Log:Spice Runners: Lightskip and Hop Away

Poe and crew test out their getaway plan.

OOC Date: May 2, 2022
Location: Deep Space
Participants: Spice Runners, Erinn Laski, Tess Vikander, Black Krrsantan, Poe Dameron

<<"Bee-Bee Eight says the line is clear, so everyone form up on me..">> Poe says, his voice slightly robotic over the comms to those who are flying with them. A few of the old crew from the Spice Runners, shaking off some rust, have arrived in their old junkers and fighters to prove their mettle. The CEC YT-2400 'Outrider' comes to life after a few switches are flipped up. The ship seems ready to go until Poe flips a wrong switch and the power cuts out in the control cabin, "What.. WHAAAAT? Come on now.. LEEEBO.." The maintenance droid that came with the ship is seated in the co-pilot seat. His robotic arm slowly reaches over, unlatching a sticky note on the console and flipping it upside-down.

Poe points his hand at that, "See? See what I have to work with. Who flips a switch upside down.. it's just common electronics here.." Poe flips the switch back and sighs, the control cabin coming back to life.

From outside, the freighter's engines flicker to life and it begins to move forward, shields shimmering into place. <<"Everyone sound off.. and get close.. gotta pull this off as a team our not at all.">>

<<Was, uh.. Was that power supposed to cut out like that?>> Ektor wonders aloud from his flagrantly illegal modified Preybird. <<Cause we are off to one hell of a great start if- there it is. Hey, you're back! Oh, and I'm here, yeah?>> The bomber keeps position close behind the Outrider, and subtly above, so as to avoid the worst of the engine wash.

Did Erinn Laski flip the switch upside-down? Judging from the way she sort of scrunches up her face and scratches the back of her head with the business-end of her magnetic stylus, there is a distinct possibility. To add to the suspicion? She says absolutely NOTHING about it. She's not sitting down in the co-pilot seat, but is rather standing off towards the back and the left (Port? Star?) and taking a look at various gizmos and doodads that spring to life as Outrider comes online.

<<"Things are looking good, Poe. Repulsors, check... sublight, check... hyperdrives, check. Vents are check, and all systems normal,">> she says into comms. Beat.

"You're sure you can do this? We studied this in quant phys and they said, like, this is -theoretical- but not also -stupid-..."

Tess is decidedly not flying today. She knows enough to not crash into a sun and can parallel park if the weather conditions are favourable. This crazy endeavour? Oh, no no no. She's sitting in the cockpit strapped as well as she can be strapped to her seat.

Why is she here? The logic being that if this maneuver is crazy enough that Poe felt the need to test it out first, it could me a few things. One, something is liable to get hurt. Two, the stunt may break apart the ship. Three, and this is the biggie, they have every intention of using this trick sometime in the near future. And if that is the case, Tess wants to at least know what to expect when that time comes. Better to do that under controlled conditions.

"It isn't like you to test things out, Poe," comes the voice from the back of the cockpit, echoing her internal reservations. "It this one particularly--" stupid? "--dangerous?"

Poe takes hold of the throttle, pulling it back, only for the ship to abruptly stop. "Leeeebo, again, buddy?" The droid reaches up, flipping the other sticky note around, shrugging at Poe wordlessly. "Right, well.. I've done this a few times. Without practicing.. so.. LASKI.. may want to find a seat and strap in. This may be our last jump. Forever."

The Outrider begins to move again, this time demonstrating the 'legend' surrounding the old smuggler's vessel. She's fast. /Really/ fast. Poe puts his hand on the hyperdrive throttle and yells firmly into the boom-mic tangled in his beard hair. <<"PREPARING TO JUMP...HERE WE GO!">>

Uncalculated, reckless, and sudden, Poe yanks back the hyperdrive lever and takes them into the jump a second later, zipping from real space in an instant. All but one of the Spice Runners get caught in the wake and follow the freighter into the jump.

A second later, Poe shoves the throttle forward, bringing them back to real space and in the middle of an asteroid field. "DREEEKKK!" Poe screams, the view port suddenly filled with nothing but the view of a pocked surface asteroid right in front of them. The pilot's quick reflexes lock the yoke in one direction and the Outrider responds with a /ROAR/ of its engines, putting everyone against their seat, feeling the sudden force of the spastic maneuvers. "HANG ON.. HANG ONNN!" They're in the middle of it now, and behind them, the Spice Runners begin to pop out of hyperspace one by one, facing similar, yet varied, predicaments.

Santos is a decent pilot but not perhaps as good as others here. The huge Wookiee rumbles something and instead, since he doesn't have a fighter craft of his own at the moment, heads for a turret bubble. What better place for a Wookiee to go? If he /fits/ into it.

One huge hairy paw after another pulls him up the rungs of the ladder as he climbs up to take the dorsal bubble. Not really sure what is going on yet, the Wookiee hangs on as Poe suddenly causes the ship to LURCH HARD, almost throwing Krrsantan down the ladder tube. The wook hollers, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" He thought they were about to jump and you know, be in hyper for a few while he got himself prepped for drop out. But NOOoooo, they seem to be skip jumping?! How'd he miss the memo on that?

Krrsantan hauls himself up into the turret and smacks his hairy butt into the gimboled seat. He straps in before Poe tries to put his head through the canopy.

"I'm strapped in. What the kriff are we doing?" [Language: Shyriiwook]

Ektor is cackling like a lunatic, a drunkard, or a drunken lunatic over the comms as the latest of harebrained ideas goes into practice. The Preybird is even executing an Aileron roll as the ships rocket through hyperspace, that's how much fun the bomber pilot is having. As they rocket back into real space the relapsed pirate goes from hooting to hollering: <<Hahahaha, it worked-HOLY HUTT-SUCKING DREK->> That's an asteroid! That's an asteroid that he careens close enough to that space gravel rattles off the canopy.

"You are instilling me with so much confidence, sir. All the confidence in the world. I've never felt more safe than I do in this," Erinn says as she settles down into a seat nearby Tess and Poe. She straps herself in. And then again. And then again... and then one more time. "Moment," she says, ratcheting the last tension strap into place. When Outrider starts to purr, Laski is unable to contain the soft giggle that bubbles out of her throat and the smile that spreads across her face. She's a nerd, after all. She loves engines. And the Outrider has one rekking good engine.

The punch into hyper is enough to suck air out of her lungs and, when they drop out, Laski is belting out a laugh and a <<"Hahaaaaa YEAH!">> of excitement.

That is, of course, until they drop out of Hyper and she sees what's in the viewport. She jerks back into her seat and throws her hands up, as if to shield her face from the incoming impact. <<"NONONONONONONONONO">> Laski says, singing a different tune altogether. It's disorienting, really, and after around the twentieth (give or take a few) "NO" she yells, the little engineer loses consciousness. Her head slumps to the side to rest on Tess' shoulder, a lil bit of drool coming out.

Tess watches with a measure of uneasiness as Poe and the droid seem to have a disagreement on which switches should be switched and which should be unswitched. "Poe...?" The more she gets to know this particular band of runners, the more Tess finds herself saying their names in varying degrees of uncertainty.

Never a dull moment, at least.

Outrider puts Ghost to shame. Even Tess, the least piloty of their group, can tell that from her seat in the peanut gallery of the cockpit. Even more so when Poe punches the throttle like it owes him money and the ship goes from regular space to the hyperlanes in a blink. A streak of stars are in front of them and then a flash of light and...

"AAAAAAGH!" The massive asteroid fills the cockpit window in front of them; materializing like something out of the pits of oblivion and yanking a scream from Tess to go along with it. That scream cuts off when the g-force of Poe's evasive maneuvers pushes her into her seat and then HARD to the side. And there's Erinn passing out next to her. "POE!"

<<"We made it--DREKK!">> Screams another pilot on the comms, then another is cursing too, followed by Ektor. Then there's the fat pilot in the dinky broadstar who is laughing his ass off as by some grace of holy hutt sucking luck, he has come out above the planetary ring. Poe's voice cuts over the chaos, <<"Not a lot of room to make the jump in here, we'll need to crawl out, guys.. try not to die!">> Poe says this as he puts the Outrider through its limits, keeping the engine at the 'all-ahead full' position. Leebo calmly looks over at Poe, raising a robotic hand to gently press in one of the switches above its location, then on the center console. Its droid speak is a low hum followed by variations of ticks.

"I dunno, keep the energy outputs where they are for now.. unless you see surges.." The conversation is casual despite Poe focused ahead. <"Hang on back there, Santo.. You may need to blast some asteroids for our people so they can keep up, buddy.">

The Spice Runners follow as close as they can to the Outrider, but the minefield of space gravel is making it very difficult.

"We're fine.. everyone's fine.." Poe says to the crew in the cockpit with him. "Someone wake up Laski. Hahaha." Then Leebo hits another switch.

<<Pretty Boy, no lie: I was gonna saayyyyy->> Ektor's commentary stretches as he maneuvers the bomber around an errant space rock. <<-that we oughts bring Zap along the next time we try this drek. She'd be creaming her flight seat- eh, drek->> A bit of tight maneuvering to bring the Preybird around and under an asteroid in the process of crashing into another asteroid, slowly sending a rain of jagged rock into the void. <<But then again.. maybe not, yeah?>> Somehow, the Tionese pirate manages to bring the fighter around behind the Outrider in one piece.

"Nhhhhhmmm," Laski exhales, her face scrunching up with displeasure as she begins to rouse from her brief, fright-induced coma. It's weird waking up from passing out. An odd sort of sensation where parts of your brain never quite shut off all the way before being asked to turn back on. To wake back up. She blinks a few times and squints, a face coming front and center in her vision. An unfamiliar face, but that's something she's used to, at this point. What's it been, four years?

~ Hi. How was your day? ~

She slowly blinks her eyes open and suddenly inhales through here nostrils, feeling the wet from the corner of her mouth where she'd drooled on poor Dr. Vikander. She'll be embarrassed about that later. She wipes at the corner of her mouth.

"Am I dead?" she wonders out loud, just as she feels the doctor's hands take her shoulders!

Tess isn't just outwardly screaming now though her voice is rather shrieky at the moment. "We are decidedly NOT fine! Leebo, stop flipping switches, you malfunctioning droid of death!" Is he supposed to be flicking those switches? She can't tell, but every time he does, Tess's stomach finds another level to drop. Somehow.

And now she has an engineer passed out and drooling on her shoulder. "Oh, bugger. Erinn, dear--- hang on." She fumbles with her large messanger bag o' tricks trying to find the pouch with the smelling salts. The ship lurches again in another evasive dodge and Tess's grip slips; her bag falling off of her lap and dangling from her shoulder.

"Blast it!" She quickly grabs Erinn by the shoulders and starts shaking. "Wake up! You're going to get whiplash if---oh! Good morning." The ship banks again. "AAAAGH!"

There /must/ be pursuit. Somebody's chasing them, right?! The big Wookiee doesn't get a very satisfactory answer from the cockpit as to what the kriff those people up front think they are doing - POE. So he's got his thick head on a swivel, trying to look this way and that, Wookiee dreadlocks and bronzium beads shifting over his shoulders. Eyes up at the starts and ships, he swings his gimbled turret around and snarls.

So much out there, "Astroids!" Yeah, duh.

And realizing that the ships jumping through behind them are some of their own, and not what he's supposed to be blasting (aren't you lucky, Xer!) their Wook spots one of their ships about to nose into a big rock. He lines up his turret's reticle and even rubs a few brain cells together that the crew probably didn't even know the former Gladiator has, and does a little calculation to be sure his angle of fire won't blow chunks of rock /at/ the freigher, "Clearing a path! Firing dorsal turrets!"

Nobody can understand you, Santos. Except maybe Pretty Boy. [Language: Shyriiwook]

They manage to bank up just enough, and Poe's firm voice screams over the comms again with the usual urgency he was known for, <<"I THINK ZAP IS SMART ENOUGH NOT TO FOLLOW US THROUGH THIS--HANG ON, JUMPING AGAIN!">> Poe reaches forward suddenly as the sail right over the top of a rotating rock and have a clear view of space ahead, the dust and debris of the planetary ring parting from the view port.

Tugging back on the hyperspace throttle once more.

Like before, the Outrider purrs, leaping into hyperspace without so much as a second's hesitation, and the Spice Runners (including the one Krrsantan helped save) leap with them, zipping out one by one into hyperspace.

Without much warning, Poe shoves the throttle forward again, bringing them out of the spiraling blue of hyperspace and back to real time, where the setting has suddenly changed. Before them, a wall of water, white capped waves of a sea though the water is an eerie red. It's not death defying urgency this time as they arrive in a peaceful place with violet skies, blue clouds, and tall, hulking waves. Rather than flying them right into the sea, Poe reorients the vessel toward the 'up' of the atmosphere.

Behind him, the rest of the Spice Running group is coming out of hyperspace, too. Leebo casually turns his droid head to regard Dr. Vikander, and without breaking eye-contact from her, reaches for another switch to flip (calmly doing so, at that.)

<<"Every body good?! Stand by for the next!">>

<<Hehehe... yeah,>> Ektor chuckles dumbly in assent with Poe's estimation. The heavy fighter is pulled along in the hyperspace slingshot that is the Outrider's wake, the tremors passing through the Preybomb's frame drawing another crooked grin and chuckle from the pilot. Under purple skies and faced with cresting red waves, he quips, << I'm good, yeah? Nice beach. Probably. Heh.. No lie, if I was smarter, this'd be rekking with my brains, yeah?>>

"Good morning. I think I drooled on your aUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!" Erinn yells as they bank hard. Though she's quadruple-strapped into her chair, her scrambling feet have dislodged the axial rotation lock and she starts to twirl. She tries to grasp onto Tess. Really she does. But the sudden movement rips her little hands away from the woman's arms and sees her tip and spin in the direction they've banked. Eventually, they clear ahead, and Poe says the dreaded words: jumping again.

"Waiiiiiheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee--"

Zrooomp. Bromp.

They fall out of hyper, and Erinn's face is illuminated in that sea of red. She exhales, turning her chin up to look at the violet hued skies and big, blue clouds. Her lips twitch up into a tiny little smile. Here for a microsecond. Here for a microsecond. "Hahaha... pretty," she laughs to herself, and glances down to the dials for a quick check.

<<"Eyes on those engines, everyone. Hyper engines aren't meant to throttle up and down this quick, so look for power spikes. Let 'em level off as best you can before firing again, but we won't be able to keep them in the green for much more of this.">>

For Poe's benefit, she taps on one of the readouts that shows a stream of data extrapolated into a small graph that's turned from red to yellow in its downward slope to approach green.

There's only so much screaming someone can do and as the endorphins are kicking in, Tess is actually coming to some kind of peace with this. Afterall, look at that. What a lovely planet with all the nice, serene colours. It'd be a lovely place to die, right?

Erinn is awake at least and this allows Tess to go back to /monitoring/ this hellbent droid who appears to be flicking switches at random now just to spite her. What does a droid care of life and death? It knows no fear. It feels no pain.

"Leebo," she says, trying to be more measured in her tone. "Be reasonable." Wait. What was that? "The next one?!"

<<Bring on the next one, yeah!? HA.>>

There isn't a lot for Santos to do up there in the turret. Especially as Poe keeps skipping jumps like stones towards .. an planet? NOT telling their Wookiee precisely what is going on and what they are doing may not be the best idea ever. As soon as the planet's ocean suddenly looms up before their ship UP CLOSE, there's a ROOOAAARRR from the doral turret bubble! /Usually/ Santos is calm, cool, doesn't say much, and he almost never EVER freaks out.

Until now.

Horrible noises come from back there.

<<"Yeahhhh! Bring on the next one!">> Laski yells into comms, careful to click that seat-swivel lock back into place. Pretty brave for someone who had just fainted.

And then? Silence from the turret bubble.

As they made it over the towering tidal wave, some sort of sea monster broke from the red surface, its huge, deep voiced roar rattling the windows of the Outrider as it came within view of the paneling in the control cabin. "DREEEEEEEK!" Poe screams, fumbling slightly to find the throttle to engage the hyperdrive once more, ignoring Erinn's comment about allowing the engines to cool.

Yanking the throttle back, Poe forces the Outrider to skip again, this time showering sparks over them from one of the consoles that have gone dark above them. Leebo makes a comment to Poe, his droid arm going up to flip a switch above them on and off several times before encouraging the system back online. Leebo looks away from Dr. Vikander at that point, making a raspberry noise. "You think?!" Poe says sarcastically at Leebo, who must have said something obvious.

Poe shoves the throttle forward again, bringing them back to real space and in the middle of a massive conflict. Almost immediately, the battle envelops them, too. TIEs from an Imperial remnant unit of some sort were firing on a fleeing smuggler vessel when the Outrider burst from hyper to real space right in front of their flight path. Inadvertently cutting them off their intended target, Poe (and the TIEs) have to avoid smacking each other in a sudden head-on game of chicken.

<<"BE PREPARED.. FLEEING SHIP COMING FOR YOU GUYS!">> Poe heralds the warning back to the Spice Runners who were due to pop out behind him. Hopefully they were able to avoid smashing into the fleeing freighter. Poe avoids a collision, but has picked up a tail of three TIEs (of 5 total) chasing him. Poe's not as nimble as the TIE pilots who remind the crew they're hot on their tail, smashing against the shields of the Outrider. Leebo starts to say something and Poe cuts him off, "YEAH.. YEAH.. I SEE EM!"

<<Aww, for me? You shouldn't have!>> Ektor cackles as they emerge in a pitched battle, and TIEs start shooting. <<After all that jumping around it's nice to be able to just.. calm down and rekk some eyeballs, yeah? You got any dancers lined up, too?>> While rambling like an idiot, Ektor has brought the bomber through a clear patch of void and obliterated one of the TIEs trailing the Outrider.

Let's be fair to Poe. He may have ignored his Doctorate-bound engineer and physicist's warning about the cooling engine, but her comment was also made well before there was a gigantic sea creature bursting out of a tidal wave about to swallow them whole, so. "I hate sea creatures!" Laski yells, reaching for the hyperdrive lever herself, but Poe's already on the case. They jump, and Laski gets sucked back into her (non-rotating) chair once again. She's getting used to it now! When Leebo raspberries over to Tess, Erinn scowls at the switch-flipping droid for a moment and sucks in her breath when Poe yanks that hyperdrive lever back and drops them back into RealSpace.

She doesn't even scream this time when they drop into a heated battle between another smuggling vessel and a remnant squadron of old Imperial TIE fighters. Laski squints as one flies by, tipping her head in that brief moment as it soars overhead and scanning its hull as best she can.

"An older model, and I don't think they used to make those old ones with--"

KROOOOOM. Ektor's heavy lasers pop that trailing TIE and one of signatures disappears off the scanner. <<"Confirmed kill, Preybomb. I read four more signatures on our six and... hang on...">>

A quick dive into the other signature on an escape course. She leans forward to look up at where they fly off in a hard, tangential vector.

<<"Smuggling vessel is damaged, but on an escape vector. I think they're about to jump. Should be safe flying from here on out.">>

This is fine. No, really. This is fine. Poe is all beard and panic sometimes, but he's got everything in hand. She can only catch some of what Santos is yelling down from the turret well and he sounds... steady. Yes, let's call that steady. And Erinn is monitoring the systems. Leebo is... is flipping switches. This is fine. Fine, fine, fine.

Why does her hands hurt?

Tess looks down to find herself white-knuckling her armrests, fingers curled so far into the leather that it's starting to creak. She is just about to force herself to let go so that she can die with dignity when the next jumps brings them right into a space skirmish.

"EVERYTHING IS FINE!" She can be heard screaming in the background of Poe's comms. That will certainly bring the rest of the group at ease.

Leebo mumbles about the shields being fixed and Poe waves it off, rotating the vessel to square up on one of the TIEs to blast them in passing with a pair of double heavy cannons locked forward and sighted in via combat display. <<"Splash one, Laski,">> Poe calls back casually just as the Spice Runners are popping into real space to join the conflict, too.

They begin to engage, the battle becoming one sided as a third TIE explodes from the fat pilot in the Broadstar, the oddly shaped craft spinning slowly to trail after the Outrider. Up ahead, a frigate jumps into view, Imperial by design. According to sensors, her shields are coming online and IR tracking indicates its defense grid is searching for targets. Poe is flying right toward them, but the vessel is still pretty far out.

<<"Not sure I'm willing to stick around to play grab ass with these guys. Last jump.. stand by!">> Two TIEs are still giving chase behind the Outrider, one of which is trying to avenge their buddy by shooting at Xer.

Ektor keeps the engines maxed out, shifting auxiliary power from cannons to thrust to keep pace with the Outrider as the next jump is prepped. <<Not for nothing, what would even HAPPEN to an old eyeball in hyperspace? Would it.. fall apart or turn into cheese or some drek?>> He takes a shot at Poe's remaining tail, but the caution to not accidentally shoot the Outrider in the ass and a skilled opponent in the TIE make the shot a clean miss.

<<"Splash one confirmed. Nice shooting, sir,">> Laski says, watching another signal fade on the scanner with a nod. She pulls her hair up and out of her face and into a quick, hasty bun at the back of her head, eyes wide and pupils dilated as she stares at the monitors in front of her. <<"Another confirmed kill, good shooting, uh...">>

"Who is the fat guy?" she asks sideways to Poe, moving the microphone out of the way of her mouth.

<<"I heard that, Laski!">>

<<"Either way!">> she yells out. A final glance is given to the engineering readouts in front of her, away from the scanners. She turns her chin up just in time to see that frigate jump into view and swallows. "No grab ass. No no no grab ass," she says in agreement and taps the dial indicating a readout of the warp drive.

"Engines are a go, sir. Standing by." The final jump comes a moment after Laski says the engines are good. The Frigate was coming into range and the first wall of turret fire was incoming. The Outrider leaps into hyperspace with a roar of its engines, followed in close proximity by the other Spice Runners. Once in hyperspace on an actual route, things begin to calm down and Poe slumps back in his seat and laughs.

<<"I've missed this,">> He admits to a chorus of laughing from the other Spice Runners. <<"Where to next, Poe?">> One of them asks.

<<"Thyferra. We had a friend call for help. Something about free booze, easy creds, and some drek to blow up on the surface.">>

<<"This isn't another one of your wars is it, Poe?">>

<<"Nah.. just in it for the money now. We do what they hire us to do, and we're gone. No strings.">>

Erinn Laski is still leaned forward in her seat when Poe slumps back, her eyes wide and hungry for information. They flick from readout to readout, watching radar signals stream in as the others join in and, naturally, making sure they weren't followed somehow. It had been proven possible, of course, to track a ship's course through hyper. A moment or two later, Erinn is slumping back into her seat and laughing a little bit as well.

"That'll get the blood pumpin'," she says, looking over her shoulder to Poe as he speaeks to the other spice runners. The small smile on her face flattens into that more common, sad expression that she's used to wearing around. Of course she'd caught the chatter on the holo.

"First Order," she says to Poe, her expression as flat as her lips had leveled off to. She taps her finger a few times on the console in front of her. His assurance to the other Spice Runner of 'no strings' seems as if it could have been meant for Laski as well, who nods a couple of times after he speaks.

<<"Repulsors are check. Sublight check. Hyper... chhhhheck," she says, after squinting at it, "Vents are a go, and all systems nominal. Nice piloting, everyone.">>

<<So, yeah.. Bird's frame is a bit shook up, what with getting yanked around like a nugget on hazing day, but the engines is rekking *pristine* yeah? And- AND, Santo will back me up on this: ain't nothing can go wrong next time, yeah Big Guy?>>