Log:Resistance/First Order: Do Try to Keep Up
A duel over the skies of Nar Shaddaa between the First Order and the Resistance
OOC Date: December 3, 2016
Location: Nar Shaddaa
Participants: Fuze, Triz Dermout, Kath Hounds
Triz had spoken to Tactical and had her X-Wing ready and her little R2 unit already in the ship just in case the call came that Fuze was in the air. Of course she hadn't cleared it with her bosses cause we all know it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Once the call comes in she is out of the barracks and into her X-wing. The usual pre-flight and the final kiss on the lips which are then placed on the dash "Ready big boy?" She asks the ship then to the droid "Lets get into the sky, R2." Once airborne and has gotten a vector to the general location of the TIE she opens up the general broadcast channel <<Aurek One. Aurek One. Is that you? I really didn't think you would show.>>
Fuze's clear, laughing voice is almost instantly in Triz's ear. "Wouldn't miss this for the world! So it WAS you in the bar. I half-guessed. Don't worry, I'm not going easy on you. I'm in Sector Four, just west of Gnuda's palace. Let's dance!" Her fingers caress the controls, sliding the yoke back and bringing the TIE near-vertical, climbing hard out of the concrete canyons for better visibility. Breaking the radio link, she tells Edie, "I'll buy you beers forever if you shoot her down."
"R2, scan sector four, give me a range and bearing please," Triz says to the little droid as the X-Wing banks sharply and proceeds to Sector Four. "I don't know what you are talking about in the bar. I was told that Aurek One was looking for me so I thought I would give a look see. But since you wish to dance, lets dance" comes the reply. Her voice sounding just like Triz's in the bar. But one must keep up the whole secret thing, right? Leveling out Triz begins to fine tune her scanners trying to find the TIE before she is spotted. <<As for taking it easy, Aurek, don't worry, I won't be either.>>
Again comes that clear voice in Triz's earpiece, "Good. Then we have an understanding." She still sounds like she's smiling, and she is. Her TIE, spiralling up, disappears into the low clouds and is lost from sight. The lightning dances from cloud to cloud and cloud to ground, playing merry hell with the scanners, injecting bursts of static that may or may not be positive enemy contacts. And all of a sudden she's there, dropping out of the boiling clouds behind the X-wing at...oh, fifty feet range, almost close enough to touch. Calmly she aims for the engine heat signatures, getting the lock, and her fingers squeeze the fire control like it was a lover, caressing the trigger. Maybe Triz zigs at just the right moment. Maybe Fuze's hairtrigger is a moment too soon. Maybe her fire control is out of calibration. The blaster bolts skim past, warning of her presence, and she lets loose a curse.
"R2, I am not seeing anything. See if you can clear this up some." The little droid beeps angrily as Triz cranes her neck this way and that trying to spot the little TIE. <<What, do you lure me out here just to run and...>> the transmission is cut off abruptly as beams from the laser flashes by Triz. "Crap, where the hell did she come from?" Triz is asking all the while she is moving her ship to get out of the fire. She first banks right but then quickly banks left and holds it in a tight left turn till the ship starts to groan in protest. "Hold together, big boy, you can do it." The TIE flashing in her targeting computer vid and she squeezes off a round but the angle was steep and she was barely into position "I can sting back. Fuze. But you knew that didn't you. Ha!"
Fuze laughs over the radio. She's happy. "I'd be disappointed if you couldn't, babe," she laughs, and just for a moment she jinks straight and level. That, of course, gives Edie a stable platform to unleash the twin ion cannons on the gimbal turret, firing backwards at the oncoming X-wing. Just enough time for the two shots, before Fuze stands the TIE on its tail and dives for the concrete chasms of Nar Shaddaa far below them, the ground rushing up to meet them as they continue their deadly dive. stands the TIE on its nose, even.
"Damn, she's good," Says Triz as once again she is having to dodge laser blast aimed at her. She pulls back the stick and rolls right, looking at the TIE heading down to the ground <<Not running to go hide are we? Oh, and tell Eddie she has to do better than that, barely had to move my stick to avoid those shots." She lets off a burst as she follows doing into the canyons below. "Tight scan on the display, R2, it's gonna get tight down here."
"Do try and keep up, babe," Fuze laughs happily as she keeps diving. Past the monolithic tower blocks, plunging through speeders and low-level shuttles - one Swoop pilot swerves violently to avoid the TIE, clipping a building and dissolving into a flaming pyre that tumbles downwards after Fuze's ship. Down into the maze-like underbelly of the city. And here it's clear that this was Fuze's plan all along; she's planned this route, skimming under bridges and catwalks, spiralling through tangled skeins of electrical wiring strung between buildings, playing follow-my-leader in the dim shadows and deceptive lighting. She's lured Triz down here, and all the time Edie is firing back at the pursuing X-wing.
The fire from Eddie is easily avoided not just because of the position that Triz is in but because both ships are now weaving and bobbing in the underbelly of the city. <<Keep up? Ha, while you are having to work I spotted to great places I'm coming back to when this is over. Great food it looked like.>> comes Triz over the radio. Just as she is about to shoot a cross traffic truck like thing comes into view and Triz has to raise the X-Wing up and over then back down onto the TIE before she can shoot. "Damnit," she mutters into the confines of the ship's cabin knowing that she didn't hit.
As Fuze rounds a corner, a security light shines right into the cockpit of the TIE. She flings up an arm but the damage is done; her sliding turn goes wide and she has to break sharp right to avoid the corner of a building. Now her plan is in disarray; this is no longer the route she carefully reconnoitered and picked and she's having to rely on gut instinct. She slows just a fraction, losing a little of her edge, as Edie continues to keep up a steady percussion of fire from the turret. "Come on, Edie, get her off my ass!" she mutters in the intercom, and then over the radio to Triz, "What, you offering to buy me dinner, babe?"
<<Oops, that was close, you alright there, Fuze? Please don't crash let me shoot you down instead.>> Triz has the advantage as she gets to follow the TIE. It goes up, she goes up, it turns she turns. But the fire is there coming right at her. Her vision is clouded up as her shields light from the fire. "Crap," she says as the X-Wing is rocked by the hits. "R2, check for damage." The little droid beeps but any firing solution is gone as she finally catches a glimpse of the fighter. <<Sure, I figured the winner should buy the looser a meal. I've already put the credits away, Fuze.>>
"What do you like to eat, babe? You like hot food? Because I'm figuring your piece of shit X-wing is gonna get real warm real soon, babe," Fuze's voice declares cheerfully. She's still jinking and jiving and Edie's still firing; she rolls the TIE a full barrel roll down a wider canyon before using all of the TIE's agility to zip into an alley and fly down that, so close to the ground that debris and garbage is spun up behind her.
<<I'm partial to a good noodle soup, actually. While you are down that low, mind picking me up some before you have to walk home?>> Triz replies just before she strains at the controls of her craft to try to keep up with the nimble TIE. She is not only working the stick but reaching up to adjust the engine flows as well to try to stay on the tail of the First Order's fighter. The Alley way she was led into is a perfect shooting gallery, for both sides as her shields light up again but not before she got her shots off as well. Grunting and straining with the forces being tossed at her inside the cockpit, Triz has already broken out in a soaking sweat.
As warning lights illuminate Fuze's cockpit as the shields take a hammering, the pilot grins a ferocious grin inside her helmet. She has the X-wing where she wants it. "You talk too much, babe. Start flying instead." And her hand whips out and slams the throttle /backwards/, the thrusters on the twin ion engines screaming in protest as the agile little TIE is braked hard, dropping down to skim a foot off the ground as the X-wing barrels up behind it. Triz can either brake too, overfly the TIE, or ram it - but whatever course Triz chooses, Edie's pounding her laser cannons at almost point-blank range into the oncoming X-wing.
No time to talk as the small TIE seems to stop right infront of her. Again the shields light up briefly and she squeezes off a blast. That's all the time she has for as she slams the throttles full forward and yanks back on the stick as far as it will go till she is heading vertical. She rolls her ship one hundred and eighty degrees while doing so. <<That was a good move, Fuze. I will have to remember that one>>. Then she pulls back on the stick again, bringing the craft into a loop so that she is right side up again.
As Triz goes vertical, the TIE's shield-spreader 'wings' groan as Fuze whips the First Order fighter up in pursuit. Now she has the drop on Triz, and her fingers caress the firing stud to trigger the forward-firing fixed laser cannons either side of the bulbous cockpit, the fiery blue plasma streaking after the rolling X-wing. "You're learning," Fuze grins into her mike. "Does your piece of shit X-wing fire backwards?" she adds innocently, watching the targetting computer try to lock on to the zigging and zagging X-wing before her.
Triz had the momentum by leaping full throttle over the no slowed TIE and thus cleared the buildings. As the TIE chases her she levels out at the bottom of the loop waiting for the TIE to show. When it does she lets the Fighter fly into her targeting computer <<Nope, but it doesn't do badly from the front>> She replies as she pulls the trigger sending more laser blasts at the speeding little craft. As soon as she fires she is banking hard right to bring the nose of the X-Wing back onto the TIE.
Now it's no longer follow-the-leader. Fuze brings her TIE back vertical as well, but then pushes the control yoke hard over, eliciting a gasp from Edie in the back pocket as she circles a water-tower in search of the X-wing. The G-suits they both wear are working overtime, inflating first the legs and then the upper torso, forcing blood up and down to avoid blackouts and redouts. Several warning lights are lit up indicating stress exceedances, but Fuze is ignoring them. "Damn, you're better than I thought, babe. Join us. You can be my wingman."
<<Really. Your wingman. Ha! More like you can be my wingman>> Triz is working over time, though it may not come out on the radio, but it might all the same. The cockpits of the X-Wing may be armored but it's not built for creature comforts. Even with the belts tight she is getting a work out and it's taking it's toll on the Resistance pilot. But she still has lots of fight left as she snaps the right roll back tot he left and as the TIE comes around the water tower she is waiting. Lasers blast streak across the night sky heading to where the TIE will be. <<Oh, and tell Eddie that next time she should go shopping with me, you have lousy taste in clothes.>>
Triz's X-wing blasts away and the shields of the TIE crackle and spark and dissolve, red warning lights illuminating the black visor of Fuze's helmet. And then the port shield-spreader is disintegrating, panels ripping off as the TIE shudders, the asymmetric torque almost sending Fuze into the roof of the building she's coming across. And then...
...laser bolts flash past Triz's cockpit, not from Fuze's TIE but from someone above them. And Fuze's voice rises to a despairing yell, distorting on the hailing frequency: "No!" If Triz twists her head to look, there's a flight of two more TIEs at her six o'clock, much higher, barely within long range but diving to engage more closely.
Which is when Fuze whips the TIE up above Triz's X-wing, firing as she does so...but not at Triz. The plasma cannons blast away at the buildings ahead of Triz, explosions blossoming before her such that fragments of shrapnel pepper the X-wing, the smoke from the explosions darkening the gloomy air.
"FZ-4792!" an authoritative voice booms over an encrypted First Order frequency, "Break left! You're blocking our fire!" Fuze's TIE wobbles, but doesn't break; "Unable" she snaps, "Losing the port stabilizers. Cover me." She looks down; she's flying just above the X-wing, and she can see the little R2 unit and Triz's helmet, no doubt Triz's head searching for her. "Come on, Fuze, I almost have a lock!" cries out Edie in the gunner's half of the cockpit. And then Fuze's fingers broadcast over the hailing frequency, "Dinner postponed," she mutters tersely, and abruptly pulls the TIE into a vertical turn, heading straight for the oncoming patrol flight.
It's almost a bitter sweet victory as Triz watches the TIE take the hits. She knows the next fire will be killing shots. But then the blast from out of no where come at her. "Oh crap, where are those coming from?" She asks R2 who beeps wildly. Triz is looking for the new attacker before noticing what Fuze is doing. Flying through the debris the rest of her shields go and so the larger chunks do minor damage. When she clears it she does indeed look up and there is the belly of the TIE right above her. "I owe you one, Fuze" she says on the channel before diving down in the gloom of the buildings, hoping that those and Fuze's ship blocks the scanners from the new pair of TIEs. She zig zags her way, careful to stay as low as she dares which means diving under awnings and walkways, a few wires snapped off by her wings. <<Till next time>> she calls out still working to clear the area and return to base.
