, as well as the escort, attack and assault forces also arrayed around the convoy. It would be a simple matter to entrap them with his own force of TIE Defenders and cut them to ribbons.

Alas, that was not the order initial order from the Grand Admiral, he had at first insisted that they prepare to defend a much more vital target than the now besieged convoy, but now that the Baron had his squadron deployed for battle he planned on doing both at once. The Defender series was not all that common in the Imperial Navy, only a handful had been produced before the factory on Lothal had been forced to cease production. Most of those that were scattered throughout the galaxy, defending various high value targets from Rebel attack. Some though had been gathered into a few very special squadrons, squadrons made up of the very best pilots the Imperial navy had to offer. The pilots of Death's Head squadron were the very best of the best, the elite, and Baron Vonoften was their leader.

Their craft was also the best the Imperial Navy had to offer. Faster than the Rebel A-Wing, as heavily armed as a B-Wing and shielded to the near equivalent of an X-Wing, there was little else flying his pilots had to fear. The TIE Defender also had another advantage over lesser Imperial fighters, it was equipped with a hyperdrive. The 282nd had used those as soon as forming up after launch, in order to better protect their charge as well as to ensnare these Rebels in a pincer between his squadron and the TIE Interceptors of the 101st.

When they had first exited hyperspace they had been going in the wrong direction, away from the convoy and towards the Carrack class cruiser Alert. However, it hadn't taken them long to reorient into a defensive position between the Cruiser and the convoy. Their orders were to wait there, and ensure that these Rebels didn't decide to go after anything...more important, but those had been thrown out the window after Skull Eight had fired a long range missile at one of the Rebel Y-Wings. For Vonoften that meant his fighters had engaged, and the best way to accomplish their mission was to engage the rebels and annihilate them.

Ordering the squadron forward he had fired off his own missile at the closest B-Wing only to see it explode moments before contact as he flashed by. "Skull Eight and Nine, engage the fighter bombers we just blew through." As attested to by his earlier missile shot, Black Eight was already fangs out. He would have no issue dealing with the plodding B-Wing and Y-Wing that had just destroyed a K-Type freighter moments before. "As ordered," came the expected reply before the pair of Defenders peeled off after the Alliance fighter bombers.

"Fairy," he commed to Skull Five, Lt Commander Corrin, who was was his squadron's executive officer, and she was nearly as good a pilot as he was. "Take your flight and engage the Rebel's fighter screen." She too responded with the standard, "As ordered," before diving down towards a rebel A-Wing. "Everyone else, is with me. Target the craft attacking our freighters."

TAG: @Adalia-Durron @Mitth_Fisto @Quinlan Vos @galactic-vagabond422 @Anedon @The Vanguard @witchdoctor07 @Vehn @Mostlymad @BookExogorth @Sarge @TheAdmiral @Rebecca_Daniels @Mistress_Renata @Corellian_Outrider @Outsourced @Chyntuck

OOC: I moved us a bit further along here as I wanted to explain where that mystery missile fired at Lou came from. Now, a breakdown of what's going on. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask me via PM or in the fanclub.

• Able Flight: Engaging the eight TIE Interceptors that are approaching the convoy. Engage and damage/destroy the interceptors as you see fit. Just for context, this is on the opposite side of the battle area from the TIE Defenders.
• Baker Flight: Ordered to engage the 10 TIE Defenders that are now entering the battle. For context, the Interceptors are on the opposite side of the battle area from the TIE Defenders. The Defenders are of tougher stock, you may post damage to them in your post, but none can be killed as of yet (I'll post any kills you all incur in my next update)
• Charlie Flight: Ordered to disable the Glowworm. Be advised there are still two unaccounted for TIE fighters in the area as well. You may post damage/disable/destroy any convoy ship (including the Glowworm, or these TIE fighters as you see fit in your posts.
• Delta Flight: Ordered to engage remaining targets of opportunity within the convoy. These you may damage/destroy as you see fit in your posts. Also we have two TIE Defenders that split off from the main group and are engaging us. As with Baker flight, we can post damage to thse, but none can be killed as yet (I'll post any kills we incur on these in my next update)
• Echo Flight: ordered to pick up cargo pod B from the Guardian as well as Pod B from Glowworm once it is disabled. Be advised there are still two unaccounted for TIE fighters (the same ones mentioned to Charlie flight in this breakdown) in the area as well. Those can be engaged and destroyed at will by either you or Charlie flight.

 

IC: Louise "Lou" Gray
Convoy THX-1138

"Take that!" Lou cried out as the K-219 exploded in a thousand pieces sending shrapnel and debris clanking against the hull of her Y-wing.

"Lou, come right, "Taab ordered, "the Viraxo Madyline...."

Lou began to adjust her course and prepare her attack run on the hapless freighter when her threat warning indicator began screaming again. Lou felt a stab of fear as her craft detected another missile launch.

"Lou, got a problem here..." Taab called out.

Lou's head swiveled in every direction trying to find the missile and perhaps the craft that had launched it. She instinctively began to juke and jink her craft, even performing knife-edge rolls to throw off any would be attacker. C-8 warbled a quick tweet that came across her MFD.

<Missile inbound. Heading for Black Lead>

Lou killed her throttle and dropped off of Taab's wing. She knew she was potentially breaking protocol but this was about survival. She wanted to see if the missile and the craft that fired it were going to come into visual range. If so, she might be able to get a shot off. Lou saw the sharp trail of the missile arc toward Taab's B-Wing and then exploded in a hail of hastily shot cannon fire. She shook her head with admiration as Black Lead resumed his flight pattern.

The explosion had barely dissipated when Lou spotted a TIE design cutting through the two bombers that made her heart stop in her chest.

TIE Defenders, Lou thought, things just got a lot more difficult.

The markings on the solar panels gave her all the information she needed to know.

An old memory stirred deep inside. Old fears, old moments of sadness, and old hatreds. She now knew the adversary she was facing. An adversary that was the most feared in the galaxy: the 282nd TIE "The Death Head" Squadron. Her trembling hand instinctively went up to her wedding ring hanging from a necklace along with her dog tags. There was something else she knew but kept to herself. A secret. A whisper of a memory.

Lou recalled that she had passed basic TIE training with ease. That's where she'd met her ex-husband, Imperial ace Dietryk Ravyn, who'd been a flight instructor. It was there on Carida that she had been preliminarily accepted to try her hand at the more advanced TIEs such as the Interceptor and even log a few hours in the Defender simulator. She wasn't aware that the Defender had been pressed into service yet. Now, unfortunately, she was finding out the cold truth.

She'd been drummed out after Dietryk's rivals had discovered his relationship with a Lou. Where Lou had realized their marriage had failed was when Dietryk had chosen his career over his relationship. The decision had broken her heart. Broken her spirit. She loved him and a small part of her still cared about him. But he hadn't lifted a finger to defend Lou. To defend their marriage. Instead he'd caved to outside pressure, to military propriety and protocol, and scrubbed her out of the school. He was done and had washed his hands of their marriage.

"Was it all a sham? Do I mean nothing to you?" Lou remembered saying to her husband.

Dietryk didn't respond. He simply turned his back on her and opened the door leading out of his office. His actions spoke a thousand words. Lou walked out and never looked back. She knew in that moment that her husband was a coward. Now, she was engaged in a life or death battle with the very squadron that her ex-husband was rumored to have joined following their separation.

Lou lost sight of the TIE Defender that had fired at Taab. As her eyes tracked back toward the convoy, and the Carrack cruiser on the far side, she saw glints of solar panels inbound. Her hand nearly left her stick as the glints came closer and took on shapes. The deathly shapes of a TIE Defender squadron.

Lou rerouted power from her engines to her shields. She could never outfly the Defender but there was the potential for her to overpower it with her weapons. It was time to trade speed for survivability. She tapped out a quick message to C-8 to keep the ion cannon ready to use. He responded with an affirmative.

<We're being targeted!> C-8 said.

"Great," Lou responded as she looked over her shoulder only to see the menacing tri-wing of the Defender hot on her tail. The Defender shot out a few green lasers that glanced her shields knocking them down to 62 percent.

She killed the throttle and did a hard dive inverting as she did so to see the TIE Defender slip on by her. She quickly slammed the throttle forward and slipped onto his tail. She knew he'd outrun her guns in a matter of seconds. All she wanted was one chance to make the pilot pay for his aggressiveness. She thumbed the toggle switch and selected proton torpedoes as she acquired a lock.

"Have some of this," Lou responded as she fired off a dual salvo.

She watched as the TIE Defender began to jink left, juke right, and then barrel rolled in a figure eight pattern as the torpdedoes raced toward the craft. She knew the Defender could outrun the torpedoes but she wanted the TIE pilot to have seconds thoughts about making another run at her. It surprised her, then when the Defender came back around and was now heading directly for Lou's Y-Wing with the torps in tow.

<Are you crazy? Why are you going head to head with a shielded TIE?> C-8 asked.

"Frak you and let me do this," Lou responded, "hand over control of the ion cannons to me. Now!"

Lou switched her shields to double-front, re-routed power to her laser cannons, and also linked both ion and laser cannons under one trigger. The distance between the two craft closed quickly. She jiggled the rudder pedals left, then right, worked her stick up, down, diagonal, left, a random pattern. She wasn't about to be predictable. She wasn't about to be figured out.

The TIE Defender matched her moves. Green swatches of Imperial venom flew out to greet her. Lou watched the attack vector and saw a tell that stirred a memory from her time on Carida. The TIE was consistently dipping high and to the left on every bob to throw off her aim. It was a unique maneuver. One designed to bring Rebel craft down by attacking their vulnerable astromech droids and fuel lines. A top down strike. One strong blast, one second of vulnerability and Lou knew she was toast.

"I know you," Lou whispered, "I know you."

Her targeting computer screamed. She had acquired a lock. Her fingers slipped toward the trigger when a name escaped her lips. A name she had not spoken in years. A name that haunted her at night. A name that even now brought with it a lot of pain and tears.

Lou tuned to a common Imperial radio frequency and said, "I've got you dead to rights, Dietryk Ravyn, you Imperial son of a--"

TBC

Tag: @Bardan_Jusik

 

IC: Ethan "Veteran" Malek
Near the imperial convoy

"Vet stay close still got some eyeballs looking at us." Ianna´s voice reached him while he was already aiming for the two remaining TIEs. For a moment he closed his left eye, fixating on the closer one of the TIEs following the imperial machines flight to the void. Two heartbeats later his lasers hit the target and the small fighter disappeared in a explosion.

"Got on one of them, kid," he communicated to Ianna to assure her that he had her covered. Taking a short breath he turned his head into the direction of the second TIE which was still closing in on them. His worries had left him and now he was calm and collected, concentrated on the fight ahead.

"Vet cover me, I'm going to save Lou's behind." Ianna called him. Lou? She wasn´t part of the Charlie fight and their objectives where clear, they had to focus on their target. Ianna was breaking out of the plan to help her friend. But Ethan knew what he had to do, saving a life was more important.

Opening a com channel he called back to his flights leader, "Shirl, Kid and I are going to bail out one the deltas. Will try to return to the script as soon as possible." With that he closed the channel, hoping that Shirl was flexible enough not to mind their deviation.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy" he muttered more to himself as he moved his X-Wing closer to Inna´s ship.

"Right behind you kid," he told Ianna while keeping his focus on her ship hoping the two other members of the Charlie flight would take care of the last remaining TIE.

Trying to get an overview over the situation ahead it seemed to him as if Lou had somehow managed to land in the freighters small hangar and was no trapped there. For a moment Ethan wondered how she had managed to pull of such a maneuver but he decided that he would ask her about it later.

For now he kept to shielding Ianna from any potential threats while she and another fighter began to fire on the hangar shields to free their friend. Ethan added a few salvos as well but he knew that the weapons of his X-Wings weren´t of much help here.

When he shields broke down and Lou had managed to free herself Ethan allowed himself a short smile, one life they had been able to save.

"Charlie flight, quit screwing around and disable Glowworm..." New orders came over com and Ethan couldn´t help to shake his head for a moment. So saving a life is fooling around, while the important mission is to secure some luxury food?

But he pushed the thought aside as he contacted Ianna again. "Okay Kid, you´ve heard the boss, let's get back to our assignment." Then after a short moment of thinking he added, "nice work with hangar shields."

Than he turned back towards the rest of the squardon, to see how they where doing. They needed to regroup quickly and disable the Glowworm, as R7 wisteles had just told him about the new threat that was closing in, a whole squadron of TIE Defenders.

Tag: @galactic-vagabond422, @The Vanguard, @witchdoctor07

 

IC: Max Pallas
B-flight, above Naboo

She knew it was going too well. B-flight had gotten the cargo containers off of the Guardian –not the target they’d been given, but hey—and had polished off a few TIE fighters. So far, all of them seemed to be intact. Max put her nose up, trying to get above most of the freighters, and looked around. No sign of Zero or Mean Streak, and Joy suddenly took off to the other side of the convoy, headed to the K-type freighter. Where is she going? The Glowworm is in the exact opposite direction.

There were a few eyeballs zooming around, but they were outnumbered. Still, Max had been assigned to cover Joy, and so she headed to follow, staying above the fray. The undamaged freighters were still frantically firing from their gun turrets. It was easy to track their range of fire, and she dipped down over the Mara Anne as she headed for the K-219, letting loose with her cannons. The gun turret went up, to her satisfaction. Joy was in sight, linking up with Lou and Ioanna in parade-perfect formation. Pretty to look at, except that Ioanna was in C-flight, and was supposed to be on the other side of the convoy, attacking the Glowworm. They’d done a number on K-219, she could see sparks and a few explosions coming from the far side. One of the Y-wings was blasting it, and it wasn’t going to stay intact for long.

She could hear a lot of chatter over her comms. The Intruder’s Leader was talking about a bunch of fighters that just jumped to hyperspace…wait, what? TIE fighters were short range. No shields, no hyperdrives, nice targets if you could get them. One of the squadron (she didn’t recognize the voice) was going to try a mag clamp to someone named Vixen (was that the surly redhead?). Their own Leader was telling C flight to get on the ball and take out the Glowworm, and about time, too. Joy was in good shape, so Max looked around and headed for one of the remaining TIE fighters. She dodged left and right as he was dodging her, and she was finally right in behind him, on his tail, he was in her sights, perfectly centered, oh yes, this is gonna be sweet…

Digger squawked a loud alarm. Max punched the trigger more out of surprise than anything else, and didn’t even see the TIE fighter go up. She could see the targets on her scope, and turned her head (and her ship) to face them.

“<<What the hell are those things?>>” she said out loud, not realizing she’d reverted to Corellian. They were the ugliest ships she’d ever seen, like the mutant offspring of an illegitimate mating between a TIE fighter and an X-wing. Whatever they were, they weren’t friendly, and they were fast. They were closing in on the Y-wings. She could see another X-wing, moving to protect the slower Rebel ships.

She was already headed in, hearing Flagg’s voice over the comm, “Baker Flight, engage the new hostiles. Keep them off of everyone.” She glanced down at her scope. 10 against 4? The boss must have a higher opinion of us than I thought. And where are the other two?

Ioanna was breaking off, headed back towards the Glowworm, with Malek screening her. You’d better do a better job with her than you did with the No Deal, Max thought bitterly.

She put the nose up, putting herself higher. It never hurt to come in from above or below. TIE fighters had a lot of blind spots, and relied a lot on scanners. Relying on scanners got you killed. “Diggs, I need eyes everywhere,” she said. One of the ships was headed towards Lou, who was doing some insane maneuver. Its wingmate was just behind him. Max touched her corley wreath in her pocket, mentally tagging him. Lou might take the first one, but this guy could then take her. Max couldn’t get behind him, but from above and a little to his left… maybe she could get a drop. Her eyes moved constantly, checking her scanners, her canopy, the mirror at the top…closer, closer, almost in range. He seemed to sense her and broke right and up. Something of a surprise, but a useful one. She rolled slightly to her left, punched the throttle, and sent off a volley of shots. “Gotcha!” The vivid red flickered across the ship, but he was rolling and dropping, trying to loop to come up at her. “<<Shields? When the kriff did they start adding shields?>>” she said in shock. She looped and rolled in a deadly dance with the strange ship, trying to get a clear shot while staying away from him. “Right,” she said on B-flight’s comm channel. “What the kriff are these things and how do we blow them up?”

TAG: @Sarge, @TheAdmiral, @Rebecca_Daniels, @Bardan_Jusik, @Corellian_Outrider (who will understand what she said)

OOC: I'm basing the layout of the convoy on @Adalia-Durron's nice chart, which puts K-219 in the opposite corner of the convoy from the Glowworm.

 

OOC: I realized in writing Lou's backstory that some of the details from my earlier posts in this game, coupled with more recent posts, don't completely jive. In one version, Lou and her husband get into a fight, he lands several blows on Lou, she tries to kill him with a blaster and alarms go off and she flees. In another version, more recently in the post that I just put out, Lou and her husband Dietryk get into an argument and he fails to fight for her, for their marriage, and that is the final straw.

For purposes of continuity, both incidents occured but not at the same time. The first incident, the first major break in their marriage, was the verbal argument. Lou then comes back, some time later when its official that she is being drummed out of the service and then pulls a blaster on her husband. I just wanted to clear that up for anyone who might've noticed the issue.


Thank you.

PER GM APPROVAL!




IC: Lieutenant Dietryk Ravyn Gray
Imperial Flight Academy
Carida

Lieutenant Dietryk Ravyn Gray, known to most as Dietryk Ravyn, native of Druckenwell, wiped blood from his face as he grappled with his wife Lou in his office. He shoved her hard against his desk, one hand closing in around her throat, while the other tried to knock the blaster pistol out of her grasp. He could feel her life force slipping away as he attempted murder. He'd had enough of her. He'd had enough of her ruining his career. She screamed and kneed him in the gut forcing him to release his grip.

Dietryk looked hard into Lou's eyes as he picked himself up off the floor and saw anger and betrayal where once there had been love and compassion. He also saw the business end of a blaster pistol. He knew that there was no going back. He had made his decision. He had made his choice. Distance separated them now. A distance that had driven a wedge between their marriage, between their dreams, between their love.

"If you walk out that door, Lou," Dietryk threatened, "it's over. I won't be able to protect you from what will happen to your family. From what will happen to you."

"I never needed your protection," Lou replied, "I needed your love!"

"You had my love," Dietryk replied as the pair squared off, "and you threw it away when you let us get caught by my superiors. You are the reason this is happening. All of this is your fault!"

Lou shook her head, "Spoken like a true coward. You could have fought for our marriage, you could have fought for me!"

"You forced me to make a choice," Dietryk responded, "what was I supposed to do? Stand before the proverbial firing squad and throw everything I've worked for away?"

"You swore an oath," Lou cried out, "you swore an oath to me, Dietryk! You swore an oath to me before you ever made your bed with the Empire! We had made plans to leave our commissions behind! To settle down somewhere and stop our part in this war. Instead you go and run me out of flight school on some bogus claim that I was plotting to kill the commandant! That's a lie, Dietryk. That's a frakking lie!"

"I could have had you shot," Dietryk warned, "like the traitor you are. Because I am merciful I argued for them to just let you go. You're such an idealist, Lou. You have such dreams of making a difference. Frak that. We're past that point. The only difference we were supposed to make was enforcing the rule and law of the New Order! That's all gone now. Besides, you weren't good enough to be a TIE pilot."

Dietryk flinched slightly as Lou took a step toward him. She raised the blaster pistol and Dietryk searched the eyes of a woman scorned for any hint that she might show mercy. "You take that back."

"Take what back?" Dietryk taunted.

"I was one of your best students. I was one of the best pilots in this class!" Lou said.

"You were the best," Dietryk admitted, "you were the very best I ever had but you weren't the best pilot.

Lou screamed in rage, his meaning was clear, and she pulled the trigger of a shaking pistol. Somehow she missed. Somehow the blaster bolt sizzled past Dietryk's head and hit the alarm behind them. Her eyes went wide as the thunderous echo of stormtrooper boots came down the hallway.

"See what I mean?" Dietryk taunted.

"I'll find you," Lou said, "I'll find you and when I do we're going to finish this once and for all! Don't expect me to show any mercy!"

"Whether on the ground or in the stars I will always be better than you, Lou," Dietryk said, "I will always win."

Present Day
Skull Eight
282nd TIE "The Death's Head" Squadron
Convoy THX-1138
Naboo


Dietryk kicked the rudder over as his threat indicator signaled a pair of torps had just launched in his direction. He adjusted his energy levels to put a little more speed into the engines as he began evasive maneuvers. The torps closed quickly with his fighter but he was still able to keep a safe distance from their deadly warheads.

He quickly jerked his yoke up and to the right as he back tracked toward the Y-Wing. He immediately switched his shields to double-front and linked all cannons together. It would only be a matter of minutes before the Y-Wing was destroyed. He snap-rolled his TIE Defender and released chaff sending the torpedoes on a red herring course to nowhere.

Dietryk glanced at his targeting computer, knew he was out of range for a laser lock, and was surprised to find the Y-Wing bearing down on him head on. He began to depress his trigger sending out laser fire to throw the Rebel pilot off course. In the mean time he setup his attack run, attempting to angle for a top down deflection shot, when his comm. crackled to life.

"I've got you dead to rights, Dietryk Ravyn, you Imperial son of a--"

Dietryk felt an electric chill slip down his spine. He recognized that voice. The voice of someone he had never forgotten. The voice of someone he had once loved with all his heart. The voice of someone who had also torn his soul asunder with her blistering honesty. Somehow it made sense that Lou had kept on fighting and that she was now fighting on the side of terrorism. She had always been a firebrand.

"Lou..." Dietryk whispered, "can it really be you?"

Dietryk took his finger off the trigger as the Y-Wing loomed large in his segmented canopy windows. Neither craft fired at one another as they closed within dangerous distance of a collision. Alarms blared in his cockpit as the TIE sensors indicated a physical presence abou to impact his fighter. He strained his eyes and could make out the golden locks of hair underneath the Rebel helmet. It was her. It was the woman who had stolen his heart. It was the woman who even now made his blood run cold.

"Frak it all!" Dietryk cursed as he jerked hard on the yoke to avoid a collision and broke off his attack.

The TIE Defender vibrated as the Y-Wing shot past him, wishbone engines rattling his canopy. He killed the throttle and did a hard turn to slip back on the Y-Wing's six. The inertial dampener squealed in protest as the aggressive maneuver pushed him hard into his bolted down seat. He was putting the Defender through its paces now. He knew he'd never been able to get away with such a maneuver in a regular TIE or its successor the Interceptor.

Dietryk depressed the rudder pedals again, eased the Defender over, and punched the throttle easily closing the distance with Lou's Y-Wing which had begun a lazy circle back to the convoy. His system chimed with a lock. His thumb slipped over the trigger. He had her now. All he needed to do was be brave enough to pull the trigger and end this once and for all.

"Skull Eight to Skull Leader," Dietryk said, "get ready to paint a wishbone on my fuselage when we report back to base."

Dietryk's sensors screamed. He'd made a critical error. The B-Wing, which Dietryk had forgotten about, was firing with everything it had at him taking his shields down to nothing. He was thrown forward agains this his restraints as blue and red energy struck his Defender and bumped him into a deadly spin away from the convoy. He struggled to regain control as he peered up through the egress hatch and saw that one of his solar panels had been mangled beyond repair. He punched his center console in frustration as he struggled to get back into the fight. He fought to get control back and ease his Defender back on an intercept course with the Y-Wing only to see on sensors that the combat clutter obscured any hope of targeting Lou once more.

Dietryk Ravyn Gray, Lieutenant in the 282nd TIE "The Death's Head" Squadron, had lost his wife again.

Tag: @Bardan_Jusik, for approving the game action! Thank you!

 

IC: Ianna "Kid" Mcear
Near the imperial convoy

"Uhh…" Ianna started falling into formation with the other two Y-Wings, "Daddy says I can't drink...Well alcohol. But, if they got any fizzy drink I'll take it." Her mother and father kept such things to a strict minimum, more to combat the little girl's hyperactivity, well, trying to keep it reigned in. So getting any sugary drink would be as near to 'Drinking' as she could get.

Her smile couldn't be brighter as she pulled away from Joy and Lou, wishing that she could keep fighting by their side. That was when the 'Boss' came over loud and clear.

"Charlie flight, quit screwing around and disable Glowworm..." he seemed grumpy, but, she guessed he always seemed that way.

She turned hard setting her sights on the Glowworm, on the far side of everything she'd been dealing with. Looking at her scopes she searched furiously for Ditch and Turncoat, hadn't they dealt with the crusier? Between a B-Wing and a X-Wing they should have handled it.

"Okay Kid, you´ve heard the boss, let's get back to our assignment." Vet commed her over the flight channel, which she finally switched to.

"I know." she replied quickly almost defensively, she knew what she was doing, she just had to save her friend. Wasn't that more important?

"nice work with hangar shields." Where she had been a little dejected before her wingmate's words, hearing them made her brighten. Keeping out of much of the laser fire had allowed her shields to recharge. She throttled to full, pushing Serica to her limit closing in keeping her ion cannon warm to dispense some charged shots to finally shut down that curiser.

"Thanks Vet..." she replied, the smile clear in her voice.

She jukes left and right, avoiding fire, if only by a hair's breadth. Soon her target loomed large in her view port. A storm of ion bolts lept from her cannon sending little fingers of lightning dancing across the hull, systems were shutting down again, one more pass ought to stop it for good.

Serica turned hard groaning under the strain.

"It's ok Big Sis, we're almost done." Another salvo was released more engery splashed against the metal hull, finally darkening the cruiser. Just as Ianna was about to celebrate, green lances of deadly light crossed her canopy one glancing off the shields.

"Ahh…" the little exclamation slipped from her chest. "Vet…" she continued quickly swapping around her shields to better protect her rear, "You're on that guy right, you got him handled?" Her voice was quivering with just a little fear. She knew that if that fighter got behind her, it wouldn't be long before she was EVA, or worse.

TAG: @Anedon @The Vanguard @witchdoctor07 @Bardan_Jusik

 

IC: Jocelyn “Joy" Sunwalker
In the midst of the Imperial convoy

The ship she and Ianna attacked started falling apart. Hopefully it did not carry anything that the Rebel Alliance could use. That was not part of the plan, but it was too late for anything to be done. The problem was that it will fill the space with big chunks of debris making flying more hazardous and also could damage the remaining containers. At least the enemy will be in the same situation.

Jocelyn turned her craft towards the general area where the rest of the B-flight was. Hopefully going for Lou was not viewed as gross insubordination. Something caught her attention, it was a TIE going her direction. It sent a stream of emerald shots grazing the shields and causing the Y-wing to shake wildly. She needed to target it before it ends her. Joy tried to avoid the blasts, the alarms were blaring that the shields will fail soon so she decided to dive. It was a good thing they had inertial dampeners. Moving down might not have been the best idea as she almost hit one of the Imperial vessels so she kept her direction and dove underneath. The turrets were trying to blast her, but she was fast enough to avoid it.

The sensors indicated that the TIE did not lose its interest in her. It was diving too, coming from the opposite direction. She could see it appearing and pressed the trigger. The crimson blasts missed the target and overshot. The TIE also was not lucky and flew past her. This needed to end soon so she managed to make a sharp turn… as sharp as the Y-wing permitted. This time she was more patient, the targeting computer chirped confirming that she had a lock. Joy pressed the trigger sending several shots, this time they struck the TIE’s cabin killing the pilot instantly and piercing the back where the engines were. It blew sending the now twisted wings cartwheeling.

Jocelyn gave a sigh of relief. There was a message about Imperial fighters going to hyperspace. She frowned, Defenders here? Her blood ran cold, could they be the Skulls? Hopefully the Black Sheeps were not such a high priority target as to warrant an intervention by Defenders. They were not ready for such opposition. They had enough problems dealing with such a relatively simple task...

She had not been in a dogfight for a while. The Y-wing was not suited for such stunts. There was a pang of guilt, if things were slightly different the man or woman would have been her compatriot. But there was no time for such sentiment right now. They were in the midst of battle and she had long ago made her decision. There was no turning back so she would commit to the Alliance and its fight against the Empire.

Something caught her attention as she resumed her way towards B-flight. It came just as Boss announced the new threat. Shadow shrieked and sent a stream of data. The sensors had picked up the new targets. They came out of nowhere, so the Defenders came for them after all. That was, very bad.

“Shadow, prepare and transmit all the necessary data that you have about the Defenders.” she ordered her astromech. “Transmit to B-Flight Leader so that he can pass it on to the others.” she did not want to flood the channels by sending it to everyone. Besides she had to follow the chain of command. Hopefully the information will reach the others in time.

‘Anais, I hope you are not here...’ she thought to herself.

“B-flight Leader, be advised, use extra care, this is an elite squadron.” she transmitted after her astromech transferred the data.

She hoped that Lou and Ianna were safe. This would be tougher than Hoth. Hopefully most of the Black Sheeps will survive to fight another day...

TAG: @Sarge , @Bardan_Jusik , @Mistress_Renata , @Rebecca_Daniels

IC: Anais “Fairy” Corrin
Attacking the Rebel Squadron, Naboo system

Anais turned her attention to the two A-wings that they were supposed to attack. The Carrack had transmitted that there was a Y-wing and a X-wing supposed to be with them. Probably hiding somewhere. These Rebels seemed more disorganized than usual, probably some rookies sent to their first mission. It seems that will be their last one. The Skulls will make sure of that. It was a nice diversion from flying around with the SSD. The sheer size of that vessel made the Rebel scum run away instead of engaging so it was rather boring. Besides her squadron, needed some target practice.

If it wasn’t for Jocelyn’s betrayal she would have commanded the Death Head Squadron. Even her father was not able to pull enough strings to land her that position. At first she was angry at her ex-lover for doing that, and angry at herself for not stopping her or reporting her. But she couldn’t do that she loved and still does her. Anais shook her head, she had to focus, what made her think of Jocelyn? She was probably somewhere flying commercial or transport craft. She would never join the Rebellion so there was no point of fearing that she might run into her on a mission like this one.

“Destroyer, I am taking the one with the markings and you take the other one.” she commed her flight mate. “Eradicator and Subjugator you cover the Carrack and the liner, the rest engage the X-wing and the Y-wing.” That should be enough, given how lightly armored the A-wings were. The others will probably destroy the Wishbone quickly, the X-wing was trickier but will be blown too.

It was fun to engage A-wings again. It was just like Lothal…

TAG: @Sarge , @Bardan_Jusik , @Mistress_Renata , @Rebecca_Daniels

 

IC: Kayn "Mean Streak" Balzroth
Deep in the Pudu

Kayn's attention was focused on his aft sensors as he dove away from the Guardian and its loose cargo pods. Apparently the explosives were not going to detonate and his demise was not yet imminent. But what was that fast-moving ship diving after him? Holy frack! The kriffing thing is gaining on me! That's not supposed to happen! I'm already going all out!

Green beams burned through the vacuum between his engine exhausts. Time to try something different before the next shot skewers me. It's a big ship, maybe I can outturn it...

The A-wing pivoted hard, pulling enough G's to strain the inertial damper as it whipped into a vicious turn. More green fire lashed out, moving closer to his tail. It was turning inside his radius, moving closer to the kill angle.​

The comm system blinked, indicating reception of a data packet from Joy. He ignored it for the moment; this was not a good time to peruse the morning mail. Another shot grazed his aft shields. He popped chaff and flares, hoping to throw off the powerful targeting systems that had him locked up. No good. The tracking sensors were overpowering his jammer too.

Burning wreckage from one of the freighters appeared ahead of Kayn. He barrel-rolled in its direction, skimmed over it and dipped down on the other side, putting the scrap metal between him and his pursuer. The respite was momentary at best. A second later the Imp was back on his tail.



“B-flight Leader, be advised, use extra care, this is an elite squadron.”

Kayn's head snapped around at Joy's transmission. He had lost track of all his wingmates. But his neural links to the ship's systems lit up in his mind's eye, showing him where the signal had come from. He snapped around towards her and skidded wildly, trying to make his way in her direction without getting blasted.

"Joy, Mean Streak, I'm headed your way with a triplane on my tail. I'd be ever so grateful if you'd shoot it off."

TAG: @TheAdmiral, @Rebecca_Daniels, @Mistress_Renata

 

IC: Max Pallas, Black Eight
Above Naboo

The strange ship was bobbing in and out of her sights. Max fired and fired again. She was sure she was hitting him, but his shields were holding. <<Would you just blow up already?>> she snapped. This was ridiculous. Mom, a hand here? Her own ship rocked suddenly and a flurry of green bolts came past her right side. Her own shields had dropped to 83%. Oh, come ON!

She rolled sharply to the right, down over her lower foil and throttled back hard so that the ugly thing passed her. Then she did a lazy curve to reacquire her initial target. What was keeping C flight? Had the others picked up those cargo containers? What was Sheep Leader doing? No sign of Lou, she seemed to have shaken her tail. Come on, girl, go blow up the Glowworm so we can all bug out of here.

"Digger, what part of eyes on did you not hear?" she said. This was the worst day since...well, since Hoth. Could it be Zhellday again already?

The little droid whistled apologetically. //NEW INFORMATION RECEIVED. PROCESSING REQUIRED.

"New information?" She glanced down at the display, looking at a huge block of information scrolling across the screen, while Joy's voice crackled through the comms.

“B-flight Leader, be advised, use extra care, this is an elite squadron.”

Max rolled her eyes. She has GOT to be kidding! She wants us to read NOW? "Thanks for the dissertation, Six," she said, "you wanna give us the Fflic Notes abridged version? In ten words or less, how do we stop these guys??!!!"

TAG: @Sarge, @Rebecca_Daniels, @TheAdmiral, @Bardan_Jusik

 

IC: Zara "Zero" Yaren
Outskirts of Naboo system

There was a limit to how much Imperial poodoo Zara could handle in a mission. It was expected that things would go wrong, that the book had to be tossed out as soon as weapons-fire was exchanged. So the convoy wasn't what they expected, big deal. It worked in their favour, potentially dropping some very useful cargo in their laps. Four Star Destroyers, including a Super? Fine. They weren't actually here, so she didn't even concern herself with them. B-flight took out some TIEs, even a Gozanti. Things weren't going well, precisely, she decided, considering what she overheard from the others in the squadron, but they were going. Get the pod and haul jets out. Not exactly free and clear, but at least successful.

And then some mystery ships with unparalleled speed decided to ruin their day. She'd been floating near the Guardian's aft, dropping further laser damage into the disabled ship's engines at what might be considered inadvisable distances. The concussion missiles she'd dumped had left a nice charred spot on its rear, and she was satisfied with the way the bright engine glow was failing fast. Bombers weren't the only ones who could play with the bigger ships.

Zara looped around the Guardian's remains, putting the ship between her and the rest of the flight for a few quick moments, trying to catch visual sight of the incredibly fast sensor images she was receiving, trying to keep them from seeing her in the floating debris. This had to be some sort of error, Interceptors weren't that fast--

She caught sight of one, from underneath the Guardian. At this speed it wasn't clear, but they looked unbalanced somehow, probably terrible in atmosphere, but dangerous. What were the Imps up to now?

"Baker flight, engage the new hostiles, keep them off of everyone."

New hostiles, huh? Either Lead wasn't looking or he didn't know what they were either. Well, we're all going to die. Better make some go boom before that happens.

“Right,” she heard Max say on their flight channel. “What the kriff are these things and how do we blow them up?”

TIEs-- if they were TIEs-- weren't that hard to take apart, but catching them would be an issue. Her A-wing popped up around the top of the wreckage, slowing to avoid the battlefield debris from tearing through her shields, ready to open fire on the swift sensor images painted there. There, two of the ships, at a distance, if she could just get a shot--

“B-flight Leader, be advised, use extra care, this is an elite squadron.”

--but she didn't have a chance to fire before green light lit up her canopy. Obviously, she thought hard in Joy's direction, ignoring the computer chimes of received data in concert with the shuddering of her fighter. Where did this one come from? Zara glanced up as the ship was already past her, coming back for another run as she hit the throttle. Debris damage was preferable to death by Imperial. The blasts had taken a chunk out of her shields, but there wasn't time to worry about that.

"Joy, Mean Streak, I'm headed your way with a triplane on my tail. I'd be ever so grateful if you'd shoot it off."

No time to worry about that, either. There were two others to deal with that one. Ten Imps. Four B-flight. One still-undamaged A-wing with lasers, four concussion missiles, and 76% shields. And a pilot with very little to lose. This is a terrible idea. Zara shifted power to the engines, leaving her laser cannons as nothing more than bright lights in space. She didn't want to waste her missiles until they had a plan, but right now the plan was to give the other flights enough time to do their job. Which meant that the mystery-fighter firing at her was, hopefully, about to be the least of her problems.

"Thanks for the dissertation, Six," Max said, "you wanna give us the Fflic Notes abridged version? In ten words or less, how do we stop these guys??!!!"

"We don't have to stop them, we have to buy time," Zara said, pressing her comm so her flight could hear. That's all the Rebel pilots ever did. Buy time for stolen information to be transmitted; buy time for one lucky shot to take down a superweapon; buy time for transports to get off-world so they could all survive. The Rebellion was only alive through stolen time, delaying tactics, making sure every drop of Rebel blood was paid for ten times over with Imperial blood.

As she spoke, Zara's A-wing opened up at the nearest Imperial tri-wing fighter, then the next, any that were in range, speeding as fast and as close as possible to enemy fighters, debris, anything that might slow them down, throw off their targeting, break them into pieces. And hoped they wouldn't notice that her lasers were doing minimal damage. "Come shoot at me, elite squadron," she said under her breath.

TAG: @Bardan_Jusik @Sarge @TheAdmiral @Mistress_Renata

 

IC: Ethan "Veteran" Malek
Near imperial convoy

The second standard TIE fighter moved quickly through the void. Through Ethan´s eyes it looked almost like a toy spinning around in the distance. Just a child's toy shooting green lights, reminding him of the little Z-95 Headhunter miniature he had owned as a child. And in a way his assessment was indeed true, when compared to the squadron of TIE defenders that had just jumped within their reach it was nothing but a toy, a nuisance. And yet, it was still dangerous. Breathing out Ethan closed his left eye as he took aim at the TIE ahead. The sooner he got it destroyed the sooner he could focus his concentration on the real threat coming for them.

Ethan´s first salvo missed the TIE only by a few meters as the imperial pilot managed to dodge the attack. With a quiet curse Ethan took aim, for a second time as the TIE turned towards him. Green fire filled the void between the two fighters and Ethan was thankful that in contrast to the imperial machine, his X-Wing actually had shields. Closing his eye again the rebel pilot took aim again and fired two quick salvos.

As he had expected the imperial pilot managed to dodge the first, but this dodge brought him directly into the line of Ethan´s second. The laser bolts cut through the imperials right solar wing sending the TIE into and uncontrolled, plummeting flight through the void. For a moment Ethan allowed himself a grin as he saw his opponent fly to his doom.

"Ahh...Vet…" The panic in Ianna´s voice brought Ethan back into reality and he cursed himself for the short moment he had been distracted. Turning his X-Wing around he saw Ianna´s Y-Wing and close to it one of the TIE Defenders. Correlia´s nine hells, these guys are quick, he realized as he drove his X-Wing back towards his Wing mate. He had no time to find out where Ditch and Turn cloak where in this chaos but he hoped they had recognized the danger as well.

"You're on that guy right, you got him handled?"

"Sorry, got distracted for a moment. I´m now on my way," he told her while trying to put as much confidence into his voice as he could. He had never fought a TIE defender directly before but he knew they were pretty much better than the standard variant in every way and possessed shields.

Unsure how much damage Ianna´s bomber had already taken Ethan decided to go all out an use one of his two torpedoes against the imperial machine to get it of his wing mate as quickly as possible.

"R7 prepare a torpedo," he ordered the little droid in his back while preparing to take aim. He decided to use the same trick he had just used against the TIE fighter again, by firing a direct salvo with the lasers followed by the torpedo once the imperial tried to dodge the fire.

Speaking a short prayer to the gods Ethan closed an eye and took aim, firing a salvo directly at the TIE. He saw how the imperial tried to dodge the attack and fired the torpedo in the estimated direction, while keeping his hands on the trigger, ready to shoot another salvo if the imperial managed to dodge his torpedo as well.

Tag: @galactic-vagabond422, @The Vanguard, @witchdoctor07

 

IC: Jocelyn “Joy" Sunwalker
In the midst of the Imperial convoy

Jocelyn ignored the snarky remarks to the data she had sent. After all Max had an astromech and Kayn has some implants and both could process the data while they flew. “You stand no chance with lasers, use missiles.” They stood no chance in a one-on-one dogfight shooting with lasers, only missiles had enough power to destroy them “Or try to damage their wings, forcing them to eject them.”

"Joy, Mean Streak, I'm headed your way with a triplane on my tail. I'd be ever so grateful if you'd shoot it off."

‘Oh, yeah, sure, why not.’ Jocelyn thought bitterly at what B-flight Leader asked her to do. The A-wing was coming towards her fast and overshooting it a stream of emerald blasts flew around her barely missing her own craft. Joy had to take care and not get blown by accident while trying to help Mean Streak. She tried to get a lock on the Defender, but the A-wing was in her way. She could not risk blowing the B-flight Leader.

Kayn flew past her and she had a clear shot so she pressed the trigger sending a stream of crimson and blue shots. Most of them missed but the rest were absorbed by the Defender’s shields. There was no time to launch missiles but she instructed Shadow to prepare them for the next round. That was unless the bogey decided that she was a better target. Joy checked her sensors and there were six more Defenders in the vicinity and a couple more near the Carrack and the liner, and another one chasing Zara.

The Defender flew past her, it had a quite familiar marking on its wings, a human skull. Her blood ran cold, it was her old squadron. ‘No, no, no...’ she was telling herself ‘This is not happening…’ Joy was terrified by the prospect of facing Anais or blowing her up. The Defender took the bait as Kayn’s craft managed to escape, though knowing the Skulls there was probably another one or two waiting for him so not out of the water yet.

That was a problem, her Y-wing stood no chance being chased by the Defender, she had to find Max for assistance. Another idea was to head towards the liner and the Carrack. The Imperials won’t risk damaging their most advanced fighters or risk hitting the liner since it seemed that it carried someone or something important. Well, important enough to warrant such an escort. She tried to avoid the green blasts as her shields were starting to drain. At least the Y-wing was sturdy enough to allow her to survive for some time. ‘Blast it Max, where are you!?’

She was considering of ejecting a couple of proton bombs set to explode as sort of mines, but she needed to focus on evading. Then something big appeared in front of her. She had to push the joystick hard to turn left and not hit it. The shape started shooting red, which generally meant that it was Alliance as the Empire loved its emerald blasts. Hopefully it could withstand the punishment. She took a mental note to thank whoever was piloting for saving her.

TAG: Kayn “Meanstreak”, Zara “Zero”, Maxine “Max”, Open

 

~OOC~ Special Thanks to @TheAdmiral for this joint post


~IC~ Captain Cassell “Skipper” Wystari - B17 + Sergeant Jocelyn “Joy" Sunwalker - B6
Location: Fringe of the Naboo System

Pockets of crimson flared up as shrapnel pelted the shields. “Nice one!” Wystari complimented as the fiery hollowed out cockpit of a TIE careened out of the Valkyria’s path.

He had a half ear to the comms, Boss had ordered the recovery of the cargo pod ‘B’ from Guardian and await for the ‘B’ pod from Glowworm as well. “Acknowledged!” He growled as he rolled the Corellian vessel to starboard to avoid a collision with… something. He didn’t know what nor bothered worrying about that.

Opening channel to his wingman, Thin Mint, “I’d suggest you recover the ‘B’ cargo from the Guardian and get the blazes out of here.” He flicked a few switches to allow a bit more power to the engines and set waypoint to where the Guardian’s pods were dropped. “...and I’ll swing around and pick up the cargo from Glowworm and off we go…” he then muttered under his breath. “Piece of cake.”

The chatter over the comm highlighted each flight’s actions, their own set of complications. If he had a copilot, he’d be able to pinpoint where everyone was more accurately and render assistance where needed… but there was the mission. He saw the distance counter counted down the klicks, ignoring the other ships of the convoy. An alert came from the console, multiple contacts appearing on the scopes… smaller crafts - fighters… ours? Reinforcements? No, theirs!

[“<<What the hell are those things?>>”]​

Wystari heard a voice exclaiming in Corellisi. Was that Max? She certainly took the words from his mouth. It was a TIE configuration he had not seen before and usually these crafts are expendable that they don’t bother with hyperdrives and yet these just appeared from a jump on their own and untethered from an external drive apparatus.

From his approach, he could see the new squadron fan out in formation as though working in packs and choosing their targets or positions on the boards.

“Better get a move on.” Wystari remarked to himself about the U-Wing as he circled around. “Just latch on, get clear and go… just…” He sighed and checked the multifunction display again.

Something was wrong, A message came through from Joy addressed to the Flight Leaders, he briefly skimmed the message and growled under his breath as he checked his scopes for the umpteenth time to see where these blighters were. This wasn’t fair. Two were by the liner, two were chasing down the A-Wings of B-Flight and six were on the hunt. He tapped the internal comm. to the Marines. “Ready to live dangerously?” Not that they had a say one way or another... through the muffled responses, he thought he heard someone say no. “Good! Then let’s a-get dangerous.”

Wystari worked the console like a maestro at a piano, the Valkyria performed a tight turn, reverse thrust and stopped on a dime above Guardian’s cargo pod ‘A’. “Ventral, returning turret to neutral position,” He double checked the cargo scan from earlier and half grimaced and half grinned at the contents. “Ventral, for the sake of the rest of us, do NOT fire till I say.” There was a small thud and bump as the mag claps latched onto the pod. Gently, he applied thrust and started going again.

“Farewell and clear skies…” He said as he brought them back up to 100% throttle, siphoning power from the ventral turret to the engines to give more of a boost. He angled towards B-Flight’s zone. A-Wing, A-Wing… X-Wing... Y-Wing… Wystari making a mental note of that flight from the information on the console, hoping he be there in time. Kayn “Meanstreak”, Zara “Zero”, Maxine “Max”, Jocelyn “Joy”.... A’s are fast, X’s are versatiles, Y’s are the workhorses. He watched as the Y-Wing trajectory brought one of the TIE’s in its sights and shooed it away from the A-Wing.

Realising what was to happen, Wystari adjusting the Valkyria’s angle to bring them on an interception course. Making subtle adjustments, having to accomodate for the off balanced centre of gravity of the cargo attached to the underside… and keeping in line with his intended target as the Y-Wing juked and banked from green shots as the TIE had swung around and honed in on the Y-Wing’s aft.

“Almost there…” He muttered under his breath as he powered the forward mounted laser and ion cannon and set the convergence point. Dropping thrust to two-thirds, allowing for better manoeuvrability, the forward mandibles lined up with Joy’s Y-Wing and he squeezed down the trigger…

Bolts of red and blue laced out at the Y-Wing. Joy’s craft had rolled and dived out of the way as the bolts shot past and hit the TIE that was tailgating. It had veered off out of his way and out of view.

Wystari opened the comm to Black Six. “Joy? Skipper. You can thank me later… Status report.”

“Oh, you are a lifesaver!” Jocelyn exclaimed on the comms. Trying to turn around, but the Y-wing needed more space for that maneuver.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *​

The Defender turned right sharply avoiding a collision. The freighter was a bigger target that could deal more damage, the other Skulls will deal with the Y-wing. It was close to their hunting field so they will pick up the trail.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *​

“A pleasure.” Wystari took that as a sign that she was fine. “I’ve an idea but I need your help. Form up with me, overlap shields if need be though I am a bit blind on the underside. I need some number crunching to be done, can your droid handle that for me?”

“Copy that.” Joy acknowledged and instructed Shadow to link up with Valkyria’s computer while she maneuvered to form up with the freighter.

“Thank you… map out the trajectory for the rest of B-Flight, we need them to bring the party to us so we all can have a feast.” There was a hint of delight when he said the word ‘feast’. “Once computed, I’ll need you to send the instructions to them so that you and I can meet and greet them face to face like proper hosts. Thoughts?”

Joy gave a small smile and clicked in acknowledgment “B-flight, converge on these coordinates, Skipper has a plan.” she transmitted to the rest of the flight.

TAG: Kayn “Meanstreak”, Zara “Zero”, Maxine “Max”, Jocelyn “Joy”, Open

 

​

IC: Commander Arick "Boss" Flagg
Leading the raid on convoy THX-1138, outskirts of the Naboo system

Flagg kept an eye out on the incoming TIE Interceptors as he led his flight out away from the convoy towards them. "Spread out, we'll make a head on pass and then begin a turning engagement after the merge." He ordered. It might not be the most subtle approach, and those squints still had the agility to make any turning engagement a death sentence for the less maneuverable alliance fighters. The Rebels though had shields and considerably more firepower than the Interceptors. If they could take enough of them down in the first pass, it just might work. "Passing the IP now..." He called out, more to let the other flights know where Able flight was. The Initial Point was where the squadron had come out of hyperspace and begun their turn in towards the convoy. They were far enough out now that they were effectively alone, they couldn't help the rest of the squadron, and no one in the squadron could get to them quickly enough to be of any help if they got into trouble either. Still by keeping these Squints from entering the battle proper, Able flight was helping plenty. He only hoped Charlie and Echo flight hurried to secure the cargo they were after. A warbling beep from behind him grabbed his attention.

"What do you mean debris?" He asked his droid, and Robo repeated it's warbling call. Debris near the IP? Another trilling whistle gave Flagg more to go on, and raised even more questions. "Consistent with an X-Wing?" That made no sense, no one had been engaged out here near the IP, there shouldn't be debris from any craft, much less one of their X-Wings. "Robo scan the field for anything useful, emergency transponders...something..." The droid gave a mournful acknowledging whistle and Flagg turned his attention back to the Interceptors. They were nearly in range now and he watched as Vixen's X-Wing spat red fire at the two that had decided to take an interest in her craft. He watched one squint explode before green bolts of laser energy began to splash against his own shields. Flicking his weapons controls to single fire Flagg quickly pressed the trigger on his control stick, sending out a near constant stream of fire. It was less likely to destroy a squint (which were more toughly built than their eyeball cousins) but the fire would force them to abandon their attack. He was greeted with a bright explosion and a pair of wings that flew by his craft, detached from the now expanding ball of gas that had been the TIE Interceptors main fuselage. Yanking the stick hard over he continued mashing the trigger damaging yet a second Interceptor. The craft limped off, with Flagg in hot pursuit when a transmission came in from Vixen.

"Boss, Vixen, need to bail. I'm no good here without control. Please Advise?" Damn, that wasn't good. She had gotten two with her damaged craft, but they must have hit the X-Wing beyond the ability even of her droid to repair it. "See if you can hold it together Four," he ordered Vixen, not wanting to even send her callsign out over the wave in case their encryption had been cracked and she was forced to bail out in enemy territory. He looked for the others in his flight, wondering if anyone could give her cover and was sickened to see two of the remaining Interceptors concentrating their fire on Black Two. "Two, get out of..." he began to yell on the comm, but it was too late as a rapid fire series of green laser bolts overwhelmed the shields on Ghost's X-Wing. A moment later the craft exploded. Now they were three, and barely that. He quad linked his lasers together now, squirting off a burst that destroyed the Interceptor he had damaged earlier. "That should even the odds a bit..." he muttered, hoping the rest of the squadron was doing better than Able flight was.

TAG: @Adalia-Durron @Mitth_Fisto

OOC: And we have our first casualty I assure you, it won't be the last...




IC: Baron Ric Vonoften (NPC)
Skull Lead, Leading the 282nd TIE "The Death Head" Squadron into battle.

Baron Vonoften wore a humorless smile as he gazed out of the round transparisteel canopy in front of him. The rebels were scattered, each attempting to perform it's own mission rather than acting in concert with one another. Their disorganization would be their undoing. The Baron targeted the nearest heavy fighter, a B-Wing fighter/bomber and locked on. The craft tried to evade, but it was so pitifully slow and sluggish that it had no chance. Vonoften mashed down on the firing stud, sending bright green and blue beams lancing across the craft tearing away at it's shields before launching a pair of concussion missiles at the craft. He watched the spiral in and explode against it's hull, destroying the Rebel craft and killing it's pilot. Vonoften's smile never waver as he gave a victory roll through the debris cloud.

*WHAM*

His Defender shuddered, and a bright red flash told him his shields had been damaged. That was a laser blast he thought, scanning around to see where it had come from.

*WHAM*

The Defender shuddered again as the B-Wing's wingmate, an X-Wing managed to land a second shot on Vonoften's craft. "Very interesting..." the Imperial baron said to himself. the Rebels were more disorganized than he thought, they had dissimilar craft flying together as wingpairs. He pulled hard into the X-Wing, narrowly avoiding being hit a third time. The X-Wing tried to follow his turn, but was engaged quickly by a pair of Defenders covering their leader. Within moments the X-Wing exploded as the lasers of Skull's five and six struck home, obliterating yet another rebel craft, and ending another criminal's life.

Farther out now he could see a battered Corellian freighter blasting it's way through the fray supported by a mixed quartet of A-Wings, X-wing and Y-Wing. So, this wasn't an interdiction mission to destroy the Imperial convoy, it was a raid to capture Imperial cargo. Or worse, a kidnapping by these Rebel scum. Criminals and terrorists the lot of them. The Rebels began to maneuver together, and though Vonoften didn't know what their primary goal was, he did know they weren't going to get the chance to complete it.

OOC: I told you there would be more casualties.



IC: Major Beskaryc "Iron Hand" Taab
Attacking Convoy THX-1138, outskirts of the Naboo system

Chaos reigned around the Iron Cross as the fight descended into a free for all when the new tri-winged TIEs entered the battle. At that moment the battle went from a simple snatch and grab raid to becoming a fight for the very survival of the squadron. Wheeling his large craft through the carnage, Taab could do nothing as he saw several of the enemy fighters tear into Charlie flight, destroying Charlie lead and killing his wingman as well. There went half their flight Taab thought to himself as a stray green bolt slammed into his forward shield. "shab..." the Mandalorian muttered to himself loosing a pair of proton torpedoes at the closest freighter, the Class Four container Viraxo Madyline. He didn't bother tracking their progress, but was greeted by a large explosion in his peripheral vision as he swept past the large freighter. At least he had hit the shabla thing. Continuing his turn he gained sight of Lou, his wingman, performing a deadly dance with one of the tri-fighters. Despite some fancy footwork on her part, it wasn't going her way. Dumping shield power into the engines Taab pushed the throttle against the stops in an effort to intercept the fighter before it could deliver a killing blow to the venerable old Y-Wing, wondering all the while where his X-Wing fighter cover could have gone to.

Linking his weapons, his craft rotated around the cockpit pod as he tracked the craft. Whoever was flying it was flying full "fangs out", and was fixated solely on his target. It was the same mistake Taab had made at the outset of the battle, and now Taab was going to make him pay for his lack of situational awareness. Mashing down on the firing stud Taab sent an assortment of different energies flying from the Iron Cross. The red rapid fire of the auto-cannons under the nose spat a hellish burst that hit the Trifighter's shields illuminating them as they were then hammered by a trio of ion bolts that nearly caused them to collapse. Finally a dull reddish light turbolaser bolt hit the shield square on, penetrating it and partially melting the s-foil underneath. The enemy craft slammed hard about under the impact and spun away from Lou's Y-Wing.

"Oya!" Taab cried out, intent on finishing off the damaged craft when his own ship shuddered harshly under a barrage of fire from the second enemy fighter that had detached from the main group. Taab had been so intent on killing the craft in front of him that he had forgotten about the other, and now it had maneuvered behind him. Taab rapidly dumped his engine power into the nearly collapsed rear shield even as another burst of fire, this from Lou's Y-Wing sent the attacking fighter scurrying away from Taab's tail. Taab had saved her, and now she had returned the favor.

Glancing to his threat scanner he saw that the fighters had become lost in the chaos surrounding him, there was no way to pick out either dmaged fighter among the other attacking craft. Looking up he could see that the Glowworm was finally disabled, her cargo pods floating freely around the darkened vessel while the Viraxo Madyline was burning, her shields gone. "Lou..." Taab commed out to her, his breathing heavy. "See if you can finish off the Madyline, break." He looked around, scanning for anyone on his tail and was relieved to see himself clear for the moment. The Tri winged TIE seemed to be gunning for Baker and Charlie flights. "Echo flight, Delta Lead," he commed the retrieval teams in case they hadn't noticed. "Pods are free from your targets..."

Before anyone could respond another call came in, this time the now recognizable voice of Commander Kryze. "Black Sheep, Intruder lead..." she sounded even more out of breath than Taab was. "We're being overwhelmed. Lost two of our own already and several others damaged." The report didn't sound good, and it only got worse. "Be advised a pair of frigates near Naboo just went to lightspeed. May be inbound for the convoy. Suggest getting out while you can. We'll hold out as long as able."

Taab swung his fighter back around again in a long slow arc, glad he was being ignored for the moment by the Imperial fighters. If those frigates exited hyperspace in the same place as the strange TIEs had, he wanted to be facing towards them rather than away when they did so. Meanwhile Flagg had heard enough. "Black Sheep, this is Black Lead, as soon as Echo has the cargo secure jump back to the rally point. Repeat, as soon as the Echo Flight has the cargo secure, jump out of here."

Taab mulled that over for a moment. The space in front of him was still clear, aside for the Carrack he could see far off in the distance. Still it and the trio of escorting TIEs had stayed away from the battle along with the ferryboat liner they protected. Taab gave half a thought to hunting it down, but knew the Iron Cross wasn't up to that particular task, not at the moment anyway, and not on it's own. Behind him the remainder of the shattered convoy was strung out along in space. That Taab very much wanted to destroy, he wanted to kill as many Imperials and supporters of the Empire as possible. If Baker flight could keep those Imperial trips busy than maybe, maybe the remains of Charlie and Delta flight could do just that.

The two frigates reported by Kryze were worrisome though. They would be able to add their own TIEs to the fray, along with their own heavy guns. It was best to leave before they arrived, in his head Taab knew that. Hopefully Echo flight would expedite their cargo retrieval, but if not, Taab would destroy the pods they had been sent to collect. If the Rebels couldn't have those pods, than the Empire wouldn't either.

TAG: @Sarge @TheAdmiral @Rebecca_Daniels @Mistress_Renata @galactic-vagabond422 @Anedon @Vehn @Corellian_Outrider @Outsourced @Chyntuck

OOC: The Breakdown...

• Able Flight: Engaging the four TIE Interceptors that are left. Black Two (Ghost) has been destroyed. Able flight member remaining may engage and damage/destroy the remaining Interceptors as you see fit.
• Baker Flight: Continue to engage the 12 TIE Defenders that are among the convoy. The Defenders are still protected by plot shields (as well as in game ones) Any freighters in the convoy may also be engaged and are fair game for damage/destruction.
• Charlie Flight: Well done on disabling Glowworm. Sadly both Charlie lead (Ditch) and his wingman (Turncoat) have been destroyed by the attacking TIE Defenders. You have the TIE Defenders after you, but just as for Baker Flight, the Defenders have plot (and in game) shields. You may engage them (and hit/damage their shields) but leave any damage/destruction to the Defenders themselves to the GM. Any freighters in the convoy may also engaged and are fair game for damage/destruction at your discretion.
• Delta Flight: The TIE Defenders have left us behind but may re-engage us at any time. The Defenders are still protected by plot shields (as well as in game ones). We are still ordered to engage remaining targets of opportunity within the convoy. These cargo ships may damaged/destroyed as you see fit in your posts. Note that the debris picked up by Flagg's droid near the IP are the remains of Ring's fighter (though none of us will know that yet in character).
• Echo Flight: Ordered to pick up cargo pod B from the Guardian as well as Pod B from Glowworm which have both been disabled. Of course those TIE Defenders are also still in the area, so you'll have to snatch the cargo while dealing with them. Note that as for the other flights, the Defenders in game and plot shields remain firmly intact though you may score hits on the Defender shields as needed in your posts.

To all, once Echo flight has retrieved the cargo, you may jump your craft to hyperspace for the rendezvous with the Intrepid. However, go no farther then jumping into hyperspace. My next update will bring us out of hyperspace (hopefully) together.

As always I am happy to answer any questions either via PM or in the fanclub.

 

IC: Ianna "Kid" Mcear
Outskirts of the Naboo system

"Sorry, got distracted for a moment. I´m now on my way," A breath left the young woman, Vet's confidant words bringing her some peace. She watched her scopes keeping an eye on the fighter tangling with her wingmate. She spotted Ditch and Turncoat.

"So that's where you been hiding." She said quietly activating her comm, "Hey Ditch, Turn…" her words died on her tongue, first Ditch dropped off the scanner, then soon after Turncoat. It only a few breaths half her flight was gone, she suddenly felt very very alone. It's chilling hand began to wrap around her heart...She was going to die, all alone.

Above her the bright red flash of lasers illuminated her cockpit, Vet's X-Wing flew above her, cannons firing. She wasn't alone, wasn't going to die…not today.

'Never lose your smile.'

"We've got this," she said to Pat.

"Black Sheep, Intruder lead..." The other mandalorian called out, nearly surprising Ianna, "We're being overwhelmed. Lost two of our own already and several others damaged." That really didn't sound good, but, at least they hadn't been completely wiped out. "Be advised a pair of frigates near Naboo just went to lightspeed. May be inbound for the convoy. Suggest getting out while you can. We'll hold out as long as able."

Kid took a breath, it was fine, the Glowworm had been disabled, other ships in the convoy were destroyed or on fire. Maybe she should hit them, rob the Empire of their ships and the stuff they carried. She had only used one torpedo, she still had plenty more.

"Black Sheep, this is Black Lead," Not that she really needed him to identify himself, she could recognize that grumpy voice anywhere. Though maybe it was deserved this time. "as soon as Echo has the cargo secure jump back to the rally point. Repeat, as soon as the Echo Flight has the cargo secure, jump out of here."

"Got it," Ianna replied. Though they were to leave soon, that wouldn't stop her, she still had plenty of time, and she could help Vet...maybe. Turning hard she pegged her throttle fully open, eeking out as much speed as she could from the aging craft. She'd have to be fast, like lightning, not the Y-Wing's best skill but, needs must.

"Vet," she called out over the Flight comm, more a private channel now that everyone else that could be listening in was gone. "I'm about to make myself a nuisance, get a few of those Tri thingies to look my way. Should give you a clear shot at them."

She knew what she was doing, she was bait, hoping to draw their new enemies into a poor position. She was also aware that the bait rarely survived. What else was she supposed to do, just run away? No, she would fight in the only way she knew how.

Closing in on the first freighter, Viraxo Mara Anne, she dodged around the incoming laser fire one flashing against her shield. She snapped off two torps not even worrying about using her targeting computer. There was no time and using it would make her an even more easy target. A quick pull of lasers and ion cannon and Kid was on to her next target.

She brought her craft up and over as the explosion lit up behind her. She snapped into a roll trying to keep herself moving, keep unpredictable. Seven, she counted, seven torpedos were left to her, it wasn't enough to destroy the rest of the convoy but, it would make them hurt.

Cutting across the nose of the Action VI transport, Utapau Wind, she banked as hard as she could. As Serica came around another duo of destruction launched aimed right at the center of the bigger ship. A stream of red and blue follow it chipping away at the armor.

Again Kid didn't look at the destruction she wrought there was no time. With two freighters damaged, or in flames she hoped that would be enough but, she wasn't leaving it up to chance. Her bomber danced, well as much as an aging Y-Wing could, between the laser blasts directed at her, her cockpit flashed with green and orange as deadly bolts missed and glanced off her shields. She couldn't keep this up forever, she hoped Vet picked off those bad guys before her shields, the only thing keeping her on this side of living, were gone.

TAG: @Anedon @Bardan_Jusik

 

Maxime “Max” Pallas, Black Eight
B-flight, mixing it up with an Imperial Defender

“We don’t have to stop them, we have to buy time.” Max rolled her eyes at Zero’s response. Well, no kidding. The best way to buy time would be to take out a bunch of these guys. The guy in front of her refused to be blown up.

<<Come on, your shields must be nothing by now!>> she muttered to herself. Her bolts were hitting, but not penetrating. “Diggs,” she said, “anything in that datadump about shields?” The little droid was quickly dissecting the information. Shields almost as good as hers. Almost. That told her something. Torpedoes. Great. As fast as A-wings. Peachy. Fewer than 100 produced, the facility on Lothal destroyed by Rebels. I owe you guys a drink, if I ever find you. “Okay,” she said. She tucked in behind him, switched her cannons to quad fire…and dodged a hunk of debris. <<Oh, come ON!>>

Diggs whistled a warning, and she banked sharply to the left, dropping her nose sharply to the right, avoiding a spray of green bolts that had been calculated to take her apart. She glanced into the strip of mirror she’d mounted on her canopy, then over her left shoulder. She’d shaken him, mostly. He was trying to line up for another try. She pulled up and over the convoy, keeping an eye on the new threat.

Joy’s voice came through her comm. “You stand no chance with lasers, use missiles. Or try to damage their wings, forcing them to eject them.” Max only had two torpedoes left, and didn’t want to waste them on fighters. The wings…hmm… She smiled to herself, and rolled right, banked left, ducked behind a big chunk of something then did a loop to bring it into her line of fire. Her pursuer had slowed due to the debris field. If her blast bolts couldn’t penetrate their shields, something else could. She hit the big chunk of debris with quad lasers, then dropped her nose to get out. The big chunk of debris turned into smaller chunks of debris, some of which hit the Defender and carombed off him. Max smirked. He was still flying, but there must be SOME damage. She tried to loop to get behind him.

She heard Kayn. "Joy, Mean Streak, I'm headed your way with a triplane on my tail. I'd be ever so grateful if you'd shoot it off."

There was other chatter, too, different voices, she didn’t recognize most of them.

“I’m hit, I’m --AAAUGGH!”

“Boss, Vixen, I need to bail, I’m no good out here without control. Please advise!”

“Echo flight, Delta lead. Pods are free from your targets.” About damn time, too, thought Max. The sooner they had the stuff, the sooner they could blow this furball.

Joy’s voice came through again. “B-flight, converge on these coordinates. Skipper has a plan.” Skipper? Did she mean Kayn? Or Flagg? Flagg’s call sign was Boss. The only Skipper she’d heard of was Captain Wystari, who she hadn’t met. But he was supposed to be retrieving the cargo containers and getting out of there.

A different voice, a woman she didn’t recognize, breathless. "Black Sheep, Intruder lead…We're being overwhelmed. Lost two of our own already and several others damaged. Be advised a pair of frigates near Naboo just went to lightspeed. May be inbound for the convoy. Suggest getting out while you can. We'll hold out as long as able."

Max shook her head, glanced at the rally point that Joy had sent, and slipped in and out of the debris field as quickly as she could, taking an occasional shot at an eyeball or the ugly triplanes as she came across them. She glanced up at the mirror from time to time, but no one had latched on to her. Yet.

Flagg’s voice now. "Black Sheep, this is Black Lead, as soon as Echo has the cargo secure jump back to the rally point. Repeat, as soon as the Echo Flight has the cargo secure, jump out of here."

Yes! Finally! Max whooped softly to herself. She hated dogfighting. It was one thing to do in the sims, but in real life, when the bad guys were using actual weapons, it was no fun. She had no idea if Echo had the crates, so she continued to move to form up with B-flight. Guardian and Glowworm were toast, and K-219 was gone. Mara Anne was damaged from her earlier attack run and now a series of explosions was tearing it apart. Madyline was coming apart, too. A Y-wing flew off her right wing, unleashing a mass of explosions on the Utapau Wind. There were three freighters intact, but they were going to have to break the convoy as they were headed straight into the debris field. Their shields wouldn’t be enough to prevent damage.

It was a waste, really, thought Max. Her squadron mates were a bit too kill happy. The Bandits would have done more to try to disable the ships and capture the cargo pods. But then, the Sheep hadn’t learned yet how to work together, and were keen to rack up kills on their record. She got the impression that they hadn’t quite learned to look at the bigger picture. Bragging rights were good, but supplies of food and ammo were better. In her experience, anyway.

As she got to the coordinates Joy had sent, she could see Joy’s Y-wing tucked up by the Valkyria, close enough to overlap their shields for more protection. So Wystari was the Skipper she’d been referring to. She could see Zara, off to the left, bobbing and weaving as she tried to shake two Defenders. Well, that’s not fair. She accelerated, looping to approach from above and at a slight angle. Eyeballs had a big blind spot, they relied on their sensors. These ugly things had more field of vision, but those weird panels were still blocking the pilot’s sightlines. She checked her cannons, still set to quad fire, calculated how much damage they would do to her own shields, and waited, counting heartbeats until she was just in range…and a little closer… and a little closer… <<Now!>> she shouted, opening up on the unwary Imperial. Sparks and bolts of red bounced and rippled across his shields and he banked sharply while Max continued towards his wingman, flying inches away from collision. Her ploy worked. The two of them split, retreating to regroup, and giving Zero some breathing room.

“Hey, Seven,” she said. “Seventeen’s invited us to a party and Bossman says we can bug out. You coming?”

TAG: @Sarge, @The Admiral, @Rebecca_Daniels, @Corellian_Outrider, @Bardan_Jusik, Anybody else up for mayhem...

 

IC: Ethan "Veteran" Malek
Outskirts of the Naboo system

Ethan grinned as his attacks had chased of the TIE defender who was harassing Ianna. He wasn´t sure how much damage he had caused to it but it seemed to at least have been enough to get the imperial of his wing mates back.

But when he looked up the grin on his face died. He only saw the explosion at the edge of his sight but a quick look to the scanner told him that their squad leader was gone. Only seconds later Turncoats signature disappeared as well. For a moment panic overcame Ethan, while he tried process what had just happened. In a few seconds the imperials had taken out half of their flight.

Taking a deep breath remembered the old techniques his instructors had taught him. As he tried calm himself down his eyes wandered through the void surrounding his X-Wing, seeking for something that could help him clear his thoughts. When his eyes meet Ianna´s bomber, Ethan took another deep breath and managed to order his thoughts. Ianna, his wing mate was still here and it was his duty to protect her.

Looking at his scanners to localize the TIE defenders surrounding them Ethan spoke a short prayer for Ditch and Turncoat. He hadn´t known them very well but they had been part of his squadron, a part of his flight.

"Black Sheep, Intruder lead... We're being overwhelmed. Lost two of our own already and several others damaged Be advised a pair of frigates near Naboo just went to lightspeed. May be inbound for the convoy. Suggest getting out while you can. We'll hold out as long as able."

Ethan cursed as the words of the mandalorian came over com. This mission was getting worse and worse with every second. They needed to get out of here as quickly as possible. When he let his gaze wander over the convoy he saw that the death of his comrades wasn´t completely in vain. Not only had Ianna managed to disable their target, most of the other imperial ships had also been damaged or destroyed.

"Black Sheep, this is Black Lead, as soon as Echo has the cargo secure jump back to the rally point. Repeat, as soon as the Echo Flight has the cargo secure, jump out of here."

For a second Ethan asked himself if he had understood the commander correctly. They were supposed to continue the mission and loose even more of their own because of these luxurious food stocks? For a moment a thought came to his mind. He strong imperial presence in the system, the insistence of their superiors to continue the mission... maybe this isn´t about food stocks after all. He decided to think about this later as he brought his X-Wing closer to Ianna´s ship and continued to scan their immediate surroundings


"Vet," Ianna called him over comm. "I'm about to make myself a nuisance, get a few of those Tri thingies to look my way. Should give you a clear shot at them."

Ethan thought about Ianna´s words for a moment. Her plan was risky he knew, but it give them a chance to cause severe damage to the imperial forces around them And make them bleed for those we lost, he added in his thoughts before opening the com channel.

"Got that Kid, I´m right behind you," he told her. Then after a moment he added, "be careful."

He followed Ianna as she closed in on the first freighter and how her torpedoes hit the targets but they were too fast for him to see how much damage she had caused. I will have R7 give me a full battle report once this over, that´s for sure.

When Ianna closed onto her next target Ethan saw them. Two TIE defenders seemed to have left the main formation and where heading in their direction. Narrowing his eyes Ethan took aim for the first TIE and fired three quick salvos at the imperial machine, again aiming for the most likely dodging direction.

He wasn´t sure if he had hit something and had no time to find it out as fire from the second TIE came down on his positions, most of the shots missed his X-Wing but some hit his shields and make the star fighter tremble. Using a dodging maneuver Ethan escaped the TIEs aim, for the moment. Taking aim again Ethan chose the second machine as a target and fired four salvos in quick succession. He knew he still had one torpedo but he decided to save it for now.

Keeping close to his wing mate Ethan fired additional salvos at the TIEs, dodged, fired again, dodged and fired, getting the last out of his X-Wing. His thoughts where at clear again and for now he concentrated on the battle alone, protecting Ianna as she fired torpedo after torpedo at the imperial ships. They were a good team, but he knew they couldn´t keep this up forever.

Tag: @galactic-vagabond422, @Bardan_Jusik

 

IC: Zara "Zero" Yaren
Outskirts of Naboo system

The chatter that heralded fallen rebels was familiar: calls for assistance, cries, silence, grim acceptance. It wasn't comforting in the least, but as was so often the case with these missions, very little could be done. In a battlefield like this, an ejection could kill just as easily as staying in a doomed starfighter.

Zara bobbed her A-wing beneath a chunk of hull debris, trying to change direction every time the two Imps lost line of sight on her ship. If she didn't find some way to remove them soon, she might find herself joining the growing casualties of this battle. No, she had unfinished business, and there was no way she'd let her first flight with this suicide squad take her out before that was complete.

The flight was regrouping with the Valkyria, but bringing a couple tough bugs along didn't seem like the best idea. She reached for her comm switch, about to relay the situation, when a jolt of impact shuddered through the carbo-plas frame, throwing her forward in her restraints. Not again. Her shields had taken most of the impact, but these Imps seemed to already know her tricks; they'd kept with her so far, and the way her shields were whittling down was concerning. Yeah, elite squadron all right.

Green light illuminated her cockpit, and she closed her eyes, against the light, against the coming damage, against the pain that was sure to follow as she slammed her stick to the side, tighter than an A-wing should go--

"Always keep your eyes and hands steady," a deep voice instructed. "Flinching is going to get everyone killed." Despite the words, the tone was gentle, patient.

"Well, that's no pressure then." Zara let out a nervous laugh, but looked back down at the controls, tentatively placing her hands on the right parts to get this land hauler moving.

A wry grin spread across the man's face, and he clapped her shoulder. "You're the one that wanted to be a rebel." Yvan Sifer was the best pilot their cell had, but he was better in the thick of things on the ground. And since no one in their merry band of rebels wanted a clumsy teenager on the commando and demolitions teams, they had her learning to be a glorified getaway driver. Yvan's smile became more serious as the hauler slowly began moving forward after their small bump of an accident. "You're doing fine, you just need some practice."

Zara sighed, gesturing at the confusing assortment of buttons and levers in front of her. "It'd be a lot easier if every kriffing ship and speeder didn't have different controls."

"Hey, if you learn all this then there won't be anything you can't fly. You could go run off and join the Alliance, become some holo-novel-worthy hero in an X-wing, taking down legions of Imps." His hands painted the images in the air in front of them, but Zara just stared at him flatly.

"I don't want to fly a starfighter, I want to kick the 'legions of Imps' off Denon."

"That's what we're trying to do, kid. And we'll do it faster," he hinted, pointedly, "if you practice."

--but nothing happened. It had been barely more than a blink, less than a heartbeat, but now she saw the green lasers had shot overhead, just barely missing as she dropped below their targeting lines. Her sensors showed the two Imperial starfighters banking off, and nearby, a familiar blip of Black Eight, of Max, getting into the middle of things and sending the two Imps off to be someone else's problem.

“Hey, Seven,” she said. “Seventeen’s invited us to a party and Bossman says we can bug out. You coming?”

"Copy that, Eight." It was all she could manage, so surprised by the memories she hadn't dug up in so long. Sifer... He hadn't always been bad. Without him, she wouldn't be flying now, taking chunks out of Imperials across the galaxy. But without him, she might still be on Denon with her cell. Her team. Her family.

Maybe they should have been more suspicious of a man nicknamed "Trouble".

With some breathing room between her and the nearest Imperials, Zara swung around towards the rest of B Flight and the Valkyria. Hope this is some plan...

TAG: @Bardan_Jusik @TheAdmiral @Mistress_Renata @Sarge @Corellian_Outrider

 

IC: Akiva Lurell AKA 'Wolf'
First mission, third fray

Already she was diving back into it again. Barely had her wingmate started to shape it up a little bit when they were going back into the fray again. Already Vixen, her wingmate, was into the fray, unfortunately for her she was speeding away as only an X-wing can. Being in a B-wing did mean you weren't in the fast lane, but it had it's advantages. Resetting her wings into attack position she made ready for the pass.

The First wave of Squints was rapidly upon them. The resulting skuffle had seen her watching her Wingmates antics with trepidation and her own shots proving to be going wild on the first pass. She had scorched a couple solar panels but hadn't landed a direct hit on the first pass, her own shields having dropped down to just under half strength. She was seething as she diverted power from her primary ion cannon into her shields to bolster the recharge rate.

Then it happened. All the rest of the squadron was a distraction and advanced warning system in her mind, but her own? Her own was her pack to get through this. And she just lost one.

It took a moment for it to settle in that the one lost was not her wingmate, namely the fact that she was receiving a message from her wing afterwards was what had sealed that small mercy in her mind. Though she wasn't able to properly reply as she soon found those responsible maneuvering onto her own tail. Now no sane person would ever try to outrun an interceptor such as these squints in a bomber, such as her B-wing, nor would they try to outfly the things alone. Unfortunately for them, she was only partly sane.

Watching her rear sensor map she watched the distances tick down until it came to a steady tick of their approach, she was waiting for something. It only took a moment, but when your life is the one on the line that moment feels like eternity, a second becomes a minute, a couple seconds an hour. It follows no sane pattern in the mind, but then it hit. The ticking slowed even as green spit began to rain around her.

This was the moment she grinned.

Few things happened in that moment that stretched out. One hand hit the kill switch for the main engines, the second hand twisted the stick to spin her craft in a pirouette to now be allowing momentum to keep her traveling the same direction she already had been - only now facing the wrong way. Her second hand twisted slightly swinging her tail up to form a cross beam on the two squints, while her first hand hit the thrusters in full reverse to keep her momentum going the wrong way, and her third hand locked all weapons together to fire one simultaneous burst. This all took the span to where she could nearly make out the pilot of the lead squint barrelling down upon her.

Lastly she squeezed the trigger as her free fourth hand toggled the shields to double front.

The fire ball ahead of her as her chin guns blew the pilot and ball of the squint away was most satisfying and so was the ping that the wingman was spiralling away on fire missing a wing. Most likely the pilot would either eject, die, or at least be out of the fight. Then what happened was something that whipped the grin off of her face.

The wings had blown off the first squint, only they kept that faster momentum. What resulted was something she doubted even Vader or the golden boy Skywalker could if they tried. The one wing spun away to her left out into the open black. The other wing. . .the other wing spun to her right, where she had spun up her wing to align the possible double kill shot. The squints wing has this wonderful notch in it, seperating it's two lasers, and that wing notch spun around and notched right into place over the neck of her fighter. The rear part swinging down to bang off of her crafts engine housing before rebounding back at the cockpit!

What proceeded to be broadcast on the squadron frequency due to a slipped button push as she tried to spin the cockpit away from disaster, well it was in her native tongue. So most likely most would think it was frequency jamming or feedback as a high pitched screech of the most foul words filled the channel sounding like a screech hawk being strangled.

After she stopped screaming she noted the cracks and began her mad scramble for the repair kit under her seat. She scrambled to pull out the patches as she heard a hissing and crackling noise. Half her vision was obscured and a third of her cockpit panels at least had spider webbing cracks. Rapidly applying the patches over her windows until the hissing stopped she kept repeating the same mantra over the comm, "Don't shatter. Don't shatter. Don't shatter."

As she got the hissing to stop she clicked her comm to the frequency for Vixen. "I'll be right behind you." as she smoothed out the last patch she had. As she slowly turned she noted a squint on her scope. Taking no chances she quickly got a lock and fired before turning to tuck in with Vixen. "Lead, we're falling out."

TAG: @Bardan_Jusik , @Adalia-Durron

 

IC: Kayn "Mean Streak" Balzroth
In Pudu Up To His Horns

A withering blast from Joy's guns sent the Defender on Kayn's tail swerving away. He sighed with relief and transmitted, "Thanks, Joy."

Now that he had a moment to breathe, he opened up the data packet she had sent him a minute ago. Full technical readouts of the SFS TIE/D Defender. He pushed the transmit button again. "THANK YOU, Joy!"

In a moment the data was transferred to his neural implants, scanned for the critical data he needed most at the moment... Here we go, targeting sensor frequency ranges, 127.0 MHz primary and 155.9 MHz secondary, copy and paste those numbers into my sensor jammer... Good to go. Let's see how well you can shoot without all the fancy electronic apps to help your aim, hotshots.

Kayn looked around for Zero; not surprisingly, the black A-wing was out of sight, and his sensors weren't much help with all the garbage cluttering up the vacuum amid the convoy. He double checked his comm panel, set for secure scramble cypher. "Zero, Mean Streak, set jammer freqs 127.0 and 155.9." Too bad none of our other ships have decent jammers.

“Hey, Seven,” Max said. “Seventeen’s invited us to a party and Bossman says we can bug out. You coming?”

Kayn spotted Max and Joy near the Valkyria, scooping up cargo pods. He whipped the A-wing around and moved in to protect his wingmates and the transport. Another Trifighter flashed past his nose and he opened up with a short burst of laser fire, just a snapshot that bounced off its shields as it spun and danced away. Well, at least I managed to hit the kriffing thing.



TAG: B Flight, @TheAdmiral, @Rebecca_Daniels , @Mistress_Renata , @Corellian_Outrider