Quebec Sector Orian System
Blackwind let out a full throated laugh as he made another pass, raining fire across the Lancer and the Yacht beyond. He put the hammer down, kicking open the thrusters to full as he hoped to pull some of the escorting craft into pursuing him. He chuckled as he watched them scatter, the other Sapphire Squadron pilots diving in to play as well.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Silooth on a direct course to intercept the yacht. As in a literal way, they were on a collision trajectory. The Autochthonian had heard of the Madman’s antics before, indeed had even seen some from a distance, but this was a novel experience for him. He juked again, avoiding Ashia’s YT-1300 as they bolited toward the action.
“Alpha One, I’ve lost visual on you, are you good?” That was the only one he couldn’t see from his vantage point, and the only Mark VII not hailing from Sapphire Squadron in the field right now. He spun wide, the two Lancers on his trail now in front of him…and the Tartan-class that just happened to pop out of Hyperspace. Blackwind bit back a curse as he reeled the Mark VII off to avoid a hit, bringing his barrels to bear on one of the Lancers that had, until very recently, been chasing him.
“The Hub” Dentavii Prime
“Can I change my bet to Hades having the first kill?” Leena chuckled as she leaned on the bar.
“All bets are final.” The cyborg in the hat shook his head, seeing that she had laid credits on Blackwind having the first catch of the day. “But you can make a separate bet in addition to your original.”
“I mean, I guess that’s fair.” She sighed, popping a fresh stack out onto the bar next to her glass, her eyes fixated on the feeds coming from the Quebec Sector. “Even though I didn’t think that they were bringing in any of the big ships…” She muttered under her breath.
Kiana decided to go for the Lancer that the Sadowan’s heavy shuttle had just made a pass on. She figured with one of the most advanced starfighters in the galaxy, it wouldn’t be a big ask to get on the tail of an assault ship.
Accelerating, she made her initial pass, getting a volley off just as the Lancer started to turn into a roll. Kiana followed, but the Sadow interceptor rolled way better than she was expecting, causing her to lose sight of the other craft. When she oriented herself, it was much further away, accelerating toward the safety of it’s allies.
Think you can get away that easy? Kiana thought. She pointed her craft’s nose toward the other ship and throttled to maximum, feeling her heart pound from the exhilaration.
“Almost as good as podracing,” she said quietly.
It didn’t take long before she was right on the Lancer again. She cut throttle to get behind it, and at the same time the Lancer did the same. Kiana had to momentarily respect the pilot for anticipating her actions, causing her to overshoot again. “Fine,” she said. “Have it your way!” she cycled weapons to warhead launchers and turned to follow the other craft. Kiana tried a different tactic, inhaling deeply. Time slowed as her eyes closed a moment; she was one with the Force, the torpedo, and her target.
The tone beeped as it attempted to acquire a lock and then, a split second before the long, single tone sounded to indicate a torpedo lock, she pulled the trigger, dumb firing the torpedo straight toward the Lancer.
The pilot was in the middle of evasive maneuvers when Kiana’s torpedo struck one of their engine pylon’s and caused an explosion that sent the remains of the craft spinning out of control with a whole engine missing.
Kiana opened her comlink. “Scratch one Lancer!” she said to no one in particular.
…”Scratch one Lancer…!”
“Solid, thank you Kiana.” Macron chuckled and closed the com. “We have a good group out there. The Yacht is just ahead. Let’s loosen up their shields a bit, eh?” The Sith grabbed a joystick type control, centered the crosshairs on the Yacht’s shield generator area and thumbed the “release” switch. This time an actual advanced proton torpedo snapped forth from the launcher and rocketed towards the Yacht. It was impossible to miss at this short range. Explosions are silent in space. Visually this one was a lovely shade of red and purple. The Yacht’s shields flickered.
“Nice shootin! This time, anyway. Haha.” Syra keyed her comlink briefly. “We are going in.” She closed the link and kicked the thrusters hard. “Hold on to your shorts, groundlings. Or maybe get ready to change them.” The Sith Knight performed a stall-type maneuver, raising the nose of the Silooth and reversing it simultaneously at speed. She counter-fired the sublight thrusters in perfect timing. The Sheathipede was a good sized transport and Syra handled it like a porky snubfighter. “Okay you old fat worm-ship. Come on baby.”
Yells and curses came from both Macron, Tasha’Vel, Twenty Two and Roxas across the com system as they all considered the very real possibility of being splashed all over the outer hull of the Yacht. Oddly enough the Sith Hound seemed unconcerned. Chuck merely rose to all four feet and licked her vicious teeth in anticipation.
Amazingy the Silooth settled just right against the docking nodule with a “ping.” Syra laughed out loud. “Docking bay coming up. Chips, dips, chains, whips, be sure to tip your driver.”
“Sonofa.” Macron giggled in relief. “Syra, if I had any doubts about your skill with a transport they are now gone.” The Adept stood. “Keep her ready to run and defend her. Twenty Two will help you.” The Alchemist turned towards the hold and keyed his comlink. “Roxas, Tasha, and Chuck, let’s go. I tried disabling the lock with telekinesis from here but the distance is too great for fine control. We will need to breach it the hard way.” He dropped the helm on his Battlesuit with a click and puff of gas. “It’s Party Time.”
As Kiana provided cover by means of an exploding Lancer, the Silooth latched onto the side of the Yacht. Inside, members of the clan prepared to board.
“What do you mean, we’ve lost them on scanners? It was a kriffing TRANSPORT, you moron.” The pirate punched the droid, pain shooting up his hand and into his wrist immediately. He snarled as he turned back to the controls, watching the bits of one of the Lancers float by the viewport. “Go look for them! They’re costing me my treasure!” He slid the headpiece back on. “Boys, check in….apparently we’ve gotten some local attention.”
“Mrav just got hit, boss.” The voice responded. “I don’t know what these locals are flying, but they’re running hotter than a gundark in rut.” One of the interceptors swooped past his view, the crimson trail behind them making him blink.
He was already down one. One man, one ship. And for what? He glowered. He’d have to try the lanes. Wasting more of his hard-earned gains wasn’t clever, but the core security teams wouldn’t just blast his men out of the sky without so much as a hail. He sighed, opeing the comms again. “Prepare to make the jump to hyperspace.”
“Boss, I thought…”
“Jaxar, I know that I don’t pay you enough to think.” He snarled at the comms. “And I certainly don’t pay you enough to die out in the armpit of the universe here, so punch in the coordinates and get the hyperdrives warmed up!” Hopefully they could dodge these locals, whoever they were, long enough to make it to the port control mostly intact. He could probably bribe his way past the control, and even if not, the fine for operating on expired docs was less than he’d lose from getting another ship blasted out of the sky.
Hades looks at the bridge officers and receives a nod from each. Everything is ready.
“Comm, Task Force-wide.” The Communications Officer brought up the shared tactical channel then nodded once more.
“Task Force, initiate micro-jump in 3, 2, 1.. Mark.” Hades said. The three ships from Marka Ragnos entered into hyperspace briefly before exiting several seconds later. The three ships were in a tactical formation with the Bad Intentions and the Tartan-class patrol cruiser out front and the house’s CC-7700 frigate behind the first two. The later quickly powers up their gravity well generators, keeping the enemy ships from entering hyperspace. They were trapped. Hades clears his throat.
“Give me an open frequency.” The Comm officer complies.
“Enemy vessels, this is Warlord Hades. You have entered a system where you do no belong and are not welcome. You are outmanned and out gunned. You have no means of escape. Surrender and prepare to be boarded. Or, you perish. You have 10 seconds to comply.” Hades made a cut motion across his throat and the transmission stopped.
“Well, lets see if they are stupid or suicidal. Or both.”
The Mandalorian and the droid continued cursing at each other until he heard “let’s go” coke across his comm from the mad alchemist. Roxas hollered one last string of curses at the droid and then ran to his crates that he had brought on board. He ripped a board off the top and reached grsbbing two bags before running to catch up to the others. “Who wants explosives?” he said holding the bags up for anyone in the group to grab. “Macron, your droids are pretty rude foul mouth by the way. We had to exchange some words over bad behavior.” Macron laughed as he grabbed one of the bags and said “I hope everyone is ready for the fun”
“Do you wanna party…” Macron hummed to himself inside the helm as he stepped into the bay. “Tasha, Roxas, are you ready to roll?”
Roxas merely nodded. “Always. We put the Frack In Fun.”
“Yeah, I’m ready. Aren’t you going to ask Chuck if she is?” The Sith Hound stood hulking beside Tasha’Vel, licking it’s lips.
“Kintik-Chwuk is always ready to do some violence. Like Roxas’ people.” He smiled at the Sith Hound as he touched the beast on her shoulder lightly. “They are bred for it, you know. I don’t exactly have control of her really. More like a mutual understanding, know what I mean? Besides, I think she likes you. And Roxas would taste bad with all that metal. Bleccch.”
Roxas grunted as he hefted a bag of explosives.”Right. These are pretty simple.”
“To you perhaps.” The Adept keyed his com. “Syra, you all good up there?”
“Copy that bossman. Twenty Two is an interesting droid. If you need help, I am pretty sure I could Mechu-deru him on in. Oh yeah, a Tartan class capship and 2 others just dropped in. the frigate has a gravwell generator.”
“That would be Hades,” mentioned Roxas. “Could get interesting.”
“No kidding. That means we have to move fast. Okay people, we are on the clock.” The alchemist strode into the lock area. It cycled, and Tasha and Roxas followed. The Sith Hound brought up the rear.
The Mandalorian checked the lock to the Yacht. “It’s not locked but it is coded. Anybody a slicer?”
The three Sadow warriors looked at each other. “Nope.” Chuck obviously wasn’t.
“No problem. Step aside,” commented Macron dryly. “It will take me a second to recover, so be ready to make your entry.” He closed his eyes and remembered the names he had been called as a child. As the red-hot hate flowed into his soul he channeled it through an outstretched hand. Tendrils of invisible dark power caressed the lock door and grew in strength.The airlock door was slowly ripped from it’s channel with a loud screech and groan of folding metal. “Knock knock, hahaha!”
A few pirates had made their way to each of the doorlocks about the Yacht as a security precaution. The four that stood aside this one looked briefly surprised as two blurred figures leapt through the breach, followed by a mass of garnet-red muscle, teeth and claws. They raised blasters and screamed. One hit the alarm switch on the wall as the Tukata charged him.
Tasha immediately struck an blaster-clutching arm from one Zabrak with a blow from her lightsaber. The blue-skinned Twilek Marauder moved like wildfire, a Phrikite Force-imbued blade in one hand and the Dark Sword of H’kysch in the other.
Roxas chucked an explosive ahead and lifted his F-11D rifle and began to lay down suppressing fire beyond the initial targets into the hall beyond. There had been movement in that direction on his heads-up display. “We have more targets coming from the left.” The bang of the explosive detonating underscored his point.
Chuck laid into one of the pirates to the right of the door. The Tukata was large, fast, strong, and full of infernal teeth and claws. And apparently rather hungry. She found the human quite to her liking.
Macron caught his breath and stepped into the breach. A handful of forked bolts of sizzling blue energy knocked down one of the pirates as a return blaster bolt was absorbed by the battlesuit’s plasma shield. The Sith made no attempt to dodge it. One fist raised a lightsaber hilt and lit it with a screech of tangerine light as the Juggernaut entered the fray. “You fools coming here was your last mistake. For Sadow!”
Exiting Pappa Sector Orian System
Ty felt at home piloting the Reaver, he just finished punching in coordinates for Quebec sector. Then he looked over his shoulder and in his ever so regal yet snarky tone, he popped off at DarkHawk. “Hold on to your knickers mate, we are going for a ride.” The throttles were smooth as Ty pushed them to their full gate. The engines sucked them into their seats until the ship leveled off. Which was not until after a rather aggressive looping roll.
DarkHawk exhaled sternly while shaking his head, clearing the bit of vertigo he was unexpectedly experiencing. “Was that really necessary?”
“Don’t be a sissy la-la. Was it necessary? You bloody damn right it was!” Ty fired back.
Just then the Reaver’s radar tracking system detected a blip and set off radar alarms. The unidentified craft’s location was not displayed on the bridge’s main screen. Am unidentified craft was making its way into Sadowan territory.
Ellee the ship’s custom pilot droid had already begun opening communications for the Consul. As she flipped the last toggle switch Ellee yammered in song “Comms are yours!”
“Unidentified craft, you are in restricted Sadowan territory. Squawk ident and immediately proceed to a heading of seven-one-nine out of this sector.”
No reply. Again the Consul called out to the encroaching craft. Again no reply.
“Ellee, switch to secure channel Tango.“ With a quick flip of a switch Ellee did exactly that. Then pointed back over her copilot’s chair at DarkHawk.
“Alpha One and Two, this is Sepros One, snap to heading two-five-zero to intercept with extreme prejudice. Bogie is in the weeds ten mike out refusing to squawk ident. Massassi provides support. How copy”
Copy that Sepros One, we are fastballing to heading two-five-zero.” Alpha One & Two along with three T-70 X-wing’s from Massassi Squadron broke off from their formations. Alpha One and Two took the lead as the five formed up. Uploading their new coordinates into their NAV computers their engines spooled up and they raced away.
Ellee switched back over to open comms, “Unidentified craft, we will escort you out of this sector and you can course correct in Wild Space. If you do not comply it will be our privilege to use deadly force.” The Consul’s tone was graveyard dead. Whoever this was blatantly being so intrusive to the Orian system they are already dead, they just didn’t know it.
Seconds later the fighters were closing in on the unidentified ship. “Sepros One, we have a visual designation of one unmarked and very modified Warlord Heavy Cruiser.” The Mark VII fighter made a quick pass over the stern of the nameless ship. Instantly the Sadowan fighter’s radar warning system roared through the cockpit. “Dammit, she is targeting me!”
Alpha Two rolled hard left then pulled up to move in on his flight leader position. The T-70’s began targeting the cruiser on her starboard side. “Alpha One is being engaged! Repeat, Alpha One is being engaged!”
“You are cleared hot, weapons free! We are inbound to your locale.” DarkHawk said calmly.
DarkHawk pulled his seat’s shoulder harness taut. “Ty, get us in there right now! Ellee bring the weapon systems online.”
The Reaver arrived on scene as the cruiser was now firing on all the Sadowan fighters.
Ty leveled the ship off and brought up the pilot’s targeting controls. Switching over to the multi-lock missiles, he targeted the cruiser just behind its bow. The reticle beamed red and Ty pulled the trigger sending two missiles screaming toward the cruiser.
“Take that ya bloody wankas!” Ty exclaimed in jubilee.
As she followed the juggernaut now barrelling down the corridor, Tasha'Vel was a hurricane fury of blades as she cut down any pirate that may have tried to slip past Macron. She also watched as the Tukata seemed to mop up some of the pirates coming out as they reached the hallway.
On the bridge of the Lion’s Ascent, Cal observed a holographic display of the battlefield. He had it pan out to show both where Hades’ battlegroup had engaged the pirates, and where Warhost starfighters had just engaged an unidentified cruiser.
“Prepare for hyperspace jump,” he commanded. “And prepare a flight of our new missile boats. Have them depart as soon as our jump is complete.”
“Move!” he said emphatically. This would be good practice. “Jump to this mark.” He pointed, indicating a spot on the holo map beyond the cruiser’s location, along the hyperspace route into the system. “Maybe we can shake some more of them loose, if there are others out there.”
Minutes later, the hyperdrive had spun up and the jump had been calculated. The ship and it’s escorts jumped; the swirling blue of hyperspace appearing for only a brief moment before they dropped out.
The holomap quickly updated with their position, and Cal nodded as one of the bridge officers reported four of the missile boats were away and jumping to assist in dealing with the cruiser.
“What do you mean, the hyperdrives won’t engage?” He slammed his fist on the console. “Kriffing figure it out!” He spun in his seat, a sneer on his face. Was….was that blaster fire he heard? Standing up, he crept to the bridge entrance, drawing his blaster and straining his ears. Yeah, that was blaster fire.
And growling? The Frell was that?
He dragged his commlink out of his pocket, rushing back to his seat. There was no real chance for them. His Lancers were no match for the hot rod interceptors they were flying, and if he was already boarded, even if he could somehow break out of the gravity well, there was a significant chance that they’d still make their way to the bridge and….well, that didn’t bear thinking about. He engaged the commlink and the ship’s comms, clearing his voice. “Men, this is Garell Tringa. Stand down and await further orders. Warlord…” He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’re standing by.”
He set the comm down, leaning forward over the console. He needed a drink, badly. Maybe these folk were reasonable, but based on their immediate aggression, he didn’t have much hope. He’d talked his way out of worse scrapes before. Of course, he had to do a lot of work afterwards, but still…
“Pirates?” Locke said incredulously as he set a pair of drinks down at his and Anya’s table. “Here? Surely they aren’t that stupid.”
Anya took a sip of her drink. “Usually pirates aren’t known for their intelligence.”
Locke threw himself down in a chair next to her and gestured at the live feed of the battle. “Pirates don’t attack Orian without a reason!” he said. “The Dlarit Corporation ruled here for like 20 years and never dealt kindly with pirates… They must be here for a reason. There’s probably some greater power behind this,” he guessed. “Like another clan, the One Sith, some rogue Jedi faction, it’s always something.”
“Or just dumb pirates,” Anya said wryly.
“I don’t know,” Locke responded, “I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a distraction from something else…”
He took a long drink, content to let the clan figure it out. As for Marka Ragnos, Locke was pretty confident that Cal and Hades could handle it.
The sudden surge of power, the sweet flow of the force coursing through her, combined with the adrenaline thrill from battle, made Tasha’s smile a bit wider. Hearing the hum of her blades as they whirled around her in perfect harmony, was music to her ears. She had trained so long with blades, that any bladed weapon she chose immediately became an extension of herself. She ducked and weaved as a couple blaster shots fired from the pirates, but they were no match for the quick skilled Twi’lek. She was used to combat. “Everyone has a weak spot, Tasha. Some are just better at hiding theirs than others, which is why we observe our opponents and strike accordingly.” She remembered her mentor’s words and he was right. These pirates had a flaw, besides some of them probably underpaid, she could see their fear in their eyes. They weren’t used to fighting against an opponent stronger than themselves. "Probably just used to picking on the weaker, less fortunate ones.” She thought as another pirate fell to her blades, the thought infuriated her, giving her more fuel to her rage.
“What’d ya mean you typed in the wrong coordinates?” Ashia shoved past Sully and typed something into the computer. “I mean the coordinates we were given weren’t right!” He hollered back at her fuming.
Ashia sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation.
“The 3 and the 5 are switched.”
Sully leaned over and looked, “What?”
“Right there, you dyslexic nerf herder!” she jabbed her finger at the screen.
Sully scratched his head. “Well, frell!’
Ashia entered the correction.
“Punch it! And let’s hope we didn’t miss much!” — Blue and white streaks shimmered past and then faded away as they dropped out of hyperspace.
They dropped out in time to see…nothing. No missiles were firing. No ships were zigzaging across the sky. They were all just…there.
Some debris floated past the cockpit window. Ashia saw what looked like part of a droid.
She pulled up the com, “What’d we miss?”
A crackled voice came over the com, “Pretty much everything.”
“Frell!” Ashia threw her hands up. Glaring at Sully, she just shook her head.