Log:Mandalorian Revivers: Civil War Part 2

Mandalorian Revivers: Civil War Part 2

Location: Outer Rim
Participants: Russ Ordo, Narsai Ordo, Feyrr, Asiir Cuul, Sion

Since the battle for the orbital laser and the accompanying AA batteries things have slowed down slightly for the Mandalorian revivers and their hired allies. They have established an FOB under the protection of the array with The Malachor and accompanying ships hovering high in orbit above them. It has all been a mess of logistical planning, supply runs and establishing a strong point from which to continue waging war. There have been a few minor skirmishes amongst patrols but no major actions. Although that is about to change.

Russ is standing in the prefab structure that is serving as his temporary command centre and briefing room. He looks around at those assembled for a moment as he continues with his briefing bringing an image up on the screen. "This is the droid foundy that caused us so many problems in taking the array and is giving the enemy the forces they need to continue to wage war. The mission today is to capture this structure as well as all the equipment contained within. If this is proven to be impossible we are to destroy it. However that is an absolute last ditch plan." He pauses as he tiredly rubs at his forehead clearly the days of dealing with logistics have taken their toll on the warrior. "It is defended strongly as you might have guessed. Although luckily for us there are no emplaced weapons or stations. However there are an assortment of battledroids and organics as well as starfighter support. So today will not be a classic lightning raid, an orbital drop or any of the strategies you have seen me implement in the past. This will be a more conventional battle. We will be engaging them in the air while trying to protect the troopships so that we can attempt to capture the facility. Any questions?"

New to this action, having been drawn by a public message to qualified pilots, Sion Corvara is nonetheless on board with the idea. Seated close to the back, she raises her hand. "What sort of ships will be available to us? And who will be flying what?"

Asiir Cuul is not seated, but rather is leaned against a wall of the pre-fab shack as he listens to Russ talk of the battle plans. He nods his head, agreeing with most of the strategy, not that anyone asked him to begin with. The Cathar glances about and then speaks up as Sion voices her question, "I can fly a ship from A to B, but I will be honest that I am pretty well rubbish in aerial combat."

A lavender Twi'lek in a long coat looks the image over, her arms crossed in front of her in thought. She doesn't seem to have much to say, she isn't a Mandalorian Reviver, let alone one of the elites like the Ordos, so she keeps her mouth shut.

Narsai Ordo herself tilts her head to the side as she stands there, looking at the image and considering. "The Thunderheart has turrets, we could use people on them but..." she looks back at Russ. "What's the plan once we land the troops? Are we maintaining support from the air or going in after them?"

Russ inclines his head towards Narsai "That will be a call best made on the ground or in this case in the sky. We do not know how their forces will position themselves when we execute this attack nor do we know exactly what reinforcements they will bring it. It may be best to support from the air. But if most of their defence is internal..." Russ shrugs his shoulders before turning to regard some of the others "For the merceneries we only have a couple of ships spare, as most bring their own ships and most of our own are of course filled with our own pilots. However today we have a m22 Krayt Gunship free that will require both a pilot and a gunner. And we have a couple of dune lizards that are also available for use. It is up to you how you handle yourselves." He shrugs his shoulders one more time. "I wish i had more intel, but there is only so much our scouts can provide us."

"I've never flown a Krayt, or a Dunelizard. But I learn fast. Do you have a gunner available?" Sion asks, frowning thoughtfully. "Most of my experience has been in gunships and freighters, so the Krayt would involve less of a learning curve."

"I don't mind being a gunner on Thunderheart." Sienn pipes up. "Then if the princess has to do work on the ground I could..." she starts, glancing at Narsai, but then Sion speaks. "Wherever you think I'm best suited, I guess." There might be disappointment there.

Asiir looks toward Sienn and there is a slight lifting of his whiskers in amusement as he smirks, noting the disappointment there. He is silent for the most part, though it is evident that he would rather be one of those people on the ground, so long as he isn't the /ONLY/ one on the ground. "If Narsai is heading in to be on the ground, I would be at her side. I've already had to save her skin once, she may need me to be the hero again." He lifts his hand and breaths a quick exhale on his nails before rubbing them on his armor.

"You have an interesting interpretation of events Asiir," the younger Ordo sibling comments, but she's smirking none the less. A nod towards Sion and she shrugs her shoulders. "Avoid the blaster fire, you'll be fine." she winks before turning to the Twi'lek and the Cathar. "With me then, on the guns. If I need to join the ground Sienn can take the stick...just look after my ship." she nods.

Russ looks towards his sister as she assembles the crew for the Thunderheart nodding to himself as they all get setup. He turns back to the hired pilot asking the questions of him. "Don't worry about it. I'll gun for you. You better be worth the credits you are getting paid though. Because if you get shotdown flying the Krayt with me in the passenger seat and somehow survive the crash? I think a few people might have some questions for you." The Mandalorian leader chuckles as he claps an armoured gauntlet down on the womans shoulder. "Come on I will show you the ship. She is an absolue beast. Plenty of firepower, good amount of armour. Perfect for an operation like this. I'll be suprised if you don't fall in love by the end."

Sion smiles faintly. "Right with you. I don't think you'll be disappointed." She stands to follow Russ out, nodding to Sienn and Narsai. And Asiir, now that she's noticed him. Preoccupied girl is preoccupied.

"I'll treat her like my own." Sienn replies. "Besides, I want us all to go home, so I don't intend to get our ride shot out from under us." She nods, though. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

Asiir shakes his head with a laugh and says, "If by interesting you mean perfect recollection of the way things happened, then I will go with that!" He even makes finger guns at the Ordo sister as he pushes himself from the wall he was leaning against and goes to follow her to the Thunderheart.

Narsai Ordo herself just shakes her head, helmet sliding in place after one last check of the pins holding her hair out of her face. Locked, loaded, she moves to head to her beloved ship. Her fingers twitch beneath the protection of her gloves. The excitement before a dogfight never got old.

Russ moves off to give a quick speech to the waiting Mandalorians that will be boarding the troopships to commence the ground assault, it looks to be roughly 250men all of them dressed in the Armour of the Mandalorian revivers. As he finished speaking they all go down to one knee and hold their fist over their chest chanting as one "For Mandalore!" Russ inclines his head to them slightly as they move off to board the ships. He turns back and removes the Mask of Mandalore from his own face, his cape swirling around him slightly as he approaches. "Ok lets get going."

The formation is a simple but effective one. The Kryat Gunship and the Thunderheart form the point of a wedge with the Elite pilots of Narsai's squadron in their firesprays forming the wings with the troopships safely covered in the middle of the formation. There is an odd assortment of mercenery craft bringing up the rear, everything from old headhunters to Gladiator fighters. As they get closer to the facility blips start to appear on their radars. That is alot of contacts. And they are coming in fast. Looks like this droid foundry has not just been producing standard battledroids. Russ's voice crackles over the comm as he reads from his sensor screen. "Fourty contacts approaching. Scarab class droid fighters."

"Morale looks to be high, at least," Sion observes, climbing up into the Krayt and donning her helmet. She does take a moment to look over the controls, but it all looks pretty standard. The Krayt is airborne in minutes. Out in space, the perspective changes quickly. Formation flying takes a certain amount of concentration and control, and Sion's not used to it, so the Krayt does waver a little. The mention of contacts comes almost as a relief. "Looks like the show's about to start. Powering up main weapons, loading launchers, deflectors on..." She barely gets the words out before fire starts coming in. "Whoa!" Her reflexive roll and twist puts her out of position to fire her own weapons. "They're faster than I remembered... no hits, though. Shields are holding."

The Thunderheart isn't a small ship, it's technically a light freighter after all, but the sheer speed of the vessel would make an A-Wing nervous. Narsai grins as she works the controls, her beloved ship zooming towards the sacrabs as she checks the readouts. Shields are up, weapons are charged, time to go to work. As she twists and weaves the craft through the initial fire she can't help but laugh. "Only fourty? Excellent."

"That's... a lot of targets coming in." Sienn says from her turret controls. "_Only_ forty? You lot are mad." But, to work. She fires her cannon and one droid fighter explodes. "Only six hundred thousand left to go."

Asiir /did/ tell them that he was rubbish with aerial combat before they started. He is sitting in one of the turret chairs of the Thunderheart, his eyes gazing at the targeting system doubtfully as he sighs and just starts firing the turret at anything, and missing everything.

Russ swears as the ship does a huge roll and twist throwing his own fire off, the low atmosphere fight showing as he bolts hurtle down dowards the planet. "Keep those troopships covered! They are beginning to head down, keep these fighters off them!" He continues to fire off bursts from the laser canon, but the scarabs are swarming now. So many targets to track, in the end his shots thread the needle between them all. He growls lowly to himself. As he focuses trying to bring one if particular into his sights.

Around them all is chaos. The firesprays let off an almost insane amount of firepower and the mercenery forces join the fray as well. Even then they are outnumbered by more than double. Explosions rock both ships as rockets explode, and shields strain against the bolts slapping out in the chaos of a space melee. But no one is yet able to get the upper hand.

Sion doesn't reply, being too busy keeping the Krayt's thick hide unpierced. Seeing two of the Scarabs moving in on a desperately-evading troop transport, she angles in behind them. "That one needs help! I'll take the right one!" The Krayt easily slides in on the droid fighter's tail, medium lasers blazing. The Scarab jinks and the first shots go wide, but another burst pulverized its shields and turns the droid into shredded dura-alloy. "Scratch two!" Even a small start is a start, right? One at a time will add up!

Narsai had missed this, the thrill of a battle in her ship. As she rounds the 'Heart on one of the droids she squeezes the triggers on her controls, the blaster cannons in the front of the craft spewing a short burst the blows her target apart, scattering the metal to dust under the Mandlorian guns. "That's another!"

"Good shot!" Sienn calls, but maybe that wasn't such a good idea - to take her mind off what she's supposed to be doing. Sure enough, she misses with her own shot. "They're fast." she complains. "Almost had it. Come back around, you little metal buggerer." she shouts at the targeting screen.

Asiir focuses on the targeting system of the Thunderheart turret he is in control of and shakes his head again. He forces himself to take a steadying breath, watching the little dots that represent the enemy craft and then pulls the trigger quickly when one is in position and manages to score a hit. "YEAH!" he yells out. "I got one!"

Russ's fingers jam down on the triggers, the fire from his turret shredding the droids shields and impacting heavy against its engines causing it to veer off from it's attack course on the transports. "Thats what i am talking about! Good flying. Keep in close to those transports! We don't want any slipping through the gaps. If even one of those transports goes down that is dozens of lives!" The chaos still reigns arouond them as the outnumbered but far from outclassed Mandalorian fighters try to keep them back from the transports. Neither of the two ships they are flying in go unscathed, random bolts and shrapnel slamming against their shields. But at least no fighters manage to get a clear lock on them. It is not enough to do more than have a strong pull on the power to their deflector shields. A couple of the mercenery fighters are torn apart as their againg craft can't keep up with the stress heaped upon them by this kind of combat. For now at least though Narsai's elite fighter wing is without casualties. Below them the ground starts to rush up to meet them as they get lower, the factory can now be seen little more than a speck below them as the approach is made.

A hit on the Thunderheart shields must have caused a momentary power surge in the turret as Sienn's target disppears from her scope for a moment when she fires her cannon. "Got... no, there it is. Oh, come on!" and she curses in Ryl.

"Deflectors at 76 percent... I think we've got a problem here," Sion yelps, twisting and turning to try and throw off a persistent tail. She snaps off a burst of fire at a Scarab and is rewarded with a blossom of expanding incandescent gas as its fuel cells cook off. "They're really starting to notice these troop transports!" She swerves and barely avoids a pair of laser blasts. The Krayt is beginning to shake with atmospheric turbulence as they get down into actual air, diving for the factory even if her own maneuvers don't keep them facing that way. Sion is doing her best to stay with the transports, and hoping the Scarabs don't simply grow too numerous to fight off. "Just another minute 'til target... come on, just a little longer..."

A hit on her shields was to be expected, but that doesn't particularly mean Narsai likes her ship being shot at. The cannon blasts again, taking a droid down as the redhead keeps the craft on the task of protecting their troops. "C'mon..." she mutters under her breath, eyes narrowing as she focuses intently on the run.

Asiir's luck ran out on his first shot, and as the Thunderheart takes heavy hits Asiir grunt as his return fire goes wide and flies harmlessly past the droid ship he is firing upon.

"I am on it." Russ calls through his comm to Sion as he swivels the turret bringing it to bear on their pursuer. He holds down the trigger with a low growl echoeing out from the back of his throat. The heavy blaster fire rips through the chasing scarabs shields before pulverizing the metal frame in an instant. "That one is down." His eyes scan back towards the transports and the way the scarabs are near suicide charging them at this point. "They must be being directed from the ground! Organics that really don't want us to land and assault on the ground. Trying to force us into retreat before the assault can begin!" A few more of the mercenery fighters go down, a headhunter narrowly avoiding the Kryat gunship as it tears past in flames. Even one of the firespraays goes down, finally overwhelmed by superior numbers. Hopefully his suit was enough to save the pilot. "One minute everyone. And then we can focus on killing rather than protecting." The gravity of the planet can be fully felt now as it desperatly struggles to draw them all down to the surface of the planet.

More go down, and more come on... Sion's having a hard time keeping track at this point, as the Krayt's sensors ping constantly with warnings about the troop transports taking fire. She swoops in on another's flank, trying to stay with it, but utterly unable to get a missile lock. The annoying lock-attempt beeping continues as she keeps trying. "Well, if they're trying this hard, what they're protecting must be seriously worth capturing! I just hope we reach the ground so we can find out what it is!"

Narsai Ordo doesn't answer Sion this time, instead she's busy weaving the fighter through the air towards their goal, blaster fire filling the air around them while she sweeps around, more blaster fire raking one of the enemy fighters out of the air as she sweeps around.

Sienn has one of the droids in her sights now. This time it's not getting away. She fires and the thing explodes in a lovely fireball. "Eat hot death!" and then she pitches her voice down. "No soul, no honor." mimicing something Feyrr might say.

Russ is struggling to line up his turret, feeling gravity fight against him and his actions amongst the sheer chaos going on around them as they complete reentry. The troopships drop away faster now, beginning their almost suicidal chargew downwards to deposit their payloads of commandos as fast as they can. Even so the scarabs do everything then can to try and knock them out of the air. But at this point it is almost too late. One of the troop pods is rocked as lasers slam through its shields, but the heavy armour plating absorbs the blast as it continues to accelerate now. Russ's voice crackles over the comm "Knock out as many of these fighters as you can! We need to free up some space to support our men on the ground. They will likely need fire support. This foundry seems capable of putting out a wide variety of forces."

At last! The transports are down! Sion swoops away after a diving Scarab that missed its strafing run and destroys it with a missile. The cockpit is finally beep-free! "We might be at this awhile!" she calls to Russ, angling off after another droid fighter. Now that she's got the hang of it, the gunship is moving like a fat but deadly bird of prey. "There are still a lot of them left!"

"Sienn!" Narsai calls as the Thunderheart continues to deal damage on the scarab numbers. "Be ready to take over if I need to jump!" she calls over the ship's comlink, still taking down hostile aircraft even as she speaks. The call over the comm makes Sienn jump and she misses her taget again. "One at a time, boys, one at a time. There's plenty of plasma destruction for all of you." she spits. Still, she keys the comm button. "I hear you, princess. Will do."

"We don't need to kill them all. Just enough to give us enough breathing room to make some gun runs." Russ's voice trails off as he finally makes out the scene below as the Mandalorian warriors charge from their transport ships weapons blazing. Hundreds of Mandalorians. Thousands of droids. All the way from standard battle droids to destroyer droids. And between all of them AAT battle tanks. There must be at least a dozen of them. The Mandalorians are well equipped and well armoured. But they do not have that kind of ground support available to them right now. They are going to need alot of support. And the aerial battle is still not won.