CONTINUED: First Time for Everything

[Ordona Vandorak]

OOC: Continued from https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/sithlor ... 10766.html

IC:

Ordona listened as the escort sounded off, her spirits buoyed slightly by the response. At least she wouldn't be running the risk of interception alone. Her Action Vs were loaded to the brim with supplies for the Alliance and Ordona didn't want to muck it up on her first time out for her new allegiance. The thought sent shivers down her spine. The last time she'd been formally employed by any government or group it was the Sith. Her time with them was full of any number of emotions that she really didn't have time to dwell on now. Shaking free of her slight reverie, the dark haired woman reached forward and opened up a comm to all the ships in the convoy.

"This is Twin Tug I, piloted by..." She hesitated, much as The Wayist had. Her real name. Something she hadn't used when it could better be avoided. "Ordona Vandorak. We're ready to move out."

She waited, letting her pilot droid send the coordinates to all of the ships, and double checking that the lumbering brute of a transport was ready to make the jump to hyperspace. When she was confident that her old, beat up tug was in the green, Ordona reached out and pushed the levers forward. She wasn't sure if it was melancholy or ennui that overtook her as the stars turned into glowing lines, but her mood had turned even more maudlin by the time they disappeared to be replaced by the mottled sky of hyperspace.

She sighed, closing her eyes. Trying, and failing, to do something that resembled meditation.

At least I'm basically alone on this void-forsaken ship.

[Zechs Merquise]

Hyperspace took him. The fighter wasn't the best place to spend it, but this wasn't the first nor the last time Zechs would spend such time with hardly any room to shift in. A TIE strangely had a little more flex room for the pilot compared to the more traditional cockpit of the XJ. It was what it was though.

Zechs shifted back in his seat the half inch it had to give. He closed his eyes and took a quick nap. He would have read a book, but he wasn't sure where it would have been safe to cram. Besides, reading on the move always made him sick.

[Annan Rainwalker]

(OOC: in case someone didn't get the memo - the really annoying one - I changed Ani's name again (last time, really!), and IC-chronologically the name change took place before this thread, so because I can't edit my old post now, Ani said 'Annan Anakin Rainwalker' in the previous post and not 'Marmaduke'. Also, bypassing Corran and Derric's turns so I can stay with my group of miscreants, and cuz I may not be able to post later because of rl issues.

Also, my OOC Transports list has been edited to fall in line with the new rules regarding RX-units being RX-units.)
_
<“Blip burrip!”> Drop rolled into the cockpit of the Mesudiye Effulgence, affirming to the green-eyed starpilot that had assembled him that his counterpart, O.M.5, had finished loading all the necessary crates in the Cargo Hold. Annan smiled down and placed his hand on the globular droid.

“Good job, Drop!” The Padawan then pressed his comm-switch and contacted his aunt-sister. “Zula, everything's prepped on my end. Just need those coordinates--”

"This is Twin Tug I, piloted by..." Annan noted the hesitation, and wondered whether the lady was trying to come up with an alias or something. "Ordona Vandorak. We're ready to move out."

“Baby-Ann, she's sent the coordinates,” the aunt's voice projected into the cockpit through the comms.

“I have them; just need my pilot droid now,” the nephew replied. “And stop calling me that! I was born two hours before you, I'm your elder so show some respect!”

“I'm your aunt, O my darling elder sister's son,” the alabaster-skinned female retorted wryly, as she checked everything off the preflight checklist, her own RX-unit beside Annan's KX-unit Bigweld. Bigweld was seated in the seat behind and above her own. He was programming the coordinates into the navicomputer after connecting his computer interface arm with the navigation system. Transmitter firmware, compressor, sublight engines, propellers, hyperdrive, power core, sensor disk... all set. This Corellian was ready to walk the skies.

“We're so not having the 'age versus relationship' debate again!”

In the Mahmudiye, Bigweld stared at his partner's aunt, photoreceptor units blinking in a puzzled expression. <“... You organics, and your bizarre relations.”>

“O.M.5, get in your seat and punch the transmitted coordinates into the navicomputer.”

O.M.5, Annan's co-pilot droid in the Mesudiye, was programming the coordinates into the navicomputer in the seat next to Annan's. O.M.5 was an RX-unit that had been assembled by Annan largely from scrap parts that he had pieced together during his pre-Jedi years. O.M.5 was actually the first droid that Annan had made, for he had helped fly him undetected out of his Imperial homeworld, Lah`mu. While he had managed to find most of the required hardware, he had to use an old Clone Wars-era B1 battle droid's processing unit and memory drive that he had obtained from a junkpile. O.M.5, incidentally, retained the memories of that B1-unit, and full of glitches, thought that it was a B1-unit, that was still supposed to be fighting in the Clone Wars, and that Ani was his master, some Lord Poggle the Lesser, whoever that bloke was.

<“The coordinates have been programmed into the navicomputer, Lord Poggle."> O.M.5 informed him. The Rainwalker nodded, ignoring the identity glitch, as he switched off one button after an another overheard. Drop rolled out of cockpit, knowing his designated spot was to be in the quad-laser access tube in case of any emergencies.

<“Ready.”> Bigweld affirmed.

“Ready.” Ani affirmed.

<“... Badger, badger,"> O.M.5 glitched out again.

<“Its 'roger', you glitch!”>

“Prepped.” Zulara affirmed.

The Girodyne-make sapphire sublight engines on both the YT-2000 Mahmudiye Scintillance and the YT-1300 Mesudiye Effulgence ahead of it roared to life at the exact same time, one starship levitating after another as both left the hangar and shot upwards into the sky with increasing acceleration. A raised heat signature on their thermosensors indicated escape velocity and they were in space sooner than later, before the stars turned to lines a moment before being replaced by the azure clouds of hyperspace.
_
Transports

CEC YT-2000 Mahmudiye Scintillance
==> Zulara Rainwalker (NPC) + KX-unit Bigweld (NPC) + RX-24 Pilot Droid
CEC YT-1300 Mesudiye Effulgence
==> Annan (PC) + Drop (BB-espionage unit) + O.M.5 (RX-24 Pilot Droid)

[Derric Starr]

With a good showing of ships escort to transport Starr moved into a flanking position to the convey. The old Clutch, Tri-fighter was not the dated versions of the original patch job models, and he enjoyed every extra inch of room in the cockpit he had over other fighters. It was one of the few accidental advantages to the remodeling he had done to the fighter. There were a lot of extra inches of space to the cockpit which he was noticing for the first time as he made the jump to lightspeed.

Time and space were all he had now as he ran his mind and hands over the ships controls. It was good to be as ready mentally as he was physically, just in case things went sideways quick. As good as his luck was, there was always the chance that things would go badly in the space of a heartbeat and he was well aware of what that could turn out to be.

[Ordona Vandorak]

Hyperspace travel felt familiar to Ordona. She thought of the billions upon billions of beings who would spend their whole lives on one planet, never seeing the stars transform into a mottled tunnel, hurtling across vast distances of space. She thought of those she'd killed, some justified, others that she regretted from her current situation, all beings who would never see the colorful display of hyperspace again. Mostly though, she reflected on the Force and the winding paths she'd followed at its behest. Sometimes it pulled her as if she ran along a track, and others it gave her a gentle push, letting her go whatever direction her conscience and heart and mind would let her go. Still, she trusted in it, despite everything that had happened. She trusted that she would get through this cargo run and to the next mission and that if she should fail, there was a reason.

It felt like a hokey religion.

Still though, Ordona cast a quick thought of good-will through the Force as she pulled the levers that would drop her transport out of hyperspace and back into the increasingly dangerous corridors of real-space. She didn't know what was on the other side of this jump, or if her ships or those in her convoy would make it through to see another jump. But what Ordona did know was that she would fight to make sure they all had the best chance of making it. She could only wait and watch carefully as the starlines reappeared and then shortened to star points, hoping that they would be on their way to the next jump without interference in just a short amount of time.

[Zechs Merquise]

Zechs dreamed of a hutt soaring across the stars searching for the one joke to rule them all. He chased after them. Never did he get within earshot. The hutt was always too quick, too witty. Then luck happened. The hutt stopped, but just as he was about to catch up to them, the hutt faded away and was replaced by a hooded man.

The hooded man bent over. "Long live Darth Farts! Would you like a nose ring with that?"

It was then the alert sounded and snapped Zechs out of his dream. He pulled his fighter out of hyperspace to rejoin the others in a more sane yet somehow not as nice universe. He instantly felt tired. It wasn't a long enough nap. Perhaps, he'd get another, but as he yawned, he checked his readouts to ensure all was as it was supposed to be. The droid had already probably done it, but droids couldn't always be reliable.

Zechs was getting too old for this-

[Master Buggie]

((OOC: Raid fails, convoy proceeds as normal.))

[Derric Starr]

Dull boring the streaks of light, the star field of hyperspace, flying through the void at the speed of light.

It was just one of those odd moments when Starr felt that urge. That sudden urge to do something so asinine an oddly enough insane that he pondered the thought for a while. Not that there was anything else to do during the long flight through bleary eyed madness, but than again sometimes that stray thought is the only thing to keep a mind sane when staring off into nothingness.

Swerve, what would happen if he just swerved manually breaking from the flight path of the navcom.

Oh well he thought as the navcom gave warning for the jump back to sublight speeds.

[Derric Starr]

There is that moment when you leave hyperspace before returning to sublight speed when the streaks begin to slow almost as if being pulled in the opposite direction when you think that you are traveling in reverse. Backwards at the speed of light.

Now there was a maddening thought. Traveling backwards at a speed so fast a being would be splattered all across the unknown if a stray object crossed the navcoms calculated path. A smokiing spot of dark dripping mess mixed with durasteel and flesh. Morbid perhaps but intriguing to consider as his eyes adjusted to the plain black of sublight speed.

This trip was nearly over and somehow it seemed like here was nothing exciting building on the horizon, or any horizon. How little did he know just how close he had come to yet another raiding party.

[Annan Rainwalker]

Extradimensional energies, or what Annan liked to call 'blue clouds', danced around the two YTs as they sailed through hyperspace, jumping out at one navpoint and promptly jumping back into the alternate dimension a short interval later on course for the next one. The YT-1300 Mesudiye led the YT-2000 Mahmudiye.

“Looks like it's going to be a quiet ride, Baby-Ann,” Zulara said in the comm-link, as she sat in the pilot seat of the Mahmudiye, her hands on the controls. “Though I guess that makes for good piloting practice.”

“Zula, stop it,” Annan replied, mumbling via the comm-link in the pilot seat of his YT-1300.

“Stop what?”

“Stop calling me your baby,” he could barely keep his annoyance out of his voice, despite all the Jedi training. “I am not your baby.”

“You're my sister's baby. No one else in the Galaxy has more genetic, physical or psychological similarity to your Mum than I do. Not even you,” her amusement ran thick through the artificial air of both freighters.

“... But.. you know that isn't entirely true because I was ado-- oh screw it. O.M.5, what's our ETA?”

<“ETA to destination, 0400 Galactic standard hours, Lord Poggle!">

Hyperspace couldn't end sooner.