Log:The Irregulars: Finding the Path

the irregulars: Finding the Path

OOC Date: December 28,2019
Location: Speice Terminus, Bysis System
Participants: Rial Het, Jax Greystorm, Nova Korell, Kaelyn, Tharyn Corlas, Dyannah Nerus

< Pathfinder (Rial Het) >==============================================

Following the ambush aboard the Spice Terminus, the Irregulars and their allies had hastily prepped their vessels for flight. Whatever ship the Brotherhood gunmen had arrived on would no doubt be looking for payback. Rial- badly wounded but conscious after his ill-advised *direct approach* during the gunfight- favors his blasted right thigh and leans on Dyannah as he hobbles aboard the *Pathfinder* muttering through a forced smile, "Spice Terminus: facilities were nice, but the staff was bloody atrocious. We have a course laid in yet, luv?" A simple ping is sent from the Irregular home ship to the others as it clears docking clamps, an invitation for them to check in once clear of the station.

Jax had dropped into the pilot seat of the Painted Warrior, the modified Helix Interceptor engine coming to life with in moments and the docking clamps releasing. At the ping, he moved into formation with the Pathfinder. <Painted Warrior here and in formation. Seems its time to move the party.> H

A smile as equally forced is returned to the Talusian leaning on her arm as they make their way forward to the bridge. Negotiating the stairs makes her wince for him. As they enter Dyannah nods to the scan tech and Nova. "Are you all ready?" The question is lightly asked, she could be asking if they are ready for the planned picnic but underneath the Zeltron thrums with tension and is aware of the crew's mood as well.

Addressing the tech "Tell us what are on our scans, Henla, please?" Seating herself after she has helped Rial to his seat, she rechecks the boards. "We are ready to release. The Compass and the Plan A are snugged in. All systems are green. Shall we?"

She's clueless really as to what's going on in the Spice Terminus, though sometimes she sees flashes from the docking bay? Kae is well, she's outside the Whale, in her custom hyper-fighter otherwise known as the Wyvern... She's currently testing out the warhead switching capabilities of the fighters, swapping between three different sets of ordinance, this being concussion missiles, micro proton torpedos, and ion torpedos...

She tilts her head to the right, and swaps the weapons from Ion torps to the Conc missiles and tilts her head as the internals of the floating fighter makes a few clunks and gives her the ok... "Oookaaaaay...." She mutters to her self, getting beeped at from Hitch, the little BB unit now occupying the fighter's droid slot...

Having taken the rearguard, Nova Korell shuts the boarding hatch behind everyone and follows Rial and Dyannah to the bridge. "Just finding my station," she replies, following the markers to the gunnery post.

Four seats. One soldier. Nova winces faintly. "Guess I'll have to link weapons to my post and hope nothing burns out," she mutters, hastily pulling off her plating and buckling herself into the seat in her body glove. She begins activating and powering up weapons.

Sensors on all ships register a new arrival in the Bysis System, even if the vessel is quite apparent to the unaided eye: the black armored bulk of a Nebulon-K warship streaks into realspace, looming above the Terminus station, and even dwarfing the heavy corvette *Pathfinder*. A stern voice with a faint Deep Core accent broadcasts <<This is Commander Valcarius of the First Order frigate Ascendant. All ships are ordered to power down engines, shields, and weapons. Prepare to accept boarders. Failure to comply will be met with immediate destruction. This is your only warning.>> In the time taken to issue those orders, six TIE/fo fighters have launched from the frigate.

Jax takes a deep breath and exhales as he reaches out to the force connecting with it. He says as he quickly starts to figure out a hyperspace jump. Then he pulls back on the throttle of his Helix and goes to engage one of the Tie F/O. His heavy canons firing at the fighter and missing. "Aw... come on."

The tech passes her scan results to Dyannah's board. "That's clear..." The deep accent of the Inner Worlds cuts across her words. "We are releasing now. I'm not waiting on station clearance." The Pathfinder shudders as she rapidly releases the ship from its clamps and they push out away from their berth on the Station. Her board lights up and an angry voice can be heard over coms, "You gonna pay those lines you broke. You owe us. FINES. You pay FINES for clamps."

Leaning forward Dyannah, in her most dulcet contralto intones, "If we survive this, we'll pay you everything. Enjoyed it while we were here. This is the Pathfinder. Out."

Over general ships coms, "This is the Corvette pathfinder warning all incoming that we have hostiles in the system. We are winging it out of here. Friendlies contact me on this frequency."

Kae blinks a few times, she's being targeted by both fighters and a Nebulon K. Kae flails briefly then ducks her head now, dropping her helmet sights in place "Bloody FO." She mutters and suddenly the Wyvern is exploding forward, those massive engines propelling the advanced fighter at near breakneck speed.

"Hitch, bring up the specs on that Frigate!" She calls out as she is suddenly jinking the super agile fighter around an incoming Tie, and suddenly is on its tail.

Kae is actually maneuvering with the Tie fighter, even if she can't go as fast as said vessel while jinking around in space. Then She pulls the trigger on her flight stick. Instead of seemingly individual sounds from the lasers at her wing tips, there's a solid stream of fire, and for those who might can hear it, BRRRT, coming from the small medium lasers...

Kae then glances back at the Neb K after blinking at having missed the Tie... "Oookay, skilled pilot, here we go!" She calls out and keeps the Wyvern at full throttle. She then peers at the others, puts a few things together and over a closed connection calls out << Hey guys, I'm guessing I'm helping out! Listen, if you can helps me out, I have Ion torpedos on this fighter, I can make a run on that Neb K...>>

"Just keep us flying, Dya. I'll see if I can't dissuade our big friend out there," Nova says, bracketing the Nebulon in her sights. The console's readouts show that the weapons are now all tracking on her aimpoint.

Moments later, bolts of crimson annihilation spew forth from the /Pathfinder/, lashing the frigate mercilessly. The deflector screens stop them from reaching the hull, but they pay a heavy price in the doing.

Nova smiles wickedly, watching the results of her work. "Deflectors down to 60 percent. I could learn to like this kind of setup..."

It takes a few minutes later than the rest for Tharyn to board /Avenger/; a few barked words over his helmet comms has his four-man crew scrambling to power the drives and have the ship in operation by the time Tharyn steps out of the lift to the 'cockpit'. Blood still spattering his shock gloves, Tharyn tosses these upon the holotable in the middle of the ship's miniature bridge whilst a blue-haired human woman labors grimly at the pilot's station. "We're ready, Captain," she says in a clipped tone, all business as she brings the ship off its already-retracting landing gear."

"Get us out of here, Wella." With a nod from the pilot, the fan-backed freighter launches forward, shooting out of the station's open bay - its gun turrets are already spewing dual streams of red light as the ship's crew targets the TIE fighters swarming around the other ships. Meanwhile, Tharyn drops into the co-pilot's seat, calling up missile launcher's targeting computer; the sight of the heavily armed frigate gives him only a moment's pause before he shakes his head and starts dialing in a firing solution on the far larger vessel. "R2-BZ," he commands an old R2 unit mag-clamped and already interfaced with the ship's primary console, "Calculate an escape course and relay our status to the Pathfinder. Get ready, people, it's going to be really interesting, really fast."

Odd though, how his stutter's gone, and his voice has become a hardened, genteel version of his usual rural slur. Even as the ship rocks from TIE cannon blasts, he is a different man in command of his vessel.

<<So be it,>> the sharp voiced commander of the *Ascendant* responds with a sniff, closing the channel and ordering the vessel's main batteries to open fire on the *Pathfinder*. "Direct the fighters to eliminate the smaller craft," he orders, a cruel smile forming as the forward heavy turbolasers lance out to hammer the smaller Starseeker corvette. A smile that is only slightly diminished by the disproportionate hitting power of the corvette his ship takes in turn.

Aboard the Pathfinder, alarms blare throughout the bridge as deflector shields are knocked from full power, to dangerously low. Rial clings to the bridge console for balance, trying without success to re-balance the shields under the barrage. "Damnit, we're losing forward deflectors- somebody- you-" he calls one of the ship's crew, "Come here, this spot, over here!" as he tries to talk the through the repair process.

The Painted Warriors shield start to strip away as Jax tries to out manuver the tie fighters shooting at him. The first one missing the second one though scoring a solid hit. Jax grumbling under his breath as the tie dodges him. "Come on Come on. These guys are never this good."

"Oh, good going, Nova. That was brilliant," Dyannah croons to Nova, their Resistance gunner on loan. Henla, pass me any status changes. I am not answering that Corvette let our lasers answer for us." The zeltron's blue head leans intensely over the consoles as she pushes the Pathfinder to its limits breaking every shipping lane rule that exists in the known galaxy in their bid to escape this attack whole.

The breakaway from the station is brilliant until it isn't. The Pathfinder does a jig as a barrage engulfs their forward deflectors. The red of the alarms paints her pink face a deep red. Dyannah strains against the security belt keeping her in her seat they rock so hard. "We are not taking this laying down. Pop them another good one if you can Nova. We are maxing the engines on the way out of here. Our course is already set."

Once she glances behind her to look at Rial then she is focused wholly on the boards, <"Painted Warrior, Avenger, Wyvern! What is your status? We will be hyping out of here as soon as we hit the mark.">

Kae is rolling and banking now with two Tie-FO fighters.. "Ruddy..." She mutters to her self as her shields are suddenly lit up by a pair of hits... "HItch get on that!" There's a bit of a wait... "Well multitask!" She calls out as she's beeped at, then the rest of the Frigate's schematics appear, and of course her shields don't go up.. "Uuuh hitch?" There's a dwooooo, and Kae blinks "Get on the shields!" She calls out.

Kae glances over her shoulder, her augmented reality cockpit showing exactly where the fighter is. "Hold onto your noggins!" She calls out and suddenly Kae is pulling up, the vectored thrust engines causing the Wyvern to make a wild maneuver that most ships in any mode of atmosphere or exo-atmosphere would be extremely challenged to do... As Kae is literally pulling up, slowing down, then continuing to pull over, flipping on that horizontal axis, and bringing her guns to bear while directly over the fighter.

Kae's got good timing and cuts loose with a burst of fire, leading the tie enough for it to pass right through the stream of laser fire emitted from Kae's fighter...

"Ooh what ever happened to good old TIEs, without shields." She mutters to her self.

Nova winces as the entire ship shakes under that volley of heavy fire, grabbing the edge of the console so as not to be pitched sideways. This is no time to be lying down on the job! "I think we've bitten off more than we can chew..." she mutters, continuing to fire at the frigate, managing to score a few hits, though not as many as she would've liked. "Any way we can get something between us and that monster, like maybe the station? Or some stray asteroids? Maybe some big pieces of wreckage?"

Speeding away toward the exit coordinates, /Avenger/'s turrets blast away at the TIE fighters, but the ships are too agile to be touched by the streams of laser fire released by the pair of dual guns. Janking left and right, Tharyn's own marksmanship suffers as well - the missile that hurtles silently from the launcher at its forward end manages to miss the frigate entirely. "Shavit," Tharyn mutters under his breath as he loads another missile into the transport's tube. "Joduson, Festow! Focus your fire on one target at a time, do what you can to break up their formation!"

Meanwhile, the ship's engineer works together with both astromechs on /Avenger/'s harried hull, striving to keep its shields solid. Meanwhile, the ship's pilot is busy on the yoke, even if her charge is /not/ the starfighters she's often at home in. << Pathfinder, >> Wella calls over the comms, << This is Avenger. We are intact and coordinates are locked. Say the word. >>

Rial Het grabs the console as even a light impact on the freshly restored shields of the Pathfinder causes them to threaten collapse anew. "Bloody hell.. Dy, luv! I'm bloody useless here- I'm going t'get the Rose prepped, just in case, aye?" Leaning on the bulkheads to spare his blasted leg, the rogue hurry-hobbles off the bridge, toward the corvette's hangar.

Meanwhile, the outgunned Irregulars continue to evade destruction, if only barely... They creep ever nearer to the edge of the gravity well...

<Shield are holding. Just get out of the system Pathfinder and I'll be right behind you.> Jax says as he fires at one of the Ties. The one that stripped him of his shields. The tie fighter juking out of the way. "Hot shot Resistance Fighter Ace Jax Greystorm. Ha, I'm think that's all lies so the women would like me." He frowns, "Lets see If I can get us out of the system and not die."

It's a battle of attrition and everyone on the Pathfinder knows it. "Go, Rial, go, darling," she says and doesn't give a shavit for what the crew thinks. He knows through their connection and she says nothing more aloud.

The ship is buffeted yet again throwing them hard against their restraints. There is a strong smell of ozone as the shield generators strain and the air scrubbers can't keep up with the load on them. Behind her Nova fires the slaved lasers brilliantly. Engineering labors to keep them alive. Dyannah prays.

Kae is flying her heart out, trying hard to keep the fighter flying defensively.. "HItch get those shields up! HIiitch..." Then the worst happens, well maybe not completely the worst, but the Wyvern is hit, directly to the droid bay. "Waaoooooooooo!" is heard after the Wyvern is rocked by an impact... Kae frowns and shakes her head, now frowning "Hitch!" She calls out, and then gets on the coms << Wyvern here, I have to jump out, heavy damage, and the droid bay is hit. Sorry guys!>> She announces, and and continues flying like a complete maniac to keep the ties from getting any more hits... "Sorry Buddy." She says quietly, looking at the droids diagnostics... "Ok Fixable, assuming we survive here." She mutters.

Never raised with religion, Nova isn't praying, even as she ship bucks and shakes around her and the smells of battle damage fill the recirculated air. She's just continuing to batter than roll of sole leather that's called a frigate, pummeling its shields in a hopeless race to hurt them enough to withdraw.

It's just not happening: That Nebulon has too much power and tonnage on them to make this a fight they can win, or even tie, and it's too fast to escape, even on this swift corvette. But it's not in the blonde soldier to give up, not when her friends are in trouble. She hunches over the controls and keeps blasting. One of the monitors blows out in a shower of sparks as more hits land, flying duraplastic cutting her cheek and the side of her forehead. But even with blood trickling down the side of her face, the turbolasers just keep flying.

/Avenger/, on the other hand proves itself to be a bit of a stalwart - Tharyn's missiles meet their mark, lasers scrape the frigate's shields, and the crew works together in coordination to keep the ship in remarkably solid condition - though this is as much the crew themselves as it is their captain. "Keep it up," Tharyn bellows over the intercom. "Even if you don't do much, every little bit helps! Wella! Get us out of here!" "Aye," the blue-haired woman replies, then keys the comms to the /Pathfinder/. << /Pathfinder/, this is /Avenger/. We're ready when you are, give the word! >>

The battered Pathfinder struggles higher out of the gravitational pull, even as the damage control officer (who is due a raise after this!) somehow manages to divert enough power through jury rigged conduits to keep them in one piece, even as the shields crumble before the frigate's turbolaser barrage, drawing a spray of sparks from the condole. "Shields are gone- get us out of here!" the engineer pleads.

<See you another days, boys.> Jax broadcasts on open com. The Switching to the channel he used with the Irregulars, <Painted Warrior is out. May the force be with you.> Then pulling back on the hyper drive lever the tiny freighter is gone.

The Pathfinder hits the mark for going into hyper leaving a mountain of space lane violation fines behind them. Once Dyannah switches over to the station frequency to listen to the Station Master rant at them with a smile pulling hard at one side of her mouth.

<"Jax, may the force be with you. To all ships that broke into this bad business - Wyvern, Avenger, Painted Warrior thank you. We owe you one.">

On my mark. "Mark" The stars begin to blur into straight lines and the blue of hyperspace replaces them on their screens. Shaking her head she looks at the red lit boards, some smoking from damage. "Tea on the bridge. Then let's buckle down and fix this girl up. Well done all of you."

Kae frowns, looking at her jumpout directions.... She tilts her head and sighs << Wyvern 003 here, jumping out.>> She sighs and adds << May the force be with y'all.>> She says, and Kae's not much one for waiting. She queues the hyper engines and suddenly the damaged fighter accelerates.. Kae sees starlines growing longer, before she's suddenly in a tunnel...

"Yup gonna be making repairs while underway." She mutters....

At the gunnery board, Nova hears that order and quickly shuts down the weapons to save power for the hyperdrive. "Power rerouted... ready for jump," she murmurs, leaning on the console and gasping.

Moments later, they're in hyperspace. It's all over but the repair work. Nova sighs in relief and takes an easy breath for the first time in several minutes. "Permission to report to medbay, ma'am? I'm feeling a little dizzy... and I think Rial should hear the good news. With permission, I'll tell him on my way back."

With the Pathfinder clear and away, Tharyn nods to Wella to engage the hyperdrive - and as she gets the system underway, the mercenary captain replies over comms to the departing corvette. << You're welcome, Pathfinder, >> he calls over the link. << One of these days I'd like to actually see you when I'm not actively helping save your life. >>

The ship slows - or seems to slow - as its leading edge begins to stretch into forever...and then it's gone.

Sapphira owes him some money.