Log:Hapan's Fourth Training Mission
Hapan's Fourth and Final Training Mission
OOC Date: March 22, 2025
Location: Ottega
Participants: The GM, Ben "Hapan" Relor, Nasallee "Chomper" Oskoarva, Hadrix Kora, Lofty, Axyl Lucayon
Basic Flight Maneuvers? Check Formation Flying? Check In-Space and In-Atmosphere Refueling? Check High Altitude and Spatial High-G Maneuvers? Check Spatial Combat Training? Check Aircraft Flight Performance? Check Spatial Flight Mechanics? Check
The list goes on-and-on when it comes to the expected requirements that Cin'cirad has for pilots. Is it exhaustive? No. Is it a LOT of classwork mixed with, at times, mind numbing simulator work? Yes. Did Relor even get to touch one of the X-wings aboard the Legacy before Spatial Combat Training? Yes... ISH. But all of that is now behind him, and as it happens, Sira caught wind of an operation that she felt might be a perfect capstone to the entire training process. Experience, after all, is a great teacher.
The group of ships left the system and then jumped back in on the far side, well away of the usual lanes so they could make a bit of a sweeping approach toward the target moons.
______..................../~\....................______ .-~~_______________________________________________________~~-. |/ --- Mission Briefing --- \| || || || || <||=============================================================||> <|| ||> <|| ||> <|| SYSTEM: OTTEGA ||> <|| PLANET: SHIHOR ||> <|| ||> <|| LOCATED AMIST THE 29 MOONS OF THE GAS GIANT SHIHOR OF THE ||> <|| OTTEGA SYSTEM, A BAND OF PIRATES HAS BEEN HARASSING ||> || TRADE LANES, PARTICULARLY TARGETTING THOSE THAT HAVE || || REBELLION MARKINGS. || || || || IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE PIRATES HAVE A SMALL BASE, AND || || DO NOT HAVE ANY SHIPS THAT ARE LARGER THAN A FREIGHTER. || || THOUGH THIS INFORMATION HAS NOT BEEN CONFIRMED, IT IS || <|| ASSUMED BASED ON THE PREVIOUS ATTACKS WITHIN THE SYSTEM. ||> <|| ||> <|| COMMAND HAS REQUESTED THAT THE PIRATES BE ELIMINATED BY ||> <|| ANY MEANS NECESSARY. ||> <|| ||> <|| ||> <|| ||> <|| ||> <|| ||> <|| ||> <|| ||> \\_____________________________________________________________//
<<"Wraith Six, standing by.">>
Tapping controls on his right hand console, Hadrix's gyro-mounted command seat was locked into flight mode to keep his relative seated position lined up to where he was steadily facing forward. Gripper had socketed herself into a console above him, her holo-broadcaster providing additional information to what was already on his visor HUD. Heiyuu, down below, was warbling woefully where he was locked into his cubicle and on ship access as if he were in a more conventional fighter. Warbles that became wails when lock signals began registering.
<"I know.">
Thee display from Gripper bracketing sources of the locks while the ID-10, mercifully, quiet when everything starts happening at once. Ordnance surging past as the old Firespray patrol craft manages to slip the weak lock and continues to spin into a true corkscrew when azure ion blasts begin surging around him.
<"Kriff...">
Sighting up the gunships moving on Relor's craft, the big man growls with eyes narrowed to the icons of those who'd had the temerity to take shots at him. <<"Moving to cover Hapan, focus fire. Watch your wings and clear them out. Only one benefitting from duels is them.">> Brow raising at a signal on sensors, seeming oblivious to the roar of his cannons opening fire, chewing through the shields of one of the Krayts creating a field of pock marks where armor plating was rendered molten to flash freeze in the vacuum. <<"Eyes up, we've something big coming.">>
Ship rocking as what looks like heat lighting crackles over his shields, <"Heiyuu get that locked down, now. I need full power."> again the cannons, still spinning, open fire with a prolonged BRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR of fire, looking like a continuous stream of light moving like liquid. Maintaining fire while systems begin redlining for the length of time he keeps the firing stud pressed, the Krayt he'd been targeting sawed in half before it erupts in fire and the old KSE craft wheels, cutting across the other gunship, hammering shields before the pirate pilot manages to spin out of the zone of destruction.
Chomper is, well, chomping at the bit to get this op started. <"Hey Hapan,"> she shouts over comms. <"Don't die on your first live fire mission, or I'm gonna call you Casket!"> She cackles to herself, cutting through space with the ease of a professional.
Then they get jumped. From down and the left. <"INCOMING!">
Immediately, her S-Foils go into attack position, and she engages in evasive maneuvers. A volly from the fighter behind her glances off her shields. <"Get that fixed, Elvee!"> R2-LV, her hapless astromech, begins to reinforce the shields while Chomper whips around, drifting in a horizontal arc to face the fighter on her tail. With a wordless yell, she opens up with her heavy cannons, the red bolts BLAATing through space and ... grazing the pirate's shields.
This makes her mad.
Chomper engages in a game of Chicken with the Starchaser, throttling the X-Win to maximum, her R2 unit screaming in robot terror. Her eyes twitch as they get closer and closer. At the last possible second, she drives the stick forward, rocketing down and nearly trading paint at intense speed. She pitches into a roll, coming back up and around so fast, unloading her cannons again at the pesky fighter. Not quite enough, but the shields seem to be gone!
She'll get 'em next pass!
Lofty and his Sullustan co-pilot Haoziiplirs Stebbs joined the pirate hunt in part to shake out his very old Wookiee gunship. They keep the comms open and Lofty uses all 3 of his functional eyes to scan the scopes. <<"Oh ene, meha?">> Stebbs asks, which roughly translates from Sullustese as 'where are they?' Lofty warbles through his Talz snoot something ambiguous. Then they are pounced upon from behind by multiple ships!
The Wookiee gunship WHORRWAARR speeds up and fires rapid-fire bursts from its Sureggi laser cannons first at the Krayt fighter, then turns to focus both front cannons and the turret on an attacking fighter. The gunship's shields flicker as they begin to fail.
<<"Ni aroka! Njogoo imwe nene! Utanahinga kompyuta.">> Stebbs' rapid Sullustese translates to something like 'the computer locks on a big rooster' but it takes Lofty a moment to find it. <<"Alert. Gozanti cruiser come. Very big.">> the Talz announces in halting Basic to the rest of the squadron. He's already plotting a retreat vector.
By now, Ben Relor seems to have accepted the fact that, instead of having a really cool callsign, he has a really stupid one that he hates. Hapan. But whereas the last time during his pilot training, he was wild, out of control, and not really seeming to care what happened to himself or anyone else, this time, he's a lot more subdued. No chatter over comms. Just the bare minimum. During the mission brief, he hadn't even suggested any ideas, which is unlike him. Quiet. Somber, even.
Out in space, he'd llocked in fast -- target acquisition clean, lead indicator solid, the pirate freighter dead-center in his HUD. Even with the jitter from that last ion burst, his tracking was smooth. Too smooth. Ben adjusted trim on the fly, nudged the power curve slightly toward the laser cannons, and waited for the tone.
Beep. Beep. Beeeeee --
The Krayt juked hard to port, dumping power into a full-burn vector roll. Its sublight engines flared white-hot as it nosedived below the orbital plane---just out of arc. Just enough to break the shot.
Ben didn't swear. He didn't slam the dash or call it close. He just exhaled through his nose and cut pursuit. Adjusted heading. Started scanning for the next angle. "Missed. Krayt's running hot, pilot's good," he said into comms. Flat. Informative. Like it didn't matter.
He reset targeting calibration by two degrees and dipped back into formation---quietly, methodically. He wasn't chasing. He'd wait. They always showed themselves again. And they did.
The Scyk came in hard -- too fast, too tight. Ben saw the vector, predicted the angle, even began to turn into it for a shot. But the bastard slipped sideways, tucked in with thruster finesse and a pivot he didn't expect. His targeting solution broke in half, tone gone in an instant.
And then the return fire.
His shields flared bright -- blue arcs flickering across the canopy -- and for a second, his whole ship shuddered, the kind of hit that buzzed in his teeth. A warning tone chirped low and dull. Not a scream -- just a cold reminder. Damage.
"Five," he said, teeth clenched. The droid was already chirping, working -- rerouting power, venting heat, pushing juice into what was left of the deflectors. A quiet buzz through the cabin meant it was partial, not full. Enough to keep him flying. Maybe.
Ben blinked sweat from his eyes. Adjusted the pitch. Didn't bother speaking on comms -- nothing helpful to say. He was up, he was alive, but the Scyk was still out there, taunting him with tight turns and perfect burns.
It's not really a shocker when the first indication of pirates comes in the form of missile lock tones. The idea was to use the interference and cover of the dust clouds and stellar bodies to ambush -them-... but the targets have home (asteroid) field advantage, and this was always the odds-on call for any gambler. Somewhere in the area of 2:1.
<< "Vectors six, eight, niner." >> Lucayon calls out the contacts as they pop up on scope, as the warning klaxons tell him that several of them are trying to send him a welcoming gift. A consistent theme for this phase of the exchange, however: every pirate that targets the Shistamandalorian has a /terribly/ rough time keeping him in their sights. Unusual in a Rebellion formation, Axyl's TIE Avenger rolls and banks in a high-speed arc to bring him around on their quarry regardless of who got the drop upon who.
Hadrix's rotary lasers light up a gunship, and even as the other Mandalorian calls for combined firepower, the TIE's quad lasers are opening up on the first Krayt-- and then the second, both dispatched in short order as the Shistavanen climbs into a sharp flip and burn, opening up on the fightercraft clinging tenaciously to his six throughout the onslaught on the gunships. It's really only a briefly passing fancy-- his real focus elsewhere.
<< "I see it." >> The big boy. With a tight spin, it's towards the fighters still harrying his comrades that Lucayon flies now, at impressive topspeed.
<"Draggo 2, Draggo Lead. There's a Firespray out there.">
<"Yeah I see it. Try and lock it before we engage. Call King. Looks like some hunters want to play.">
The ships used the various bits of debris to move in closer before the Rebellion ships had noticed. Finally popping up above the asteroids to try and get missile locks before they enaged in a furball. At first the Krayts had gone after one of the X-wings, but as the Firespray and TIE started to lay into them, they switched it up to try and focus fire in on the mini-destroyer that is in the guise of a gunship. Of course, even then, they don't last long, being shredded to pieces between the two Aces. One of the Krayts managing to dodge a bit to the side only for it to be perfectly lined up for the run by the TIE 'Avenger' that stiched into its unshielded aft. The cry of surprise cut off as it was vaporized in the next instant.
The R-41 continues to joust with the X-wing, firing its own as they trade shots back and forth. Neither one of them really getting ahead of the other.
And then the sound starts, the music being flooded across all the channels. A set of drums. One long note, then another as they play them like a funeral procession. The dirge of the damned, and just like that, another beat before it stops. The music shifts and instead the open comm channels are blasted with an elecronic music that could only be described as... Annoying.
<"Gozanti are blind on the bottom, can't put guns by the launch tubes."> Hadrix's growling voice as calm as he adjusts his angles, the barrels of his rotaries still glowing in the cold of vacuum. Quite familiar with the make and model of light cruiser that is bearing down on them. He commanded one, after all. The Kyr'am Ra Kote that had served as a fighter screen and then combat drop craft at Crait.
<"I only have concs, I can try to soften shields - see if you lot can clear the fighters for torp craft to make a run.">
A series of twiddles and chirps rising from below now and the big man resists the urge to lean and look down, "What do you mean you found a short?" the reply a woeful series of tones before sparks shoot out of a side console near the R2 unit. "Well FIX it. Or we'll die." The moaning continues and as Hadrix pressed the switch to launch a pair of pinkish hued munitions towards the Gozanti's ventral side, "JUST FIX IT."
Systems reporting power routing to the shields as the concussion missiles strike, a blossom of white hot fire causing the cruisers shields to ripple.
<"Now would be a good time for torpedoes...">
They're not out of the stars yet. The Scyks are on Ben's tail, but then they peel off sharp, banking toward Chomper. Ben barely has time to register the shift before the Gozanti's quad lasers lit up the dark. Any other time, he'd probably be making a quip right now, or at least swearing. But he just stares at it...looming large in the blackness of space.
His ship jerked under the barrage -- shields scream, then sag. Five shrieks something panicked in binary, sparks flickering from the rear console.
"No, I got it," Ben mutters, half to the droid, half to himself.
His thumb slides to weapons control -- locked torpedoes, toggled targeting spread, and fired.
The torpedoes scream across the gap, twin trails of vengeance. They hit -- hard. The Gozanti's shields flare white, overloaded, and peel back like a snapped boneplate. Major systems lit up on his HUD. They're not completely down for the count, but he did some good damage.
Despite that, Ben doesn't smile. Doesn't cheer.
He just angles back into the fray, shields still limping, body tensing for the next hit.
Still flying.
For now.
Chomper's blasters loose beams of ionized gas at the Starchaser, blowing it to hell. She whoops like a maniac as debris pings from her shields, rocketing through space. <"Got one. FINALLY,"> she says over comms, checking her readout for the status of the flight group. <"Hold on, I'm comin',"> she says, wrenching the stick to the right and peeling away through the void.
She whips around, darting through the combat zone, using debris and space rocks as cover to make a sneaky run.
Chomper pulls up on the stick, rocketing towards one of the Scyk's on Ben's tail, unloading more blaster fire into it, shearing through its shields and into the hull. Not enough to blast it apart, but enough to get it's attention.
She peels off, rocketing through space, encouraging them to chase her!
The Gozanti's arrival is a massive threat-- but so is all the firepower potentially sustained on poor Lofty, just now. It's towards the Wookiee gunship that Dogmeat's Avenger screams, its ion engines keening.
A sustained burst of emerald lasers forces one of the Cutlasses to break off, and even if this does get Axyl shot by the Dunelizard on his six, and remove the Cutlass from followup shots, it also lessens that pressure. A wide, toothy grin is worn beneath the Shistamandalorian's t-visor as his shields ripple in protest. "-Now- you have something to do, Ed." The astromech seems quite concerned about this.
"No, I don't plan to make a habit of it." And to affirm this in action, Lucayon rolls smoothly port, then pulls his flight yoke back with even, but urgent pressure, 'climbing' into a sharp dive. << "This is Dogmeat; I'll run escort or add my concussion missiles. Their fighter screen is running a bit thin just now." >>
Lofty is maneuvering his Wookiee gunship in wild slalums to dodge the two underpowered Sorosuub fighters. How embarassing ! The shields flicker as power is diverted from engines to recharge them. <<"Shields up.">> His Kashyyykkian cannons go PENK-PENK-PENK-PENK-PENK-PENK-PENK but manage to just miss, hitting space debris instead of the nimble Cutlass 9. <<"Gichinga !">> says Stebbs in Sullustese. Maybe it is a curse.
With another anguished cry into the void, another pirate's ship is shot up. With the last moment, there's the explosion and out of it shoots the person - having ejected from the R-41 at the last second. Floating now through space as the battle continues on around them.
On board the Gozanti a pirate with neon pink hair gestures at the comms officer, "Crank that drek up! I want them to hear it pound through their skulls!" She lets out a cackle, her feet kicked up on the console. She drops them as she watches the proton torpedoes and the concussion missile slam into her ship's shields. "Drekkin' kidding me. Kriff them. HEY! HEY!"
Bolting to her feet she moves to the nearest viewport and gives a two finger salute to the X-wing that launched two proton torpedoes at them.
"Ace him! Ace him now! Damage Control, get on those kriffin' shields. I swear you all are drekkin' killing me!"
Chomper is being hassled. This is fine. She loops and rolls and does her best to evade the two small craft. ... And the Dunelizard that joins them. She's good, but she's no Jedi. Her shields get shredded, her hull gets a ding. Her R2 unit brings the shields back up. A pretty standard dogfight for her, honestly. <"Kriff it,"> She fires up the targeting computer, getting missile lock on the Gozanti.
More shots come in, and she twitches the yoke, blaster fire skimming her shields or veering off into space. <"Eat this, pirate scum!">
The missiles fire, spiraling through space, helixing around the point defense blasters. The explosion is titanic, a silent ball of fire and plasma in the void.
<"Gottem.">
Under a withering, precise volley from the Gozanti's quad laser turret, Axyl's shielding nearly fails outright. "Twice isn't a habit." The Shistamandalorian answers in a quick series of whines and chirps that stands as funhouse mirror to the astromech's protests. "We're holding together." So far.
The pair of concussion missiles launch together from the Avenger's ordnance tubes and Lucayon dives in a long arc, not waiting to view the glorious impact... or lack thereof-- at first, it looks like a breakaway maneuver, and the Shistavanen does not seek to re-acquire lock.
If Hadrix says the thing can't track its underbelly, then that's where Dogmeat seeks to strafe. He pulls his launchers offline, diverts power to lasers and deflectors, and begins a graceful, controlled spin, as his vector adjusts an intercept for the Gozanti's soft, soft tummy meats...
Sparks spray over him as panels blow and alarms blare while his ship is hammered repeatedly by the fighter coming up on his back and the heavy guns of the cruiser smashing into the flank of the craft. Heiyuu wailing and struggling to get shields back online as panels rendered partially molten tear free in the attempt to clear the zone.
<<"I'm coming apart, heavy damage, I need to get out or get hulled.">>
Smoke and leaking hydraulics that begin freezing to create trailing spikes behind the old fighter. Banking towards the asteroids and space debris for cover trying to get anything solid between him and more incoming fire. Hadrix grimaces as more sparks fall and a gout of electrical fire shoots over him, actually lighting his arm on fire.
<"Gripper.">
The ID-10 engaging the fire suppression systems to spray over the side of the big man while he seeks to get clear. Still too many red indicator lights for his liking, especially with the number of fighter craft still active, even when the Gozanti is focused on by the other fighters.
<<"Holding for jump. I have systems coming apart... Gripper I'm on fire again...">> The sound of his comms washed out by the HWUSSSSH of fire suppressant engaging again.
Lofty's anti-slaver gunship shakes violently as heavy lasers from the Gozanti cruiser penetrate its shields and cut into the hull. She is a sturdy ship, but alarm klaxons and warnings flash as one of the engines flames out.
ENGINE THRUST>>>>>>>>>>50
<<"Stebbs, get engine up!">> Stebbs the Sullustan co-pilot is gibbering <<"Nii ndirí muinjinia!">> which loosely translates as 'I am not an engineer.' The R2 droid gets the shields back up at least as the damaged vessel attempts to break gun contact by putting an asteroid between them and the Gozanti cruiser.
The Cutlasses come in sharp, angling for a kill. Ben doesn't think -- he just moves. Hard roll to port, throttle drop, then kicked the aft stabilizers into a drift that let him slip between their angles. Blaster fire skimmed past, close enough to light the cockpit in strobing red.
"Five, I need those shields -- now." The droid warbles something frustrated, sparking again. Still nothing. Barely a flicker left on the meter. Didn't matter.
Ben snaps back around, weapons primed, locking another torpedo -- manual correction, targeting override, straight through the static -- and fires. The Gozanti's shields flared again, hard. Nearly collapsed. One more hit and they'd be down.
He doesn't say anything. Just tightens his grip on the yoke and kept flying, jaw set, heartbeat loud in his ears.
"SUCK IT!" The Pirate Captain gives the Firespray a salute as well before turning her attention toward those that are around her. Looking at the scanner, "Oi! Up! UP!" She walks over and smacks the helm on the shoulder, "I said UP. Get us out of here! That's way too many locks for my liking."
<"Damage Control, - BRACE!"> She grabs the back of the pilot's seat as the proton torpedoes come in, slamming into the shields, then knocking them down before leaving a gaping hole in the hull. The only advantage was the quad laser cannon that managed to shoot down the concussion missiles that were coming from the TIE.
"Damn them! I'm just an honest business woman here." She looks at the comms, "Fine! FINE! Cut it, put me on. Damage control, get our shields back up for farks sakes!"
<"OI! You go your way and I won't shoot ya. Eh? This is no longer profitable! So I'm taking my toys and you can take your toys, i'll go shoot up those schuttas elsewhere, yeh?"> Then she cuts a hand across her throat to say she wants the feed cut
As it seems like the Rebellion ships are starting to break off, the Pirate Captain moves over toward the scanners. "Oi! OI! OI! BRAINDEAD!" She smacks this pirate upside the back of the head as she points at the screen with the other. "What the kriff?! We don't leave our own! Drekkin' farked up shebs backwards poodoo eating nerf brained moron!" She turns and looks at the gunnery station.
"Grab 'im, yeh?" She walks over and points at the screen, "GRAB 'IM! Stars y'all, I swear." She sighs and runs her hands through her pink hair as she moves over toward the viewport on the bridge. She glances to the left toward the main one, then stands on her toes so she can see roughly where she expects the scanner reading is.
A tractor beam lances out and snags the pilot of the R-41 as they continue breaking away from the battle, the Captain keeping one eye on the sensors while still warily watching the others around her. When it seems like the Rebellion ships aren't going to pursue she takes a deep breath and lets it out.
<"Oi, kriffers, its the Cap'n. Grogs on me, triple ration. We made out like veritable thieves these last couple weeks. But this last battle - we'll pour one out for the pilots, yeh? Double shares, I'm only takin' half. Next stop... I dunno, we'll find one o' those places with the Sithies. But first! TO CORELLIA!"> There's cheers throughout the ship as that clearly means they're hittin' up some R&R at the Thieves Landing.
It's over, then.The Gozanti is turning around. The rest are following, whoever is left, all peeling off and vanishing into the stars. Just like that. No final stand. No fiery end. Just...gone.
Ben watches the sensors go clean, one by one. Success. That's what this was, right? His hands stay on the controls a second longer than necessary. Jaw tight. Shoulders locked.
Five beeped softly behind him, trying again -- still failing -- to bring the shields back online.
Relor should've felt something. Relief. Victory. Hell, even pride.
Instead, he just feels...tired. He hadn't crashed. He hadn't died. He'd flown well. Maybe that was enough. Enough to finally be cleared for starfighter pilot duty.
He opens the comms for a moment, mouth opened as well, as if to say something. But he just closes the channel again, taking his finger off the button, and stares out at the stars.
Chomper's droid does its thing, and she starts to make ready to do one final pass on that gunship, fighters on her tail or not. Then the message goes out. She punches the side of the cockpit in frustration. She knows how risky and dangerous one more pass would be, but she also really doesn't like pirates.
<"Kriffing....rgh!">
She wheels the damaged X-Wing around, heading to regroup with the flight and get the hell out of here. This was a win, but not a clean one.
