Log:Blockade Running
Blockade Running
OOC Date: November 2, 2023
Location: Corporate Sector Border
Participants: Calia, Terek Rosol, Dailo Fett and Hadrix Kora as GM
Craft were dropping out of hyperspace, on the edge of the fueling stations nav buoy ranges, ignoring comm hails by C-Sec Station Z-255 requesting IFF to be engaged. Demanding to know the business of the ships that were not on flight registries or with proper customs broadcasts for entry to the Corporate Sector's territories.
- "I need customs pickets disrupted. I can't ask how you intend to do it, just that you do what you can to open a hole for my ship to escape. I can't say the name, because then they'll come for me if this was intercepted. But when you start there will be ships looking to take opportunity of a situation like this. To get in or out of the sector without reporting to customs. I'll signal when I can, so you know I'm away, but then they'll zero in and come for me. I have to get to hyperspace, I have to get out of range of their station's Well Generator... The money is on the table, and as soon as I'm clear it'll go into the black-escrow to be paid out." **
A vague message for those who had accepted the mission today. A clandestine operation for one and a much more overt for those accepting it.
A half dozen Incom T-85 X-Wings were launching in response to the incomings lack of response, to join the initial half dozen on patrol. The picket's DP-23 Corellian Gunship was turning to try to join the formation, already firing up its quad laser turrets. A daunting number for a small attack screen. Likely impossible to sweep sway. But then the mission was to distract, not destroy. To punch a hole for those seeking to escape the pickets.
The YT-2000 "Void Drifter" blinks into existence from hyperspace, a brief ripple disturbing the calm of the star-speckled void. For a moment, the vessel glides forward, carried by momentum as the cerulean glow of its engines ignites, casting a pulsing light against the dark canvas of space. Its sleek, angular form, designed for both speed and agility, cuts a distinctive silhouette against the distant pinpricks of starlight.
Abruptly, the smooth drift ceases, the engines flaring to life, stabilizing the ship's trajectory. The "Void Drifter" is now a poised raptor in the void, ready to leap back into the safety of hyperspace at a moment's notice.
Inside, the cockpit is a hive of focused activity. Calia, the pilot and heart of the operation, is harnessed into the pilot's seat. Her hands move with practiced ease over the controls, her eyes scanning readouts that only she fully understands. A headset wraps around her head, her voice calm yet edged with anticipation as she issues commands.
Beside her, BB-00 -- Boo to those familiar -- whistles and beeps as it feeds data into the navigation console, its dome swiveling back and forth. The astromech's lights blink in rapid succession, indicative of the complex calculations it performs -- a microjump that could mean the difference between escape and entrapment.
The gunner's seats are occupied, the silhouettes of her crewmates focused and ready, fingers resting on triggers, eyes peering through targeting scopes. They wait for a signal, any sign of threat that could emerge from the vast uncertainty of space.
At the back, in the ship's nerve center of wires and circuits, Patch, Calia's LE-series droid, works diligently. Panels are swung open and locked back with deft, mechanical precision, revealing the guts of the ship. Tools in hand, Patch makes adjustments -- a tweak here, a calibration there -- ensuring that every system is at peak performance for whatever they might face.
"Look sharp, people. I'm not sure what we're flying into," Calia's voice cuts through the ship's internal comm system.
<< "Void Drifter checking in." >> The message came over the encrypted channel for the little group Calia had signed up to take part in. << "We've got chaff ready for escort if we need them, and we're fast enough to keep up with the X-Wings." >>
The Void Drifter was a smuggling ship. Thick shields, big engines, and enough firepower to keep at least some hornets at bay once they were stirred up.
Blockade running is always dangerous work, but it's also usually really well paying work. So when it's time to punch a hole into this blockade, Terek will want to bring one of his ships with a bit more firepower, which is why the M-22 Krayt "Dragonslayer" blips out of hyperspace and immediately thrusts forward. Inside of the ship, the pilot and astromech co-pilot have found themselves listening to the incoming broadcast, "And here we go."
Terek already goes to work arming weapons, double checking systems and looking over at Zee, "Hey Zee, we all ready to go?" The droid beeps at him in response, which Terek figures should at least be able to keep them alive, "Just keep those shields up."
The Firespray containing both Dailo and Cortlan Fett provided a wide view for them to watch from within their control cabin. Cortlan's younger voice excited at the concept of a battle when he claimed, "Mom, the ion cannon is online and ready."
Dailo, who sat across from her son, could tell what was online from the weapons report holographically displayed before her. She stayed silent, her gloved hand pushing the throttle to send her vessel ahead. A flip of a switch, and the shields shimmered into life. Two cannons lowered down into firing positions, and a magpulse launcher emerged from a hardpoint along the top.
"Bring your targeting display up, son. This is where the fun begins." She shared a look with Cortlan, giving the much younger Mandalorian an encouraging grin. Initiating the encrypted net, Dailo spoke in Mando'a. <<"Al'verde'Fett tsikala.">> Commander Fett ready.
The spherical C-Sec station hung like a moon in the empty void, illuminated by droid-brain operated guidance buoy lights and those running flares on the sides of craft that had been moving towards, or away, on their business with customs. The number of them providing an inadvertent obstacle course for the gunship that remains still further back and out of firing range for its point defenses - its turbolasers useless against the smaller, swifter, craft.
<<"Mythosaur on sight...">> he goes where the money is and the modified firespray chugs through the void with its chin mounted rotary cannons swinging out and into place. <<"Heavy support ready.">> the quintet of cannons spinning up their barrels while down below in the 'belly' of the 'fighter' an R2 unit looses a whining tone. <<"Suvarir, Fett.">> Acknowledged.
The first half-dozen of the C-Sec X-Wings charge towards the ad-hoc mercenary squadron, S-Foils locking into attack position while their lead pilot continues to broadcast a stand-down signal to the incoming fighters. Perhaps it's the sight of the craft arrayed before them, maybe a mad hope that things will resolve peacefully.
Whatever the reason its hesitation - a deadly problem in what is about to become a dog fight.
"Target the lead X-Wing, but hold," Calia says over the Void Drifter's internal comms to her gunners, flying with one hand while she adjusts her targeting computer with the other. She lines straight up for the group heading towards them and pushes the throttle forward.
She hits the throttle, and the YT-2000 races forward to meet the group head-on. It turns out that Calia's tactics in space were much the same as they were on the ground once the fighting began -- ruthless.
"Fire."
Both turrets and the forward cannons of the YT-2000 erupt at once, spitting red energy all towards that lead X-Wing. There's an explosion, and soon the smuggling vessel is flying towards the debris cloud where that ship used to be.
<< "Splash one." >>
The assault has begun.
Slave V was very agile, capable of locking onto and staying with a craft all while firing alternating cannons at a cyclic rate. If space weren't a vacuum, the noise would've sounded something like:
PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK!
Staying behind her foe for the moment, Dailo flew with a veteran's calm, casually flipping switches and controls as her son joined his cannon with the chorus, but sadly missed. "GET HIM MOM!" He yelled, prompting her to smile behind the visor of her helmet.
The moment fire is shared between the nearing squadrons there is movement at the station. Mag-Con shields are only designed to hold atmosphere and the collection of transport craft bursting from the multiple hangar bays is a confetti ball adding to the already growing confusion.
Several modular cargo conveyors are engaging illegal thrusters to blow past the gunship, its quad cannons opening up on the fleeing craft. Smaller freighters are in the mix, many of them Corellian designs. Some Sorosuub.
Of note in their midst a craft of clear Verpine design. An extremely 'logical' craft design with a pair of bulbous engine pods mounted ever few meters along its thirty of length, on rotating points to allow for them to avoid striking the others with thruster wash. Of all the craft escaping the station it specifically begins flashing all of its running lights in a chaotic display. Headed directly for the mercenary fighters when the dogfight is met.
Churning crimson and mixed blue fire running back and forth with one of the two Firesprays chasing after the Krayt fighter's target with what looks like a continuous 'water hose' effect of continued fire forcing other craft to swing and dive out of the way of the Mythosaur's ludicrous rate of continuous fire.
The YT-2000 Void Drifter rolls through the debris cloud of that lead X-Wing, almost taunting the two fighters that peel off in pursuit. The freighter had no hope of consistently out-maneuvering those fighters without some kind of CRAZY pilot on the stick, and while Calia was competent, she was relying more heavily on Patch's handiwork in the engine compartment than she was her stick-work in the long-run, it seemed like.
The laser fire from X-Wings in pursuit light up the Drifter's shields as it cuts a smooth arc through space, turning around to come up and help focus fire on the second X-Wing in the squad. Turrets miss, this time, but the forward-facing laser cannons find their mark.
Meanwhile, the sensors were doing their thang, and BB-00 whistled at her from down below. One of the freighters was headed straight towards them.
< "Incoming freighter." >
Zee beeps and whirrs, and Terek yells at him from the other side of the cockpit, "I know, okay?! Just patch it!" He shakes one hand at the droid to emphasize it as the ship drifts when his hand is off the controls. But it's also partly intentional, as he swings the front of the gunship around and lines the X-Wing up again.
The heavies switch online and thump once, one of the two bolts hitting right behind the cockpit, fragging the astromech and shutting down the engines, and judging by the spewing gas from the edge of the cockpit, the O2 is rapidly leaving. That one's as good as dead, Terek should finish it off, but there's other still-active ships, so he starts scanning for another target.
Fett's ship takes three good hits that trigger a warning within the control cabin. It prompts a droid to come rolling out and plug into the system behind them to begin managing the fluctuating power between systems. Meanwhile, Dailo and Cortlan are both focused on the fight in front of them.
Dailo has switched the auto-fire functionality, letting the computer track the target and coordinate with the cannons whilst she manages the flight of the ship to maintain a clear shot.
She notices the shields coming back up with fresh juice, and also witnesses a second miss from Cortlan. <"You're leading too much, Cort. Calm down, focus. We're doing fine."> She says over the multitude of alarms. A few slaps against the buttons on the dash, and it's back to the metronome of tracking.
<<"Acknowledged. Prepare to screen.">> Hadrix's voice on comms and the continual banshee wail of his quintet cannons swinging from one target to Dailo's when Terek's fire renders the craft helpless, tumbling through space. As good as out of the fight. If this were on the surface of Dxun the Boar-Wolf of Ealor might state for them to 'give him a decicred and send him home, he has a story to tell.' Especially now that the pilot's emergency mag-con is on, and they're on bottled air.
The second wing of X-Wings continue to close, now able to join the fracas and link up with their, slightly, diminished fellow numbers. Ten fighters against four. With the Verpine craft boosting harder as it clears the gunship's quad ranges, rushing dangerously behind the C-Sec fighter patrol.
<<"Running.">> the signal from the curiously designed craft all it sends and perhaps that's meant to keep it's profile as low as it can. One of the YT craft fleeing the station suddenly lurches into a spin that its systems struggle to level out, cannon fire having stabbed through it, venting shrapnel and atmosphere from within.
More warnings go out from the station, the chance for surrender given as the snub fighters continue their dance, firing in chain fire over quad-link, attempting to hem the aggressors into a proverbial kill-box.
<< "Package confirmed. Chaff armed. Will launch as soon as they're in range to cover our exit." >>
It's said smoothly enough, Calia's voice carrying over the encrypted comms for their little assault group even as she steers the Void Drifter around and rolls, bearing down on another X-Wing. Both of the turrets erupt again, and the nose cannons fire red lasers, a few of the bolts from the onslaught hitting the starfighter's shields.
There was nothing from the Void Drifter to telegraph that the approaching ship was important to their mission. Calia kept focusing on engaging and distracting the X-Wings, but inside the cockpit, she was tracking its approach, ready to turn and ignite those engines, to provide cover and get back out of the system as quickly as she could.
"Boo, get ready to update those calcs. With any luck, we're on our way out."
The droid is trying to get a lock onto the fighter, but the pilot is moving around far too much for the droid to manage it, and there's a frustrated growl as the cathar pulls the trigger on the cannons instead of firing the missile, but the blasts strike home and the fighter turns and starts to flee, <"That one's out, switching targets. Ready to bail on your signal."> He glances back down at Zee, "Try to get the shields back up. Don't worry about the lock-on."
PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK, PNK!
Slave V scored a hull hit just before Dailo engaged the afterburners, sending them cruising by the snubfighter as it combusted and exploded. Triggering the comms again, she sent her gratitude to Commander Kora. <<"Vor'e Al'verde'Kora.">>
Shields returned to the green once more after they sustained a hit. Cortlan grew frustrated with his inability to hit the target. Dailo just reached over and messed his hair up. <"Lighten up. Pilots get into your head when you can't seem to hit them. They want you to react emotionally, to make mistakes. It's part of the game, Cort. They have their tricks, we have ours. Eventually, someone makes a mistake.">
The gunship is nearer, several of its turbos firing in a clear show for threat, warning shots while the quads are tracking the fleeing freighters that are racing to outpace station and quad fire. Headed in all directions and seeking to get clear of the station's gravity well generator keeping them from simply fleeing the moment they were clear of the hangar
As one ship is forced to flee and another is blown to pieces, the Mythosaur keeps up its support work, chipping at shields and attempting to get seated behind another X-Wing's tail. No majestic PNK-PNK-PNK like Dailo's... No. Hadrix's craft mounts fifteen barrels of hell and they scream in a steadfast shriek.
The Verpine craft moves through the midst of the dogfight going on, generating confusion and drawing some fire from some of the remaining eight X-Wing craft still in the fight. Running lights suddenly flashing in a pattern pointing the direction it intends to go. A signal any can see but meant for four in particular.
<<"Aggressors. Your only chance now is to run. By Article Two-Two-Eight-Oh-Eh, Section fourteen, sub-section six. You have voided your right to capture and trial. You are considered pirates and will be exterminated as such.">> the voice on comms from the station having a distinctly Taanabian accent.
From two of those fighters, the tone of attempting target lock begins to sound and on one of those targeted an R2 unit begins screaming.
Beep. Doot. Deet. Dweet.
"Thanks, Boo. I see it. I'm on it," Calia answers Boo's beeping warning. One of the Mandalorians' ships had lit up on her sensors, alerting her to the vessel being target-locked.
The Void Drifter spins and rolls through the incoming fire, heading towards that locked vessel on sensors and then releasing chaff in a stream, dusting all in its wake as it veers back towards the Verpine ship as well, helping to cover the retreat of their group as much as it can. The nebula colored engines glow brightly as the little freighter pushes, streaking through the fray as fast as the X-Wings, even if it wasn't as nimble.
"Thanks for the heads up, Boo, but get back on those calcs! I want an exit as soon as we're all clear."
There's a lot of chaos going around, and with the chaff filling the space around them, Terek switches back over to the ion cannons, letting those lance out towards that squirrely target in the X-Wing. No joy, but they're not really here to kill these guys, just keep them busy. Which is why Zee is managing to get those shields back up and running, "Get ready to jump. We're out of here real soon." He reminds the droid, who beeps confirmation after the shields are up over half, and gets ready to start calculating a jump.
X Wing 5 knew Dailo was right behind him. The consistent targeting protocol was a program written by her father's father, and it was brutal. Continuous hits pelted their shields, and she watched as power output on the X Wing was already beginning to falter. She pointed with her free hand for Cortlan to take advantage of the moment, and he tried, but the fighter's instincts were a step ahead, sadly. Another miss.
"Good try, Cort. Keep after it!" Dailo's flying was exceptional this go round, not only did she stay with her target, but the maneuvering kept her away from incoming fire. She was putting Slave V through the paces though by having to alternate with repulsors and thrusters, and adjusting the yoke to stay with the experienced fighter pilot in their sights.
The lock broken, there's a moment where the Mandalorian behind the controls of the Mythosaur lets himself sink back, breathing out slowly with the sudden threat of torpedo fire gone, for now. Hadrix hauls the stick over to wheel his firespray into a spin that sets Heiyuu wailing in protest.
<<"Void drifter. I accept a debt.">>
The Verpine craft is rocked by fire raking across its flank, shields flaring a bright cerulean but holding as they push past the main fight and engage its tiered engines in a clear overdrive, dumping power into them to drive faster. A spinning wheels of fire pulsing before the ship flickers in pseudomotion, just past the extent of the gravity well range, before disappearing to hyperspace.
Other craft were fleeing, with the patrol of X-Wings focusing on the attackers. But more - the DP20's range warnings were going off and the quad turrets were swiveling to focus on the attacking craft.
It was that moment - risk slaking bloodlust? Or get out.
The Void Drifter's rear shields flare when one of the X-Wing's lasers hit them, lighting up the hull briefly.
"Captain," comes the LE-droid's voice over the ship's comms. "Future impacts that severe are not recommended."
"Noted, Patch," Calia responds before switching back to the encrypted channel briefly.
<< "It's my honor, Al'Verde." >>
Then it was back on internal comms, to the two turret gunners.
"Free drinks the rest of the night for whichever one of you takes out that FRAKING X-WING!! YOU KNOW WHICH ONE I'M TALKING ABOUT!"
The YT-2000 rolls again, moving to follow the Verpine ship as it makes its exit, and as it does, both of its turrets erupt towards that sparking and sputtering X-Wing, leaving an explosion in the freighter's wake.
"Nice work, guys. Everybody hang on. We're getting out of here."
With their client safely away, there's no reason to continue to linger around. Terek pulls back on the stick, breaking off his attack run and heading back towards the original entry point as Zee works to pull up all the hyperspace coordinates. Terek's ship makes it out of range of the defenses, and then the Krayt disappears as suddenly as it had appeared.
Slave V was on escape vector, hard points rotating to put weapons away. With thrusters set to max, afterburners ROARING and making the interior of the ship tremble, Dailo grinned when they had orders to be off. Pulling back on the lever, the Slave V heavily modified hyperdrive purred, and the ship zipped from real space and into the safety of the hyper lanes.
Dailo pulled her helmet off and grinned. "Not bad for a first heat, son. We'll practice more, I promise."
Laser fire chases after the four craft as they make for hyperspace in the wake of the craft they came to assist. Shouts of invective and jeers were blazing over comms. The Corellian Gunship firing turbolasers and quad guns alike in a, futile, attempt to strike down at least one of the aggressor craft.
More of the fleeing cargo craft begin streaking as their forms seem to elongate before disappearing in flashes of light, one though remaining tumbling slowly from hull damage. Condemned for capture. Aboard the station calls to try and boost the gravity well generator power are hurled across the command center while engineers scramble and duck their heads as if they could do so to avoid the expletives.
In the end, four fighter craft escape in the wake of the verpine designed ship. Leaving the Corporate Sector holding the bag with three of their number vaporized, one in need of a retrieval tug and a fifth limping home with their tail between their legs.
