Log:First Order/Resistance: Battle over Felucia

Dogfight over Felucia

OOC Date: March 29, 2016 (Optional)
Location: Felucia
Participants: Fuze, Pox, Jax Greystorm, Nym Landala, Akira Fujimoto, First Order

Over Felucia, two TIEs scream through the atmosphere, the twin ion engines emitting their distinctive whining whoosh. The lead TIE Superiority Fighter is piloted by FZ-4792, callsign 'Fuze', Aurek squadron commander, and she has in a tight formation her wingman, Pox. She's cursing the maintenance techs on the Finalizer, because the launch grapple has jammed (again), preventing the rest of the squadron from launching - engineers are working frantically on the mechanism, but for now it's just Fuze and Pox. The sky is filled with smoke, the jungle ablaze from the weapons of the Flametroopers. "Keep your eyes peeled," Fuze urges both her own gunner and Pox's two-seater, "They may have company in the air." They come in high and fast, their multispectral imager HUDs displaying false-color images of the scene below, bright specs, the occasional flare of a flamethrower.

PX-1221 flies along just behind and to the left of Fuze, and his eyes search the jungle below. It is slightly hard to see, vision perhaps limited due to the blazing jungle, but nonetheless he cranes his head left to right, searching for a glimpse of the elusive Resistance. "Affirmative, Fuze. We know they are here. They engaged and shot down some of our fighters yesterday. Just stay at the ready."

Jax had drawn up the assignment to provide fighter support for the Felucia mission along with Nym and Akira. He reaches over tapping a screen, "Nothing on scopes. Exine, I want you listening into the ground forces. Then need air support I want to know as soon as the call comes out." He pulls the s-foil lever into attack position, "Red 2 and Blue 3 have your wapons hot. Intell reports their's enemy fighters in the area. I'm not getting anyting on my scopes. We do this by the numbers and don't tell Poe I said that."

"You got it, Blue 2," Nym replies over coms. Artie, situationally silent and professional on a mission like this has the schematics pulled up for the small pilot as they make their way over the skies of Felucia. Red 2 falls into formation behind Blue 2, eager and ready for the mission in front of them. "Weapons hot, pushing scans. If they're out there, we'll find them and give them something to think about." Her tone is incredibly professional until the very end, when her smirk can easily be heard. "Oh, I am so telling Poe you were being professional."

"Copy that, blue 2," Akira says calmly. Right after he says that, he silently has a nervous breakdown. "Ok, calm down," he thinks to himself. "This is your first mission so don't screw it up. "There is a small chance of you not screwing something up and getting yourself killed." Mopping his brow, Akira went back to checking the scanners.

Two...no, three specks of light appear on one of Fuze's display, and she is already cranking the fighter into a tight turn. "Aurek Two, Aurek Leader, three contacts bearing zero seven zero angels one five." There's a brief pause, "No transponders. Engaging." Her fingers brush over the controls and the TIE fighter leaps forwards, accelerating hard towards the enemy. Her gunner is on the ball as well, ready and waiting. Fuze is breathing slow and easy, enjoying this after the nightmares in the caves below the planet's surface. Twin vortices curl off the TIE's wingtips as they burst through the smoke. "Finalizer, Aurek Leader, engaging hostiles in sector Onith Osk Four. Where's my damn squadron?"

"Roger that, Aurek Leader. Right behind you." With that, PX-1221 follows a similar motion, his hands moving across the control yoke of his TIE and launching in pursuit of the forward TIE. He drifts slightly more left, dragging a bit of distance between the two as he watches the distance close between him and his enemies. "Fuze, we got them once. Let's do it again," he says over the comms.

Exine lets out an alarm pitch as Jax's scopes light up with two contacts, "Look alive, We got incoming. I don't think their here to make friends. Looks like Eyeballs. You know they're Tie/SF. Break to Engage. First past bye the books. I'm taking Mynock 2 (Pox), Red 2, handle Mynock 1 (Fuze), and Blue 3 you got Mynock (3). May the force be with you. Sound out. Blue 3 you got this." He switches his laser canons to dual fire and turns breaks off to engange firign at Pox.

Following formation, Artie beeps alongside Exine when the hits show up on her screen. Jax has already alerted them to the incoming. "Look alive, Artie. You heard our orders." Then, over the general coms, she says, "My pleasure, Blue 2. Locking on." Nym's focus narrows onto the TIE fighter in front of her. Strangely, it seems familiar to her, though she can't exactly place it. Red 2 whooshes overhead, screaming straight for the TIE fighters they are meant to engage. Finding herself with good aim and position, she fires. Waiting only a heartbeat to see if the blasts hit, she wheels upward and over, attempting to make herself a harder target to hit.

Muttering to himself about getting killed prematurely, Akira banks toward the fighting. Trying to center one of the TIEs in his toggle, he curses at his lack of skill. He can't stop getting distacted by the battle around him: lasers flying and ships making complex manuvers. He pulls off a few shots and barrel rolls to the left.

Fuze's head is twisting violently from side to side as the two opposing forces engage, eyes sweeping the sky before her, gauging clearances and angles and velocities and targetting options. She looses a speculative blast at one of the X-wings and is just starting to pull back on her yoke to execute a screaming bootlegger turn when she spots... "Brace, brace, brace!" she yells reflexively, flipping the TIE on its nose. Too little too late; the blaster bolts slam into her shields, rocking the ship and lighting up her control panel with flashing reds and oranges. Her gaze flickers to the X-wing responsible...and she freezes as she recognizes it. "That one's MINE," she snarls on her comm, and swings upwards in pursuit. The nimble TIE's structure creaks at the stresses of the inverted turn and bladders in her suit inflate automatically, keeping the blood forced down her torso to prevent a red-out, but she anticipates Nym's turnout wrong, and suddenly she's on the defensive, tightening her turn aggressively, aggressively enough that that the shots from her nemesis's X-wing and from another X-wing streak past her vision.

Some distance away, a third TIE fighter is intent on joining the fight, provided it lasts long enough; the engineers have managed to get the ship that was on the grapple in the air, but they're still struggling to mount a fourth ship. The pilot of the third TIE, CC-1492, calls excitedly into her throat mike, "Aurek Leader, Aurek Three, I'm right behind..." She breaks off as Akira's X-wing engages her!

Pox grinds his teeth and his growl over the comms is audible as the X-wings and TIEs come together. His eyes flick constantly from his targeting monitor to the X-wings closing and as they come together like two titanic waves of starfighter death, blaster fire lights up the sky. PX-1221 holds his control yoke tight in hand firing at a random X-wing before hurling himself sideways in his seat with a wild yell. He thrusts forward on the yoke, the ship performing an abrupt nosedive that continues around full circle coming up beneath his target. "I've got you!" he growls with a voice laced with hatred, his finger closing on the trigger and blaster fire racing directly for his target's underbelly.

The shields Strip away from Jax's X-wing and Exine is sure to let Jax know about it. "Yeah yeah, I know. The tie fighter pilot isn't better than me. We're not out of this yet." His hand slipping to switch back to quad fire. He says hitting a rudder and spinning away. "Lock on to that Tie fighter."

Nym's blaster bolts hit onto her intended target and she keeps on Aurek Leader as she does so. Her X-Wing banks and attempts to keep her targeted TIE fighter in her sights. She's able to do so, though the TIE fighter outmaneuvers her shots. Swearing, she pulls upward. "Artie, come on, we got to get a better lock. Let's eke on it!"

It's easy with the superior agility of the TIE/SF to turn inside the more cumbersome X-wing, and Fuze soon has the angle on Nym. But in her eagerness to defeat her adversary, she fires before she quite has lock on the fleeing X-wing. She's swearing to herself, a cursing voice in her own head telling her to dial it down; even for sworn enemies like the featureless face she can imagine in the cockpit of Red Two.

PX-1221 clenches his teeth, but as his shots hammer into the enemy X-wing he doesn't cry out in victory but gets decidedly colder. As he zooms past from beneath the fighter, he performs an abrupt corkscrew maneuver, the TIE arcing and curling back in upon itself as he falls in behind Jax's ship. As soon as he is leveled out, he pulls the trigger blaster fire zooming in around the X-wing ahead but not connecting.

As Pox gets a fireing solution on Blue 2, Exine chirps. Jax responds, "Yeah Yeah I know." Blue 2 dancing out of the way at the last moment., "He's good. But not that good." He calls across the com, "How are you doing Red 2?"

After getting a bead on Fuze, Nym's turn is too wide. Even as she makes it, she knows she's putting herself in weak position against the TIE fighters. "UP, Artie, we gotta go UP!" she almost shouts, realizing she's in danger even as she's attempting to maneuver out of it. Her maneuvering pays off, seeing the glow of the blaster bolts streak by below her. "We've got to GET that TIE fighter, Artie. Come on. Let's pull out the stops."

"Oh, you're good. I like it," Fuze breathes, zigging as Nym zags, outzigging Nym's zagging, gazing almost with disinterest at the laser bolts sliding past her hull. She's holding the flight controls of the TIE fighter like it was her lover, caressing the yoke and gliding her fingers over switches. Her gunner briefly has Nym in his sights, but his fingers relax from the triggers - he'd never steal the kill from Fuze. Not this kill, at any rate.

PX-1221 is focused, he is in the zone... he somehow has made a critical error and his enemy has gained a shot at him. He glances around wildly, head craning left to right as he tries to spy where Jax went and he speaks for the first time on his comms, "Damn. I lost him." As blaster fire rains down on him, he can only try to dodge left to right.

Jax comes out of a cloud bank and ends up behind Pox, " See I told you he wasn't that good." He says firing his quad baster juking when Pox's Tie fighter jives. The quad blaster fires where the Tie was. "Exine check my weapon calibration. I think their off."

Managing to maneuver out of Fuze's blaster range, Nym pulls a somewhat reckless technique. Pulling back on the throttle and dropping downward, she zigs and comes up right behind the TIE fighter. "Got you!" She grins, pulling the trigger. However, Fuze proves too skilled a pilot to fall to the trick. Artie tweets in her helmet and Nym fires up the engines to full again. "That wasn't fancy flying, it was a trick. There's a difference, Artie. This jerk is good. We gotta get 'em."

Again, the X-wing fires on Fuze and misses, and again she has to bank sharply, head twisting wildly as she tries to locate the daring fighter. "I love you," she murmurs happily, causing her gunner to twist round and look worriedly at his pilot. And then she's using every play in her playbook, not flying on instinct but dredging up all the tricks she can remember from her training, from the very early days begging sim time to the elite fighter school she was sent to. "You'll be mine," she promises.

"You rat fucking bastard!" PX-1221 curses as Jax falls in behind him. He jukes left, right, and then flips over in the air, curving back on himself and pulling the trigger of his TIE as he curves back overtop Jax, trying to get a shot at the X-Wing upside down.

Jax dives dives at the last moment corkscrewing around Pox's laser fire. His X-wing swooping down low almost brushing the jungle canopy top. The X-wing barreling along with the giant glowing flowers. Then turrning more agily than a T-65 ever would, " Alright, So you're not dead and descent shot. Lets see if your willing to blink." He switches his blasters to dual fire and pulls back on the throttle aiming right for Pox.

Nym keeps on Fuze. The TIE fighter pulls her considerable talents to keep out of Nym's blasters. "Oh, come ON!" Frustrated, she keeps on her nemesis, flying as best she can to try and give as good as she gets. She's not about to give up, not now.

Try as she might, Fuze cannot shake Nym off her tail. And she's loving it. There's a broad, almost manic grin on her face under her helmet as she struggles with her opponent. Then the bolts hit her, and her shields fizzle and die as the first laser blasts slams into the rear gunner's position. The man simple collapses, slumped over his controls as sparks dance over and into his suit and into the sockets of his eyes, his body starting to twitch spasmodically. Fuze spares him a glance but no more than that, mourning can wait as she mashes her fingers on the overrides, killing unneccessary systems, switching in bypasses, and as she does so she throws the ship into a vertical climb, ion engines screaming in protest.

PX-1221 has plenty of nerve and he flies straight for Jax. If the pilot could see his face, they would actually see him smiling as he dives straight for Jax. He pivots and fires, missing as he narrowly scrapes past the X-wing.

Jax it seems is the one that doesn't have the nerve. He breaks at the last moment without firing and exposes his underbelly of his X-win to Pox. Then at the last moment rolls out of the way of the blaster fire. "Yeah yeah Exine. He not a bad pilot and he's kicking my ass. This just ain't over yet."

Nym stays on Fuze, like a terrier finding its prey in its jaws. The short, young pilot has found a TIE fighter in her sights and she will not let it go while she has it there. Instead, she fires her canons and follows after the fighter that she has been following and dog-fighting against this entire fight. It's like a dance, one that she both dreads and enjoys. "Come on, come //on//," she encourages herself as she continues.

Clipped again by another laser blast from the accursed X-wing, Fuze breaks right, then left, in an increasingly futile attempt to shake off her shadow. She's losing ship systems, an automated voice in her earpiece intoning insistently <<Life Support 50%. Power 80%. Hull breach. Hull breach>>, and her fingers are flipping switches by muscle memory; divert power from B-panel, activate full oxygen. With the X-wing still following her up she attempts to flip the TIE on a dime, trading altitude for speed and diving down into the jungle itself in an attempt to shake off her tenacious foe.

She's still grinning.

PX-1221 can't keep up with the X-wing after the brief chicken fight and curses as he falls in behind him. He sees the blast go past him, and then the second crash into the back of his ship and watches as the alerts start to flash as his shield strength drops.

Jax pulls a tight turn as Jax turns off his inertial dampiner not needing in the planets atmospher anyway. He catches up with Pox firing two canons as the Tie dances left and then back into his cross hairs hitting the Tie.

Nym stays on her target. She has finally gotten a lock on Fuze and she's not about to give it up. Red 2 keeps on the assigned target, though the fight has moved far beyond assigned target. This is a full out pilot fight.

Fuze is getting shot to pieces here, part of one of the side panels fragmenting off and spinning into the jungle below. The ship is starting to trail a skein of black smoke and she's being kept busy locking down systems. The TIE slices through vegetation, skimming past the towering plants and sending fronds of some fern-like flora scattering down like petals. But she's not giving up, she can't give up, she's going to fight this to the end. She sends the ship twisting between two towering trees even as the laser blasts from Nym's X-wing slam into her hull, ripping open a larger opening and starting a small electrical fire.

PX-1221 twists, turning and managing to get a bead on Jax, only to miss again. He has no droid to chatter to, but he is letting his tailgunner have it, "Shoot the bastard! He isn't that good! I am giving you perfect shots back there and all you have to do is point and shoot, how fucking hard is it?"

Jax's X-wing dancing around the blaster blasts almost like he knows where Pox and his gunner are going to firing before they do. He opens his com onto an open and unsecurred channel, "First Order Ties, One of your craft is badly damaged and the other one has took a hard hit to the shields. Exit this airspace and we will not persue you. Live for another day. This is your one offer."

Nym stays on her TIE fighter target, following Fuze as best she can and firing shots whens he is almost positive they will hit. "Come on, come on," she mutters to herself, still attempting to keep in the fight. Her focus is entirely focused on her opponent.

Fuze's voice is calm as she matches frequencies with Jax and calls out in a cockily husky voice, "The red X-wing is mine. Pox, bug out. That's an order." And then she pulls everything out for this last, hail-Mary trick; she banks hard right, spinning the TIE to fly /backwards/ as she engages lock. The first shot slams into the tree that Nym clipped, the trunk cracking and splintering and falling, crashing into the ground below, but Fuze lets out a whoop as the second shot hits home.

Pox listens to the voice of the X-wing roll over his Comms, even looks in the direction of the fighter that he has been grappling with. At Fuze's order he doesn't even bat an eye in consideration and says, "No ma'am." With that, he spirals hard, wheeling and taking a hard shot directly at Jax.

The shields crackle as Exine lets out a slurry of cuss words that would making Jax's Mother say damn. "Red 2 in your after action report, please remember I tried doing things Black Leader's way. Red 2 show them why we rule the sky." Then flips off the com. Then starts his dual with Pox again on who is going to fire.

While Nym continues to engage Fuze, her cockiness in being able to hit the shields of the TIE fighter get the best of her. Her piloting gets a bit sloppy, allowing Fuze to get a hit on her. The shields rock and Artie beeps angrily at her. "I know the TIE fighter is hitting me, Artie! I see that now! Back on the offense." The best defense is a good offense, right? Attempting to shake off the attack, she pulls back and angles again to try and get back into position.

Still flying backwards, Fuze continues to pour fire into the X-wing, jinking and jiving between trees as she keeps twisting her head to look over her shoulder. Then she flips the X-wing back forwards and yanks back hard on the yoke, trying to flip over Nym and come in from behind her.

PX-1221 loses Jax again and curses light up the comm waves. "Hold in there Fuze, we'll pull out... dammit!" he says as blaster fire dives in around him. He sweeps left and then dives straight downward for the treetops.

That was some sloppy flying on Jax's part. Poe would have him in front of the pilots explaining why that was bad flying with Pox drifts into his sights and Jax fires but the Tie fighter just dances around his blaster fire. "Dammit."

Nym tries to keep herself out of Fuze's line of sight. However, after a string of good flying, it seems that the TIE fighter has somehow locked into her her tricks and evasions. Swearing under her breath, she attempts to keep out of Fuze's blasters, but is unable to do so entirely. Feeling as if she was just hustled, the young pilot attempts to shake the TIE fighter, looking up and down in an attempt to shake the other pilot.

Fuze wrestles with the controls, muttering under her breath, but the controls are supremely unimpressed by her muttering and continue to flash red, pretty much the entire set of displays is flashing staccato red. And, in fighting the controls she loses sight of Nym's X-wing until it screams past her, thudding more laser beams into the doomed ship. The electrical fire explodes into an inferno, charring the corpse in the back, filling the cockpit with thick acrid smoke. And, as the controls become unresponsive, Fuze relinquishes them. She reaches between her legs and pulls the ejection handle. In a very short length of time, det cord blows off the cockpit bubbles above both her and her dead gunner; and both seats are blown up and out of the burning craft. Only just in time, as the TIE explodes into a fiery ball that plummets into the jungle below. Her gunner's parachute is on fire, dropping his corpse like a stone into the verdant undergrowth, but Fuze is dangling helplessly, swinging wildly. She slams into a tree-trunk, then crashes down a steep embankment and finally becomes still as her parachute settles above her like a shroud. Then that husky voice crackles over the open frequency: "Round two to you, Red. But I'll be after you. Don't die until I find you." She sounds to be in pain.

Pox is still in a deadly dogfight with Jax. The two corkscrew around each other, flip, turn, and snap as they try and angle for the better shot, and neither seeming to have a definite edge on the other. Pox is leading into just such an attack when he catches a glimpse of Fuze's ship burst into flame. As he sees the hatch blow and Fuze launch into the air, he fires toward Jax and then immediately disengages, diving straight down toward the jungle below. "Fuze, come in," he says into his coms. "Fuze, do you read?"

When Pox breaks off and disenanges. "Good shooting Red 2. Though Dranks are on you." He moves to form up on formation with Nym. "We got one left. If he's got any sense he'll turn and run. I am updating coordiantes of tie pilot to Dagger team for possible pick-up."

FZ-4792 switches her handheld comm back to Pox's frequency. "I'm fine," she mutters tersely, although she doesn't sound so fine. "I told you to bug out, Pox. Which part of that order didn't make sense?" Man, she's pissed. She crawls out from under the parachute, tearing off her helmet and letting it drop into the mud, brushing a hand through her sweaty hair; a few strands have escaped the bun at the back and they, like everything else on this forsaken planet, are irritating her.