Log:Ghost Ship Pt II
The Resistance goes after the ghost TIE again
OOC Date: Aug 24, 2017
Location: Space near Nar Shaddaa
Participants: The Resistance, Jax Greystorm, Ambrosia Greystorm, Kael Greystorm, Triz Dermout
The Y'toub system was vast, traffic was heavy, and there was near infinite places to hide if you're a tiny little fighter. But, when you're a tiny fighter with a very odd design, and someone DOES see you, they tend to talk about it. Old Lady Greystorm and her nephew both overhear some spacer chatter concerning the illusory ghost ship, narrowing its location to one of two quadrants in the system. A good bit away from the main traffic lanes. As good a place to search as any, one might guess.
Jax was well out of his element a bit. He'd flown a Tie/ad before but the vaccum just outside the helmet of the space suit always made him just a bit nervous. He reaches over tapping the air levels. Then he relaxes. <Girlie, not a word.> Jax says as he flies in formation with a y-wing and Kent's Skipray. < And thanks for the assist, Pretty Boy. YOu liking the new Toy?>
Flying along side Kael's ship in the Y-Wing, her droid hanlding most of the mundane tasks, Triz settles in for another long flight of hunting. "Well Tin, hopefully this time we can actually find something again," seeing how she has been going out trying to find the ghost ship nearly non-stop since the first encounter. The comms crackle to life to catch the last of her chuckle <<What? You thing I would say something about you in a TIE? Why I am shocked, Bossman. Hurt even.>> She looks over at the Skipray, nudging her ship a little closer <<Pretty Boy? Huh.>>
Kael Greystorm glances over at Amber and shakes his head, "I think you're overestimating our odds. The Guardian's got some decent sensors so maybe we'll find something." He looks over at the other ships around, "And maybe with three sets of sensors looking we'll find something quicker."
As the trio of ships begin scouting the first quadrant, and sure enough the sensors on the Longprobe and those on the Skipray pick up a small blip on the screen. It was moving in a straight line, too straight to be a piece of debris, and its speed was a constant 8.4 MGLT with zero rotation. A speed that was easily slow enough to catch up to, at least for those that managed to tune their sensors properly enough to spot it.
Ambrosia ignores the slow and steady blip at first - a mere glance cast to the screen - and, not finding it to be a threatening blip, takes a second to adjust her harness in the seat with all the blundering impatience of a four year old. Something about 'chaffed tits' gets muttered within earshot of her young kinsman as she fidgets.
Jax hadn't picked the tie up and luckly not his mother's desire for some type of cream or lotion for her areolas. Though he continues to fly in formation with the other two ships. Though they change course he turns with them. <<Not getting anything on scopes here. You two picking something up?>>
"Tin, you know what we are looking for. Keep an eye out for anything that looks like what we saw before." The little droid beeps it's acknowledgement. She settles into the cockpit, her own eyes scanning outside the ship and then to the sensors and the other flight instruments. A typical pilot. "At least if we see it this time we should be able to do something." She keys open the comms channel and what is heard is loud and excited beeps and whistles from her droid <<Wait one,>> she answers sharply before she kills the comms. "Put it on my scope, Tin." When the correct display is present she studies it for a moment <>
Kael Greystorm glances over at Amber and shakes his head, "Calm your tits Auntie A" And he'd accidently keyed up some Jax could share in on the chaffed tits. Then he looks up the blip, "Hey got something up here. Jax what you seein over there?"
The ship continues moving forward, either oblivious to their presence or not caring.
Jax changes his course and begins to move in to engage, <Alright moving in to engage. I'm going to use my tractor beam to try to slow it down. Ion and tractor beam as you can. Let's make this a quick trip. May the Force be with you.>> Jax changes angles and increases the speed of the Wraith going on a pursuit course of the Tie Defender. "Man I had forgotten how beautiful this thing flies." As he starts to prepare to be able to engage the tractor beam.
<<Wait one, I have an idea. Let me try to close on it first.>> Triz comes over the comms. "Tin, plot me an intercept course with us coasting after a hard burn. I am going to shut down everything and try to sneak up on it." As soon as the intercept data is displayed, Triz hits the engines and accelerates to speed, steers her ship to go on the intercept course plotted by the droid and once satisfied all is good she begins to shut down the systems on the ship. All but life support and the controls to manuver.
"I'm tryin'," Amber scoffs sideways at Kael under her breath, but quits fooling around once the kids catch sight of their target. /Now/ the things got her attention. <<Hope your wings are quieter than your feet.>> It's a general, albeit mild burn to all flyboys and girls, since the last round of capture-the-helmet on base hadn't panned out well for them.
<< I got a bad feeling about this and It's not a joke this time. Like maybe anything hostle is going to result in it use the warheads. So lets hold off on the sneak attack and I using the tractor beam. I'm going to see if I can get it to follow me. It's show up as friendly on my IFF. Going to engage it and move into standard escort formation. You two hang back. It opens up on me. Open up on it.>> Jax says as he moves to draw close to the Tie Defender.
As Jax, Kael, and Triz draw near, the TIE alters course in a fashion to keep its back to the TIE/ad and Skipray, inadvertantly making Triz's job easier when it comes to drift in towards an intercept course. Maybe it didn't see the low-power Y-wing at this moment.
"....Huh." It's a thoughtfully uttered syllable, accompanied by forward lean - all three centimeters her harness now permits - from the LC. She's staring at the ghost ship as they near, head turning slowly to keep it more or less in HER sights as her brain works really hard to jog itself into remembering what it briefly thought it remembered. Something about that TIE. TIE....Defender? Then, as Jax tries swooping in all casual-like and the old D alters course to close distance with Triz, this old B barks out a very definitive
<<SHIT>> over the coms. <<WATCH IT. That there's a...ah...>> Damn it, she /just/ had it. She just....Ambrosia's brow knits together and eyelids pinch shut while more verbal abuse attacks her own battledeath-damaged neurons in silence. <<Defender! Old piece of shit, maybe older'n me. And by 'piece of shit' I mean it's fast, mean, precisely the girl I was waitin for you to bring home, Jax. That self-destruct mechanism ain't laughable business. So I hear.>>
Jax shakes his head, <<I'm not telling Doc, you said that.>> Jax says as he moved into formation and begins to try to led the Tie Defender along a bit to see if it will follow him. << Alright if this works and the murder machine doesn't open up on me. Lets see what we can get with some kindess. It tries to kill me or run, open fire you two!>>
To late, all systems down. But then maybe that's why she did it so she couldn't hear Jax's commands, well at least that is the excuse she will use. It could be true. Tin beeps and whistles as the ship goes silent around the pair. Now it's a waiting game to see how close she can get "Tin, you see a flicker at all from that ship I want power up on everything right away. Bring up the Ion cannon first along with the fire control." And so she waits, drawing towards the craft that has so nicely turned perfectly for her. She sees Jax move his tie into position but still she coasts on.
Even though Jax's sensors show the TIE Defender as a friendly, the same doesn't seem to hold true for the Defender itself. As Jax draws near, the Defender cuts power to the engines and puts full power to the port thrusters. A maneuver that would be hell on any biological pilot at the helm as the inertia would likely snap their neck, but it manages to do a complete 180 degree spin in a matter of half of a second. As it turns, shots from the six laser cannons at its wing-tips come to life, strafing towards bot Jax's ship as well as the skipray. Maybe it didn't see Triz's powered-down Y-wing.
"If I had wings, I'd give it a run for its money, kid," the old rebel confirms Kael's query. "But that's what y'all are for, now." So she can sit back and watch the chaos happen. And on that note, Ambrosia wriggles a little more in her seat, to produce a flask from inside her vest and takes a long draw. Awkardly, tipping back the half helmet. THere. That's the best medicine. Nerve calming juice. A thin bead of sweat seeps from under her visor. It's rough, watching your offspring put themselves in the line of fire. Moreso, when that line of fire is NOT your element and you are powerless to intercede on their behalf.
<Does not see me as a friendly! Fire!> Jax says as he he easily dances through the blaster fire as he mumbles under his breath and even for a moment closing his eyes. Though at a moment. His eyes flick open and he he turns on the tractor beam trying to knock the Tie Defender off course. Then turns to run out of there letting the ion cannons do their thing.
As soon as the TIE fires at the two other ships Triz is quickly flipping switches and yelling at Tin "As soon as we can, get me shields, power the ion cannon and fire control." The droid beeps and whistles, none of which sounds happy. With just manuvering thrusters she slews the ship a bit to keep the nose pointed at the Tie, finger on the trigger to fire her weapon as soon as the power levels come up. The throttles come to life as does the shields "Good job, Tin! Now get me that Ion cannon and I will love you for ever." She grins as the droid answers her back, the tone a bit sarcastic.
Kael Greystorm watches as the little defender does a 180 and shoots at Jax and the hunter smirks a bit as he fires off his ion cannons... Then blinks as they actually hit the freaking TIE Defender, <"Oh shit, I actually hit it... Quick tractor that bitch home before it wakes up next month!">
The TIE maneuvers, but too late. Kael's shot from the skipray's massive Ion cannons impact against the rear hull of the ship. Blue sparks surround the ship as its systems were going through the equivallent of a siezure. The dorsal wing actually blows off, a charge underneath it ejecting it. Like the TIE/ad, the Defender was built with an actual ejection seat, and likely the wing blowing off was part of that feature. It also appeared that the shields, which were only running partial to begin with, are completely gone. No telling what other systems were having problems.
If you're happy and you know it, shut your mouth! That's how LC Greystorm do. The older woman is silent, lips drawn into a taut, hesitant-to-smile smile and she says not a word as the vintage Defender gyrates itself apart. Not for a few seconds, anyway, then...<<...think it fried the self-destruct capability?>> It's a serious question. She doesn't f*king know.
Just as she was about to pull the trigger after Tin got the Ion cannon up, Kael nails the fighter <<Great shot!>> "Tin, begin a detailed scan of the ship. You see anything at all still working then let me know and I'll zap it again." For now she holds off, doing much else but sitting there in space, ready to shoot it if need be.
Kael Greystorm shrugs a bit and grins, "I dunno but these Ions are meant to disable capital class ships... There shouldn't be much left running now though?" He brings the Guardian in a bit closer, "What's the blast size of that self destruct? I'll double down on the shields towards the TIE while we're towing it home?"
Turned, ionized to hell, and now missing a wing, the TIE's luck seems to have run out. It was still drifting, but now with a slight spin as Jax's tractor hit started a turn that it couldn't stop without thrusters.
"Uh.." Ambrosia eyes Kael sideways. "Real big." Her hands spread apart a couple feet, in poor demonstration. She's not useful in cockpits.
Jax goes flying toward the loose Solar pannel as it goes flying in space, "Imperial clean up, asile one." He says as he takes aim with the tractor beam trying to snag the escaping componet of the Tie Defender. "Hard to belive these freak out, Mom." Meatbag (MB) pages: the first intel to trickle in is that shields are down, maneuvering thrusters are currently rebooting.... more to come over time. <<Some of the systems are rebooting, firing Ion again to see if we can shut this thing down.>> Triz says over the comms "Ok, Tin, lets do this thing." Lined up, close in, the fires the Ion cannon again. A grin spreads <<Still running a focused scan on it, will monitor and report as the results come in.>>
Kael Greystorm nods a bit, "Good that should help speed us along a bit." And he maneuvers the Guardian close enough to snag the Defender in his tractor beam, <"You think it's gonna be angry when it wakes up?"> He thumbs up towards Triz, <Yeah keep doin that. I'm hooking up to tow 'er home now.>
More blue sparks, probably some smoke, but considering this is a vacuum it's not visible. The top-most hatch blows off though. Apparently, there was something to the ejection system that was being triggered with ionization.
"You assume there's something inside TO be angry," Ambrosia scowls at its whirling self as they close in for a hug. <<Why's it still blowing its stack if it's supposedly paralyzed?>> she questions aloud to all, complete with finger point. <<My earlier concern still stands, maybe we ought to back off fer a sec. I mean, it ain't going anywhere fast, right?>>
<< Leave it and run. Trust me on this. I got a very bad feeling about it. All of us. I got a feeling the Imps booby trapped the hell out it. >> Jax says as he turns Wraith to bug out, <<Do what the LC says.>>
<<Are you...>> There is a pause as Triz cuts out the comms. After a time <<Right, got it. Backing off.>> She reluctantly says before she swings the Y-Wing around and begins to slowly move away from the TIE. "I don't know why, Tin. But an order is an order." The droid beeps and squawks "I do too listen to orders. All the time."
Kael Greystorm pulls the ship back along with the others, "Yeah nothing should still be working after getting blasted like that. Think you could get a focused scan in on it?" He keeps an eye on the sensor read out as he can, <Trustin you on this one Jax. Want me to blast it again?>
There's a small flash, a blue blur shooting off from the open hatch. Something akin to a small rocket. Then, the TIE's warhead launcher dumps the three remaining clustermissiles from its tube, each detonating in a fashion that shrapnel is exploded in every direction.
Shields flare to life, the blast rocks the fighters and blastboat, spilling drinks and anyone not strapped in is likely to end up with some bruising or even a mild concussion.
NOOOOOOO Amber's flask gets swatted out of her grip by the concussive force of the blasts - SHE TOLD YOU SO - and ricochets off her own face, then back into lap. Owowowow. Something nasty is spittled about Imperial trash as she isntantly probes for what feels like a missing tooth.
"Oh crap," Triz exclaims as her ship is rocked by the blast. She looks over her shoulder and sees the last of the parts being blown every which way. <<Good call, Bossman>> she tells him before moving a bit further awaay and takes up position on the other ship.
<<Yeah I have good ideas every now ad then.>> Jax follows the beacon, <Allright, I located a code beacon. Uhm, LC you up for a space walk? We might as well retrieve the data and not make this trip a complete waste.>> Jax says as he comes to a stop painting the navi point of th ecode cyndler.
