Log:Resistance: Darker Duros
Darker Duros
OOC Date: October 4, 2018
Location: Duros System
Participants: David Ironside, Ektor, Elrych Cometburn, Jessika Pava, Jonn Drayson as Jump Jye, Karas Darkwing, Poe Dameron
The planet Duros is a key one in Galactic history; among the first species to master hyperspace, this world has supported an interstellar civilization longer than almost any others in the known stars. The first sight of it, with all that history, might be rather underwhelming, since it looks very much like a planet that has been utterly spent by supporting an interstellar civilization: colored in shades of brown and black, and grey, it is a world poisoned with pollution, whose surface is made up of polluted ruins, toxic seas, and noxious clouds, all proper civilization long since having fled to the dozens of orbital cities looming over the rotten world. These massive stations support a population of billions, and contain the vibrant and adventurous Duros culture, a vast crossroads of trade, together with the Duros shipyards; one of the most prominent Core Worlds with a non-Human population, and one of the most important Core worlds remaining outside the influence of the First Order.
At least, it had been.
The sharply angular spike profile of a Dissident-class light cruiser is docked at the center of the system's commerce, Pellezara Station. Two triads of TIE/fo starfighters are patrolling the space around the station, where most every civilian freighter must dock upon arrival. The Resistance Starfighters have their orders: destroy every fighting ship with a First Order transponder.
The tell-tale jerk of the craft emerging from hyperspace rocks Poe firmly against his seat. His hand retreats from the lever and moves up to engage his S-foils. "This is Black Leader. All call signs sound off and form on my wing. Target to follow. Open your S-foils to attack position." Black Leader's engines glow a defiant red leaving behind a contrail that's eerie to the bare eye when in contrast to the vast darkness of space.
Dropping out of hyperspace, Karas feels the jerking of his craft, but he too flips the toggle for the wings of his X-wing to switch to attack position. "Black 2 standing by." he says as he finally makes his first mission with Black Squadron. Still his astromech Spark lets Karas knows that he is helping him scan the area as they move into position.
Following behind Black 2, another X-Wing enters realspace. The others are quickly notified to David Ironside's arrival when he chimes in. "Black 3, standing by." He keeps slightly behind the XO, and to the side. "Eyes on a half dozen TIEs and a light cruiser, not positive on the class from here." The newly-christened Black 3 wasn't always that, and some wear on the controls reminds David of his time with Gold Squadron. Memories that usually pop into his mind during this time, the 'roll call'.
Elrych Cometburn is here, somwhere, comming out of Hyperspace in his Aethersprite. He's already scanning his screens linked to his goggles. His music is low, background noise for now. He reaches out to the force to lend him aid with his reactions to the impending battle.
Aight. "Black Four, standing by" was the cocksure and far-too-pleased-for-his-own-good voice of Jump 'Jets' Jye, ace pilot, braggart extraordinaire, possibly an idiot, but otherwise alright behind the stick. There was a satisfying whine through the cockpit of the T-85 X-Wing, the distinctive noise of S-Foils opening into attack position. "Alright Meatsack," he said to his far-from-meaty astromech droid, "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen. Time to tangle with some deep fried fighter jocks!" Of course this was ignoring the fact that, as an astromech (and one far smarter than its owner, I might add), he didn't have any linen to drop, nore a mouth with which to grin. Meatsack the droid beeped in a despondent sigh.
Most of these motions are routine. Hyperspace turns to real space. She depresses her communication toggle and responds to Major Dameron's expected order for call-sign sound off. "Black Seven, good to go." The hand on her craft's throttle abandons it to use another toggle, but this one opens her snubfighter's s-foils so they're split apart. It moves back to its resting spot on the throttle, and she adjusts it forward to match speed with the rest of Black Squadron. Her thumb disables the firing safeties on her weapons, which primes the quartet of laser cannons at the tip of each s-foil, while her thumb rests near, but not against, the guard flipped down over the button for her proton torpedoes. Sensor information begins to flood in.
She doesn't need it to see the light cruiser and the station that it's docked with. As far as missions go, this one has the most risk she's seen. They've never tangled with a light cruiser with only starfighters in recent history, and it comes with its own screen of fighter support. The numbers aren't in their favor with this one, but it's this or let Duros go completely uncontested, and there's too much of that going around.
"Distant-class! I called it, I win," Ektor crows in answer to Dave. "Ha! And Poe thought I wasn't awake at the briefing." Of course, he's pronouncing 'Dissident-class' wrong. "Oh, uh.. and Black Five standing by, too." The X-wing slips smoothly into formation as he awaits the assignments.
"Good copy on all. Initial target will be the cruiser. We'll be doing a single pass, put what you can into it and make it count." Poe pushes his craft to full speed. "Hey pal, let's put the bulk of our shields up front!" Safeties off, cannons primed. "When we break, I want Black 4, 5, and 7 with me. We're breaking left to engage fighters. The rest of you are with Black 2 breaking right to do the same. I will call out if we need to make another run on the cruiser, so be ready to respond!"
"Copy Black Leader." he says as he begins his run on the cruiser. Karas flips the switch to his S-Foils and increases the speed of his T-85. This is his true first time flying this new fighter and he is pushed back as the power from the engines pushes him back. Still he brings up the targeting system going for a lock on with his proton torpedos. Though as he races towards his target and trying to get a lock, the turbo lasers fire stich across his bow. "Kriff!" he calls out. "Chased off. Black 3 and 6 on me after your run" he calls out as he quickly begins moving to intercept the incoming TIES.
"I'm on your four, Black 2." David transmits as he pushes the craft into intercept speed. Three of the TIEs pass in front of them, and rather than being shot at on his bombing run, David decides to cover for Karas and breaks early, opening fire on the trio. "You're clear, Black 6. Make it count." He watches his blasts strike a TIE, the shields on it lighting up but casually dimming down again after the hit is well and truly tanked. "Forming back up, Black 2." he offers.
"Copy Leady," Silver two aknowledges and switches over to his concussion missle launcher. The Arrowhead shaped interceptor only had the one but it was better than nothing. At least it was still as fast as and agile as an A-Wing. The computer reads an error report as the young Jedi brings up the targeting array. He grumbles, "Baby... I thought we fixed this." HE lets one loose in the general direction anyways, it goes wide. He breaks off to find a fighter to toy with.
"Alright, last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer!" hollered Jump 'Jets' Jye as he let loose two bundles of red explosivey goodness towards the Distant-class cruiser. See, he was like Ektor and not paying much attention during the briefing, instead looking through his datapad at the latest reality HoloNet show recaps. Turns out he didn't pick either of them! What a waste of time! And speaking of paying attention, he should have paid more when firing the torps because as it turns out he'd pulled the trigger right before a solid lock. Off into space they sailed, and "Aw man!" Jump 'Jets' Jye wailed. He broke left, following Black Leader, to hopefully kill a TIE or two to make up for his epic flail.
"Black Seven acknowledges." Adjusting her heading towards the cruiser itself, Jessika reminds herself to go port afterwards by chanting it in her head like a mantra as a lead up to her own run against the cruiser. The TIEs aren't going to try to draw them away for long, and this little window they have is going to be instrumental in making the battlefield a little more evenly matched. If they can get some good hits in, at least. That's always the question when it boils down to it. The station and cruiser both increase rapidly in size as she approaches, and as the trail fighter in the formation, Jessika waits patiently for those ahead to break off out of her firing arc before a squeeze of her flight stick's trigger lets loose the shots from her cannons.
Most deflect, but one registers a solid impact, and Jessika glances at her readings to ascertain that the cruiser is still healthy in the shield department. "I got a solid hit, but didn't do much damage." That brief glance doesn't delay her turn to port, which sees her bank off to follow Black Leader and the other fighters as the TIEs begin to swarm the attacking X-Wings. Two impacts against her shields are indicated in triplicate: an active shimmer, a warning on her console, and the active warble from her astromech. "I see it!"
The Dissident-class light cruiser Regulus breaks dock with Pellezara station at about the time the battle between starfighters is joined. A quartet of turrets on the warship power up and swing to life, laying down waves 9f suppressive fire to dissuade the dreaded trench run frontal assault.
Ektor chuckles to himself as he dives into an attack run on the light cruiser, fire control flipped to toroedoes, landing a hit of streaking blue boom on the target, cracking the shields with a visible flicker and flash. "Cruiser's shields are down, I'm gonna stay on it-" he states, but off by an impact on his own shields. While the Tionese had been weaving between turret salvos, the TIEs have descended. "Eh, drek. Tenner, get started on that, yeah?"
"Yeah buddy, I saw him. I'll deal with it when we get back." Poe said in a tone that suggested he was displeased. BB-8 assured him that the action was recorded. Having had a good connection with his initial gun run, Poe had gone through the motion of coming about. Already pursued by a TIE, Poe watched as it haphazardly fired over him, missing each shot. "There's one to my six." Poe calls as he hones in on his own target, trusting the pilot team with him to cover his back. Hearing Ektor, Poe sighs and adjusts his heading. "Not alone, pal. We're staying with you!" Ektor had sealed the fate of Poe's team, and Poe resigned to keep Ektor within the group rather than letting him fight it alone. That mean abandoning to fighters that were in pursuit.
Hearing Ektor, and shaking his had, but before he can say anything Poe is speaking. Quickly looking to his tacitcle display Karas nods his head more to himself. Rolling over wing to wing, "Blacks 3 and 6 on my wing, we will clear the road for Black Leader and his flight wing." he calls out as he quickly pulls a tight G-Turn and as he does, his targeting display lights up and without thinking Karars presses the trigger on the control stick to see a F/O Tie detonate. "Splash 1." he calls. Having given his orders he begins going after targets to help cover Black Leads flight group.
"Great shot, Black 2!" David offers, barely having seen the shot but the explosion that came after was hard to miss. He's still on the, now, duo of TIEs, adding occasional laser fire to the chase. He eventually manages to get full lock, shooting the TIE labeled Beta 2 in the connectors on the left, cleanly separating the wing from the cockpit. He doesn't stick around to watch, though, as his ship is rocked by laser fire and he's now the one being hunted. "Scratch one, and there's another on my tail."
Elrych Cometburn is busy trying to get a lock on B3 with his lasers but the Agile TIE isjust about as fast and maneuverable, if more so, than his Aethersprite. "Come on..." A stray Ionblast zips across his shields from the cruiser. Baby reports they've taken a bit of a hit but fore he can say anything Baby has taken care of the problem. "Good boy... now if only..." THe TIE gets a little slack and meanders across his crosshairs. Elrych takes a shot, impacting bolts on his shields but they're still holding. He presses the chase.
PA-POW PA-POWtshtshtshtshtsh. That was probably the worst sound anyone tangling with TIE Fighters could ever hear, especially with how dangerous these new models were. They had SHIELDS, the blasted things. Or at least that's what Jump 'Jets' Jye was led to believe. "Meatsack boost power to the rears!" he screamed frantically as his assailant hammered his shields harder than Sar Yavok at an open bar, demonstrating his patented ability to turn to jelly the second the pressure was on.
Flying on someone's wing was not easy. You had to ignore the person shooting you, sometimes, and take shots at the bastards shooting your friends. Not that Poe Dameron was Jump 'Jets' Jye's friend, especially after his epic mess-up with the torps. But still, Jump 'Jets' Jye was gonna redeem himself, and he was gonna do it well. He was gonna, but he didn't. That background radiation had better watch out, though!
Compliant with Black Leader's tasking, Jessika changes vector towards Alpha group and sets her sights on the third element in the lineup. Despite having taken some damage from the other, she avoids the current chaos that's resulting from deviation and sticks to the plan. Juking and weaving around friend and foe alike, Jessika twists her fighter towards a diving angle on Alpha Three shortly after its run towards Black Two. A squeeze of her own trigger replies to its hit against Black Squadron's executive officer by smacking it with her own, but the craft's shields remain up. "Black Seven engaging Alpha Three." It's a quick note to cover bases as the fray becomes more frantic, allowing for smarter selection of unengaged targets.
Ektor cackles merrily as the furious fight swings sharply in favor of the Resistance. "Boss, you say the nicest things," he returns to Poe, smiling like a fool as the attack formation weaves between the cruiser's defensive firing solution. His second run of toroedoes results in another punishing hit that sends up shredded durasteel, buckles armored hull plating and very briefly vents a small measure of atmosphere. "OOH, they felt that one, yeah? Almost down, boys and girls, Black Squad, bringing the boom!" Tenner mournfully reports that Ektor allowed the ship to be hit too hard, previously and the shields will need more time.
Meanwhile, the surviving TIEs attack furiously, in a desperate effort to drive the Xwings away from the Regulus, as the battered light cruiser at last lights its impulse engines and attempts to get out of the planet's gravity well.
Poe hears Karas bringing up the slack, and sees the rest of the squadron where they're supposed to be. "I appreciate it Black 2." Poe acknowledged the initiative of his XO, his actions only justifying why he'd been selected in the first place. Meanwhile, Poe is locked in a deadly frenzy of movement having to first zero in on his errant fighter pilot Ektor so he can be there to support the crazy Tionese pilot. Poe arrives just in time to see Ektor sink his torpedoes against the hull, and Poe follows suit. Lifting the safety cover from the firing stud, Poe fires his own torpedoes sinking in another devastating shot the takes their engines completely offline. "The cruiser's nearly down. Finish her off with another pass and return to fighters!" Poe's voice is firm, and any watching the pair of fighters may see that Poe has closed his S-foils to allow for cruising speed so he can come about and manuever with a bit more flair. "I'm with you, Black 5. Black 7, are you guys good over there?" Poe regrets having to break off from Jess and Jump, but he could not leave Ektor alone.
"No problem Boss." he says into his comm. Getting a sensor report and finding that Black 3 is still dancing with his bogey, he shakes his head, "Black 3 continue forward, I'm going to take that bogey off you, form up with 6 and you two keep covering Black Lead Flight." he says as Black 2's S-Foils close and his engine naccels brighten as power is fed into them launching it up and over in a loop. He spins his fighter around and comes in at an angle towards Black 3, the S-Foils on Black 2 opens up and red energy beams fire rapidly towards the TIE fighetr, but he misses, still this may set Dave up to finish it.
"Mind if I take a rain check on that order, Black 2?" David replies while dodging both X-Wing and TIE laser fire. Taking a page out of Karas' book, he loops up and out of view of the forward-facing TIE cockpit, ending up behind it. A flick of a switch later, the X-Wing lets loose an unholy barrage of laser fire from all four wing tips and the underslung blaster cannon, sending bits and pieces everywhere as the entire craft explodes. "Thanks for the assist, Black 2. Forming up with Black 6, we're in the home stretch."
Elrych Cometburn looks up and out towards the cruiser as it's barely limping along. The call for another run comes in over the comms. "Understood, Lead." He breaks off from chasing B3 and pushes the throttle forward. Reaching out with the force, instead of using his busted computer that never seems to work at any point in time. He waits for when it feels right and sends another concussion missle streaking crimson red towards the derelect. It impacts near the reactor, slightl exposed from the previous passes by the X-Wings. There's a chain reaction, a bright flash... Elrych has to pull back hard on his stick to avoid the explosion and hurdling debris. "Ahh... I think the cruiser is down..." He looks back out his view port, "Yeah... it's down." "Baby did you see that?"
The home stretch?! It was at that point that the weapons console in the T-85 exploded! A black soot face would have been far more hilarious on Jump 'Jets' Jye had his own life not been in imminent and very fatal danger. "Uh! Uh! Uh!" he babbled out meaninglessly as he scrambled to put the panel, all burnt out and hot-to-touch, back in place. Forgoing a shot with his weapons, impossible as it would be, he used his elbow (on the arm holding the panel) to jam the throttle to full and pulled his stick back (with his free hand), sending him into a corkscrew that would have had Jump 'Jets' Jye pass out had Meatsack not dialed up the internal compensator out of brain-mush levels.
"Ackno--," Jessika cuts off her response to Black Leader's directive to make a run at the cruiser, because the flash of light in her cockpit is all it takes to alert her that there is no cruiser to make a run at. Instead, she angles right back towards Alpha Three via a tight u-turn that gives her a small window of engagement time. She takes what she can get, and another squeeze sends harmless shots out into the void, save for the one that impacts the craft's already damaged shields, which are holding much better than her own. Or, were, as her astromech unit reports that her shields have been restored towards their maximum power. It's comforting, especially knowing the cruiser's guns are no longer in the fight, but Jessika doesn't relax.
Ektor crowd over the channel as the dying Regulus is destroyed. Some escape pods launch toward the polluted brown ball far below, as the Furst Order warship explodes. "YEAH, Silver. Thatta way!" Banking back toward the fight alongside Jess and Poe, he spots an Xwing in very bad shape, with a TIE on its smoking six. "Hey, Jump? You know you got that all backwards, yeah?" Black 5 streaks up at a blind vector and annihilates Alpha 2, managing to place all four cannon blasts in sequence through the eyeball cockpit, and flying through the fireball.
With their primary objective seemingly failed, the surging TIE/fo starfighters scatter, racing for escape from the orbital pull of Duros.
Poe is a bit frustrated, though not with the outcome of the mission. Sustaining his course at breakneck speed, he twists his yoke and angles toward the first of two remaining TIEs he sees. A casual flip of the switch sees the S-foils open again, and before his craft can even lose its momentum, he fires and splits the TIE into pieces. The explosion blasts its hull apart and Poe has already closed his S-foils again sailing between the momentum. BB-8 asks a timid question and it makes Poe blink and realize just how frustrated he was. "Yeah, I hear you buddy. Sorry." He sighs firmly and uses his targeting computer to transmit to the others where the remaining targets is, and that it was time to wipe this system clean of TIEs. "Good work, Black Squadron. Let's clean this up and return to friendly lines. Mark this as another victory for Black Squadron. Great work, Silver 2. Another clutch shot for the books, buddy."
Karas watches as things unfolds and as Poe goes after the last of the Tie Fighters, Karas races after the other seeing that their CO isn't going to get the other remaining fighter. Pouring power into the engines, Karas chases down the enemy fighter. The T-85 isn't wasting time as it's engines flare to life, pushing it's pilot back into his seat. Once he gets a targeting solution, Karas fires, sending all four energy bolts right into the Tie destroying it.
Elrych Cometburn was going to join up with the others to help take out the rest of the TIE's but there all gone by the time he catches up. "Aww man... I'll never make ace at this rate." Baby whistles something, "Wait... does the cruiser count. I mean... I guess?" "Thanks Lead... ready to jump out of here when you are."
It took a few helpful beeps before Meatsack finally got through to Jump 'Jets' Jye. His cockpit falling to pieces all around him, he was still spiralling almost-out-of-control. At least, until he heard that there were no more threats in the area. "Oh! Game over, man!" he hissed to himself in despair. He was gonna get court-martialed for this screw-up! "Game over!"
By the time she's got any kind of angle on Alpha Three again, the craft is gone thanks to Black Leader's cannons. The remaining few fighters are destroyed, along with the cruiser, which leave her sensors clear of hostile targets and reading only friendly IFFs. "Guess that's that.." Murmuring it to herself, Jessika shuts her s-foils and banks towards the exit vector designated for the purposes of getting out of Duros' gravity well. It's a mission with no casualties on their side and elimination of all enemy forces, which is the best outcome they could have hoped for. "Black Seven heading for jump point." She's got no new recorded kills of her own for the engagement, but Duros has gotten some much needed breathing room.
"Kriff YEAH it is," Ektor agrees with Black Leader's summary of the mission as a victory. "Course to primary rendesvouses laid in, waving to Pellezara Station as we go by..." Yes, he actually waves in the cockpit. "Ready to jump on your mark, Boss." With a crooked grin audible in his voice, Black Five adds, before jumping out, "Hey, Jye? I recall somebody saying that last one to log a kill buys drinks. Soooo. You're buying back on the Ren, yeah?" Tenner honks at him, scolding the Tionese for picking on the poor kid. Ektor laughs aloud as he closes the S-foils, pushes the hyperdrive levers on command, and disappears into hyperspace along with the rest of Black Squadron. They were in the Duros system for barely ten minutes.
