A trip to wild space.

[Master Buggie]

Buggie's fingers hop-stepped along the controls of his Nighthawk Gunboat as the enemy contacts began to filter across the screen. It turned out the signatures that the holding vessel had detected had come from Imperial starships, but much to his own surprise, Buggie discovered that the small group had stumbled across what appeared to be an Imperial convoy.

"Multiple contacts, Lead," Buggie's wingman alerted.

That was the problem. The small party of Galactic Alliance and pirate starships could drive off a lightly guarded convoy, but it appeared this one had significant escort. In particular, the sensor readings indicated that there were multiple assault starfighters and light freighters with deadly turrets. Buggie and his companions could turn around now and let the convoy continue on its way. The pirate holding vessel would likely be safe remaining at its current coordinates a microjump away; both the Empire and the combined pirate and Galactic Alliance groups could just move on with business as usual. On the other hand...

This was an opportunity to not only show the Empire that they could be hounded at every turn, but the Galactic Alliance and the pirates could learn valuable intelligence about what the Empire's intentions were this far out into Wild Space. In the end, Buggie's innate curiosity would not permit him to merely let this convoy pass. He sensed an opportunity here, and he meant to take it.

"All ships, tighten up. It's unusual to see a convoy with this much escort this far out into Wild Space. Let's try to secure the cargo and capture the crew," Buggie called over the party's frequency, "The Galactic Alliance might get more out of this trip than any of us originally thought."

Buggie accelerated to attack speed on a vector toward the convoy. He was certain that he would meet the escort before he could launch missiles at the convoy craft, but with his countermeasure system in place, he hoped he could avoid the first barrage of missiles headed his way. Glancing at his scopes, Buggie made doubly sure that his wingman was hugging his flank, as that was no guarantee, considering his prior record.

[Neive Undant]

Neive looked at the large group of ships in front of them, sighing. "Blast... even larger than I thought. But if we're doing this, let's go." Neive quickly send commands to his aggressor, the pilot droid on board breaking formation and flying below the main ship, watching for fire as it prepared to evade if needed.
"My other ship will draw some of their fire, what's the plan?"

[Jak Bexel]

The yellow blastboat re-entered common space with a brief thunderous roar, The Jacket spitting out of hyperspace right next to it. They were only allowed a momentarily peaceful glide out of the tail end of the jump, until their scanners went haywire. Before Jak rested a serious flotilla of Imperial entanglement. Over the comms, Red Eyes questioned their sanity while Riz's sensors continued to chirp in acknowledgement of what lay ahead.

"This isn't a small gathering, Jak," Riz warned. "These guys are armed to the gills. I'm picking up a lot of guns soon to be pointed at us."

"They must be hiding something important in that convoy. No way we're letting them off the hook," He responded to the open comms. "Red, follow my lead. I have a feeling our Bug is doing to do something -"

He was interrupted by a message over his party's main frequency: "
"All ships, tighten up. It's unusual to see a convoy with this much escort this far out into Wild Space. Let's try to secure the cargo and capture the crew. The Galactic Alliance might get more out of this trip than any of us originally thought."

"Yup, that's what I thought," he grumbled. "Follow that Bug, team."

Hands gripping the controls, he broke off from static engagement in space into an improvised attack formation at Buggie's 4 o'clock, with The Jacket riding tight along his 8. Now would be a perfect test of the power and maneuverability of his new ship.

[Neive Undant]

Once the ship was drawing their fire, Neive thought. He broke from the formation as well and moved around the side of the ship, priming his secondary weapons: Short range missiles. His primary weapons were ready as he approached the other side, the Trilon aggressor coming up the side and moving up, running and evading as much enemy fire it could as it ran the top of the ship, flying to meet Neive's ETA fighter. Neive looked at the bridge, thinking of a plan as the aggressor approached. He primed his thrusters for a quick burst of speed before looking to the side, ready to execute his plan once the aggressor was close enough.

[Annan Rainwalker]

The light freighters, YT-2000 Scintillance and YT-1300 Effulgence
Wild Space
Unknown system, unknown sector

The sister freighters jumped out of hyperspace and immediately the scanners aboard both began beeping multiple signals across the display consoles.

Imperials.

Even before Master Buggie's transmission, the crews of both freighters were on tactical alert, Jedi Rainwalker having already brought weapons online in advance and having just given the order to raise the shields. "Bigweld?!" he demanded their current status report, aboard the Scintillance.

<"Multiple hostiles!"> the droid exclaimed his report before he got up from his seat, leaving the cockpit to go down and man the turrets. Jedi Rainwalker jumped into the pilot seat while O.M.5, the RX-unit moved back to occupy Bigweld 2.0's former position on the co-pilot seat. On the Effulgence, Zulara had manned the turrets while her RX-unit continued to pilot the vessel.

The Galactic Alliance might make the most of this trip, Master Buggie said. Jedi Rainwalker sighed. As a Jedi, he always disagreed with unnecessary violence. He sat back in his seat. If it had been him in Master Buggie's place, he would have turned back then and there. Yet, they were at war with the Empire. For any kind of shipment to possess such a significant convoy - and for Wild Space to be the shipment route, of all places - they were quite likely transporting something that was of critical importance to the Empire.

More than likely, something that could be detrimental to the Alliance. And the millions of innocents living in freedom, in Independence, in the GA regions of the Galaxy.

Thus, with a deep breath, Jedi Rainwalker clasped his fingers around the piloting levers, the sublight engines of his YT-2000 roaring to life. He was not trying to kill those Imperials. He was merely trying to defend loftier ideals, and innocent people.

"Scintillance to Effulgence," he hailed the droid aboard his aunt's ships, his green orbs growing dull as he synced himself with the Force, letting it direct his subsequent decisions. "Assume position beneath me, 45 degrees infero-ventral to the Bandit 01 and the Jacket."

Jedi Rainwalker inhaled before steering the Scintillance to fly behind but dorsal to Master Buggie, at an angle of 45 degrees behind his and Jak's ships. The Effulgence was now underneath him, so it was Buggie's ship in the lead, Nieve's and Bexel's at its sides, and Ani's above and below all of them. Zechs was somewhere in here too. Probably. On the other side, multiple Imperial vessels and starfighters, all quickly assuming defense positions on his Tactical Holodisplay.

Like a game of holochess.

Still, he would not be the first to pull the trigger. "Master," he hailed Buggie's vessel. There was the infinitesimal chance that the Imperials would surrender, or perhaps even ditch their cargo and just leave without picking a dogfight. He had to try, in any case. "We are Jedi. Any chance we could try a diplomatic solution before opting for aggressive negotiations?"

[Master Buggie]

Buggie reached over to the shipboard console and flipped the switch to deactivate the comm feed between his starfighter and Jedi Rainwalker's vessels.

[Corran Vellar]

Ryder looked at the gathered vessels just outside his viewport, they hadn’t begun attacking yet, like they were waiting for the convoy to shoot first. “All escorts, don’t fire unless fired upon, I’m pushing us towards our next jump point.” He spoke into the ship to ship comms.

The two heavy freighters began moving away from the incoming pirates. These pirates were deep within Imperial territory, far away from the raging war, they would have no back up.

“Send a transmission out, make sure the nearest planetary defense fleet knows our location.”

If they attacked then Ryder would make sure the encounter would last long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

“Escorts! If they attack hold them off for as long as you can and then dock with the freights and prepare to defend the cargo, we won’t let these pirates win this day!”

Ryder then stood up and began his match towards his personal armory.

[Professor Mors]

Vassyl sat quiet for a time, his hand frozen over the comm controls. As enemy signals began to spring to life on the Proudclad's radar screen, the young Captain found no immediate energy to stir him from his meditation. For the briefest moment, Doren felt as if he might wipe: instead, the cabin of the XM-1 was suddenly flooded with rapturous laughter. He knew it. He knew that his gut had not thrown him to the carrion birds, nor instigated a fit of madness. For all of the naval officer's internal dialogues, his sense for danger had vindicated him once more. Curtailing a single joyful tear, Vassyl signaled his compliance to the lead ship, and swiftly set about prepping missile boat's titular weapon's array. If the loathsome rogues succeeded in boarding Ryder's vessel, the Captain and his ward would make a quick beeline for the main freighter. However, before such a confrontation could occur, the privateers would have to breach the Proudclad's line of sight. Twas no small task, and not one that Doren intended to make easy.

[Rhoden Carbine]

Rhoden hissed a stream of curses as he brought the YT directly alongside the Action V transport. "Shoot anything that gets too close, keep 'em off the transport. And us, of course." he said. The Starwing veered off and accelerated to engage the smaller enemy ships, forming up alongside Captain Vassyl's gunboats.

"Let's try to get out of here before we get blown to pieces." Rhoden said, as though any of the other ships could actually hear him with his comm muted. A dark thought occured to him, the Empire might well lose more than resources should the convoy buckle under assault. He licked his lips and waited for the fight to really get started.

[Ben Kenobi]

Raiders are Victorious.
10 EXP

Shippers are Defeated
5 EXP