Log:It's Aces Baby!

It's Aces Baby!

OOC Date: June 22,2018
Location: Edges of Unknown Space
Participants: Ektor, Karas Darkwing, Jessika Pava, Jaya Kassis, The Resistance

At the edges of Unknown Space is a convergence of gravity wells, where the long finger of a spreading nebula has swallowed an asteroid belt, disturbing its once-stable orbit of a nearby dwarf star, and creating a chaotic expanse of crashing matter, combusting gasses, and sensor ghosts. Countless years from now, this may be the place where two stars collide, but for this cosmic eyeblink it is simply one of the most treacherous stretches of sublight space in the galaxy. The low visibility within the polychromatic cloud of swirling gasses, combined with the asteroid hazards have made pursuit of fugitives impossible for all but the most determined of enforcers. It is the Gunhand Slip.

Upon emerging from hyperspace, the Resistance craft are still a good distance from the only other manufactured item of note on the scopes: a basic sensor/communications buoy, rigged up to remotely scan and broadcast to ships on this side of the nebula. The first transmission crackles and pops on the receivers of the assorted starfighters: <<Well, well, looks like they showed up. What's a fancy bunch of X-wings and... some idiot in a Y-wing doing out here?>> Thereâs a brief pause for a response, before the audio cuts back in with a laugh, <<Just fooling, we can't hear you. But I tell you what: we figure since you lot are supposed to be the best pilots in the galaxy and all- you can probably handle the Slip in... Let's say fifteen standard minutes? Get through before then, and we'll be here. Take any longer, and we won't. Chron starts running once you pass the buoy. Good luck, now; some of us are really rooting for ya.>>

Coming out of hyperspace, Karas had selected the pilots he wanted from his squadron and asked Ektor to come, grand he knows he didn't have to his him. Still as their ships revert from hyperspace travel he brings up his sensors and does a sweep. Its just what he thought, still as he looks around he sees everyone has made it. Rubbing his face a little, <<Check in.>> he calls as he hears the voices of this of those they were here to meet. Sighing a little as they do their intro, <<Yeah we came, this is Rea Leader, Lt. Darkwing.>> he says on the channel. Though he does go silent when information about the Slip is given, he nods his head, <<Got it. My group get ready>> he calls.

Jaya actually busted out laughing when they asked about the idiot in the Y Wing. Poor Ektor, he got crap everywhere he went all because he enjoyed making booms, and the Y Wing was notorious for it. Regardless, Jaya recovered some of her bearing to look ahead, adjusting her sensor readouts and dropping her visor to help with the damaging rays, were there any. Pushing the throttle forward, Jaya intended to adopt the formation needed to proceed, but allow some distance between her and the other crafts. She imagined the X-wings would have no problem taking the lead. She and Ektor could look out for each other. <<This is Red Five, standing by.>>

Reverting from hyperspace to realspace is always a disorienting moment. The chaos of the bluish-white tunnel distorts into uncountable white lines, and within moments, there's just the cold, dark void of space. Jessika Pava adjusts her throttle to bring her speed lower, so she's not blitzing forward ahead of everyone. One look at her instrument panel is all she needs to confirm what Case wharbles from behind her: this part of space does not like sensor equipment. Aside from the buoy, there's nothing she can pick up, and she doesn't know if that's a function of the nebula or because there's nothing else out there. <<Red Two is here.>>

<<This idiot in a Y-wing will kick YOUR sorry asses clear outta the Unknown Region and into the 'Why oh why did we piss off Ektor' Region,>> Green 2 grumbles over the comms once it's clear their hosts can't hear, adding loudly in the next breath, <<Drek, why couldn't they have heard that? That one was good! Yeah, yeah.. Green Two, ready when you are.>>

<<Alright, let's do this than>> he calls out. <<We have to show them the best is us, keep your eyes open, listen to your instincts and keep in contact.>> he says to them over their tact net. Once the go ahead is giving, Karas feeds power to the engines and his fighter streaks off. Dailing down the inertia compensators, he doesn't feel the push too much. Racing towards the first buoy, "Spark map out the course." he says but as his X-Wing streaks forward he feels his shields get pulled, <<Watch it!>> he calls out.

Jaya managed to avoid Karas, twisting casually by him to progress into the nebula, ducking in and among colliding asteroids and exploding pockets of gas. Glancing down at her instruments, she sees that her progress thus far is 85km in. "So far, so good Jolts." Her droid spoke his approval, but whistled while its head turned to watch dangerous debris moving by. Jaya tries to keep her flight path smooth by rotating from side to side, avoiding whatever crossed her path.

There's no game plan, no assessment, no nothing. Red Leader's fusial engines go bright and he takes off. Jessika, seeing that it's apparently an every-pilot-for-themselves kind of show, opens her throttle up and sends her X-Wing barreling into the nebula. It doesn't take long to sweep past Red Squadron's leader, but this? It's chaos. Jessika is tense after the first pocket of gas explodes somewhere off to her starboard, and then has to start banking around huge chunks of drifting asteroids. Her craft blitzes between a pair that float into one another right after her passing and send spiraling debris floating off into space. It doesn't take long before her heart's racing, but Jessika is focused on the goal: reach the finish line before time is up.

Ektor's mouth is bent in a short-lived scowl as he guns the ion engines of Green 2 full throttle, feeding power from weapons and shields into the engines; the Y-wing would barely cover such a distance even without obstacles, and he can't afford to spare any throttle. The polychromatic gasses swirl and combust in his wake as the Tionese pilot skims the surface of a slowly tumbling asteroid to keep as straight a path through the hazards as he can in the opening sprint. Almost despite himself, he starts to grin as the full chaotic tangle of the Gunhand Slips starts to become apparent. <<Heheheee...>>

Karas went far off course, though he doesn't let that stop him, having to go through an some asteroids, the X-Wing burst through rolling to avoid some very close collisions. Letting out a breath as he moves, he sees the others and is quickly trying to gain some ground which he does. Checking his sensors for what he can, the X-Wing dips under another asteroid, he yaws his fighter and is actually able to get a good burst of speed streaking forward keeping up with the others.

Jaya was doing well at first, but her eyes grew wide when she realized she was the target for two asteroids as they triggered her proximity scan. Panic set in as she dove and shoved the thottle down. The bright color of her engines told the telltale of afterburners being put to use as she narrowly avoids a certain death and transformation to a space sandwich.

Some of these asteroid chunks are so big that it's impossible to see around them, and it's also impossible to get any sense of what might be on the other side with her sensors, because her sensors just don't work. She has to skim them, and she doesn't like it. Rightly so. Coming around the lower curve of one, all she sees filling up her viewport suddenly is one giant kriffing rock. Shoving her yolk forward, Jessika's snubfighter suddenly banks down to avoid hitting it, and only once she can look up and out of her viewport does she see the scale of this thing. It's the biggest asteroid she's ever seen in space, and she's now having to fly around it just to try to get back on course. It's a diversion from her route, and not a good one at all.

Ektor's excited chuckle explodes into a proper curse as the light bomber is buffeted by a rising concentration of some orange gas that Tenner appears interested in, judging by the R2 unit's idle warbling, cut off abruptly by Ektor's grousing, "Will you shut up? I don't care what it is, I only care if it's combustible-"

It was combustible.

A long-suffering squawk from R2-T10 is stating precisely that as the spreading fireball that arcs from the cloud to the nearest asteroid, smashing it into countless pieces and causing the Y-wing to veer wildly off course to stave off festruction. <<Eh, kriff me sideways- I'm off course. Gonna make up as much space as I can, but it ain;t gonna be inside 15 minutes, yeah?>>

This damn area of space is a pain in the ass, the X-wing banks left and flying through this is like soup. Still it's slow going for Karas as he he has to swing his fighter wide through another set of asteroids, it seems like this race tested more than just skills, it was mental as well. Slowing the fighter, and allowing it to coast using it's forward momentum, Karas is able to get his fighter back on his bearings before feeding more power to his engines.

Jaya almost immediately has to pulled her stick straight back the moment she passes under the former collision, to now move up above another large spinning object barreling toward her craft. She miraculously avoids a certain collision and twists her craft away, but further off course taking her out of the race. If she'd had her new craft and the time to familiarize herself with it, she might have had time to correct her mistakes, but now she would do good to get out of this thing unscratched.

Sweeping out from back around the asteroid, Jessika quickly orients her vector towards the end of the run. She's already at full speed, which means she really can't afford much in the more of delays. Case, perhaps sensing the very quiet atmosphere that Jess needs to focus on her piloting, keeps silent. It's a blessing. She has no clue that she's in the lead of all the pilots, and only that Ektor is out of the race. A glance down at the chronmeter on her instrument panel tells her that she still, is, though, and that she's approaching what's supposed to be the end of the nebula. She keeps utterly silent, and forces herself to relax.

"What do ya mean I'm going the wrong way?" Ektor hollers at Tenner, only paying half attention to the droid as he tries very hard to avoid impacting anything that would crumble the light bomber up like a scrap of foil. Veering between the tumbling shards of what might once have been part of a dwarf planet, one eye twitches more narrow than the other as his wincing mouth bends deeper into a grimace. "The only direction I got is the 'not into a giant rock' direction, yeah? You good with that?" A light rattle as a hail of void gravel rattles along the canopy, earning a deadpan honk from Tenner. "...I said GIANT rock, not little ones, they don't count."

Grinning as he is getting the feel for this, the throttle is pushed high as the four engine nacelle glow with a bright pink like color as the X-Wing rockets through the Slip. In cruise mode still, Karas glances to his sensors and checking for the others as he go. HIs hands move as he allows himself to just fly. His fighter moves through the slip closing in on the 200km mark, because of his earlier mistake and his previous he knows he lost ground, but weaving through a cluster and rolling his fighter around the next buoy he isn't stopping.

Red Five shoves her throttle down and angles her craft back on the course, streaming past poor Ektor. Rotating slowly and maintaining speed, Jaya makes it past the halfway mark. She steadies her breathing, adjusts her grip, and focuses harder on what's in front of her. They were all going to finish, just maybe not in time.

After the near collision with the asteroid, Jessika suffered from no other monumental dangers. Her determination to keep herself loose allowed her to read her surroundings without getting caught up in the panic. The result is sweeping through the last few obstacles. She doesn't do anything fancy, and only as much as is necessary to get around the obstacles. Showboating near the end is a good way to trip right before the finish line, and she doesn't want that. Luckily for her, she doesn't. Jessika's X-Wing crosses the end point of the Gunhand Slip, and Case is quick to inform her of the feat. A glance at the chronometer tells her she's done it under the required time span. While she lets out a sigh of relief, she's still anxious for the pilots still in the run.

<<Red Two's finished the run.>>

Ektor has fallen far enough behind that only Jaya is in communications range, at this point. <<HA. Almost halfway there,>> he mutters, sardonically. Tenner's commentary is no doubt encouraging and not at all fatalistic.

As the polychromatic chaos of the nebula begins to thin in front of the lead X-wing, and the first windows of black void and starlight begin to peek through, Jessika's sensors likewise begin to filter through the static and give flickering readings of the space beyond. The readings grow more stable with distance from the Slip, revealing five small craft at a distance; within range of sensors, but not weapons. Four are modified Z-95 Headhunters, the fifth is not recognized by Resistance computers. <<Well, look at that. With almost three minutes to spare, too,>> one voice greets Red 2 as the first of the Resistance fighters emerge.

Sensors seizes up and blank out, Karas isn't able to see anything on sensors, "Sithspit!" he says to himself as it looks like he's being pulled by one of the whit dwarfs, but Spark is on it and at the same time shutting down other systems, both he and Karas is able to feed more power to the X-Wings engines, which catapults the fighter past the buoy at a far faster speed. Though he did have to weave in and around another set of gravity wells, still as he comes through the other end he sees Red Two come up on his sensors, <<GOod job Red 2. Red Leader just finished. Come on Red 5 and Green 2.>> he calls to the others encouraging them.

Jaya hit a patch of larger debris sensors had no indication of. As a result of the small collisions, her craft begins to shake harshly, so much so that Jaya hisses and squints her eyes as if the gesture will somehow dampen the blow to her craft. Annoyed when she sees her shields have cut out, and the new paint job suddenly gets more character to it. She felt lucky to have made it through that, but they still weren't finished.Jaya searches for Ektor just to make sure he's okay.

Out of the radiation soup that has left her sensors blind, Case is the first to stop the five craft within range. Jessika checks her own radar for confirmation, and can't help but tighten her fingers around the molded grip of her flight stick. The brief, paranoid thought that this could be an ambush passes through her head, and not for the first time. Right now, it's five on one, and given that the others are lagging behind, Jessika's in a precarious position. Still, none of them are in weapons range, yet, and if need be, Jessika could simply bank her fighter back into the nebula and hope to relay all the information to the fighters behind her. << I like my drinks on the rocks,>> Jessika replies over the communications band. <<Can a girl get a name?>>

<<Arright, I'm gettin the hang of thisOH DREK WHERE'D THAT COME FROM,>> Ektor howls over the comms, again only reaching Red 5 as a moment of brilliant flying inspired by pure and utter desperation narrowly preserves the Y-wing. Letting out a slow exhale as he fires the engines, Green 2 adds, << I got eyes on you, Red 5,>> he notes as the Z-95 hoves into view.

<<We aren't much for names, Resistance. Hey- look at that, another one, too,>> is broadcast from one of the modified Z-95s as Red Leader joins Red 2 on their scopes. <<Saw what I came to see, how about the rest of you?>> A few chuckles and at least one snort are audible, before the X-wings are left with, <<You all keep on resisting. Maybe we'll have our people call your people, some time, soon.>>

Karas reorients his fighter looking back from where they came, wanting to make sure he has visual contact of Red 5 and Green 2, though as their hosts speak over their comms. <<Alright, you already know how to get ahold of us, we will be waiting to hear back.>> he says. Hoping that this was a success and not a fail. He knows he screwed up one to many times, but still this was one of the better missions he's run so a smile plays on his lips. <<Hows it coming you two?>>

When Jaya hears Ektor has visual of her, it was enough encouragement for her to move ahead. Time in command had taught her that you're only as fast as your slowest ship. This rule, of course, wasn't a matter of principle when there was a mission time to hit, but falling out of that time frame left Jaya with the self delegated task to make sure Ektor made it out alive. She glanced behind to see where the hell he was.

<<Red Leader, Red Two. Go ahead and relay to command this was a waste of time.>> Jessika doesn't bother changing off the general communications network on purpose. <<Let 'em know our contacts chickened out when it was their turn to commit.>> She sounds disgusted, and that's not even the half of it. <<Figures.>> Sighing aloud to herself, Jessika glances to her navicomputer and selects a roundabout route back to their origin. "Case, go ahead and select the roundabout route." Toggling over to their highly encrypted Squadron channel, Jessika has other things to say. <<Red Leader, Red Two. One of those fighters is unregistered in our computers. Too far for visual confirmation. This could be a trap or some sort of intel gathering mission against us.>>

Jessika maintains a heightened state of vigilance on her sensors and the craft that are out of weapons range, thinking that this could get real nasty real quick, especially after what she has to say. It's not her fault they're cowards.

<<Annnnd I lost eyes on you, Red 5,>> Ektor states flatly, as Jaya's Headhunter soars ahead and the Green Squadron Y-wing again swerves wildly to avoid another collision. <<No lie, I got this, yeah?>> he states, a crazed smile twisting his lip once again.

Once fifteen minutes has elapsed, moments after Karas emerges from the Gunhand Slip and after Jessika's sharp transmissions, the distant smuggler craft initiate a quartet of hyperspace jumps, no two going in the same direction, each streaking off into the nothingness of hyperspace en route to who-knows-where, in the middle of the already Unknown Region, until only one Headhunter remains of the five. <<Ease up there, Resistance, you did your part, but there weren't any promises made to be broken. Nobody likes a sore winner.>> Only then does the fifth of the smuggler fighters jump away.

Hearing Jessika, but than still monitoring their situation, Karas isn't quick to speak. Upon hearing the remarks from the fifth pilot of the group they were here to meet. << It's all good, seems like we only got some of the information. Still if we won great, lets keep it civil. I hope to hear from you guys soon, safe travel.>> Karas hears Red 5 and Green 2, "Spark keep track of Green 2 and Red 5." he tells him. <<Red 2, ease up. We will find out what else is going on, so far this was a good run lets keep it that way.>> he says.

<<Ease up? Some people who refuse to give their identity challenge us to come out here and risk our lives and then laugh at us before patronizing us, and I'm supposed to ease up? Yeah, roger. Don't think they caught your message by the way, seeing as how they left as soon as they said it. Maybe I'm the only one who noticed that the other two still haven't come out yet.>> Jessika adopts a small patrol pattern outside of the Slip to await the emergence of the last two fighters Resistance command sent on this mission.

It's awhile before Green 2 comes back into sensor range. But six minutes after Jaya emerged from the nebula, the Y-wing also emerges. <<Now there's a line of engine glows I'm glad to see again, yeah?>> Ektor drawls, despite the fact that Jessika's X-wing is facing him. <<So good race, yeah? And every great racer needs someone at their back.. pushing them to get better and go faster, yeah? So yay for me, too.>> That last line is dripping with snark.