Shipment 0319 - Sith

[Silas Karn]

The reversion to real space was jarring as it seemed not only did the jump seemingly with only half of the raiding party but their prey, the Sith, had been caught unaware. “Maintain your position until the others arrive.” Silas was swift to command Nil as he began manipulating his defender. Reducing the rear deflector shields to a minimal ten percent Silas increased both the forward shields and engines to near maximum at 140%, which could only be maintained in small bursts and if the ship took fire could severely weaken the vessel. Before making his first attack run Silas accessed the com channel back to Nil once more, “Scan the convoy, I want a full break down of what we are up against.” With that Silas erupted forth in hot pursuit. The black starship nearly unmatched in speed and offensive output, pound for pound anyway, it would soon place this convoy to the anvil.

[Rane DeCola]

As the battle ensued, Rane continued to coordinate the assault on the Sith convoy. He was glad that the attacking force was composed of experienced aggressors that had no issue utilizing restraint in carrying out their assault. The goal of the offensive hadn't been to destroy the convoy, but rather plunder and take whatever the convoy had to offer them.

“Continue to work to disable those bulk freighters! Remember, we want them whole if possible,” he reminded the small pirate fleet.

While the attack had commenced, the escorts of the Sith freighters seemed hesitant to engage. While he, along with the rest of the group, had so far shown control in his attack on the freighters, he wouldn’t waver in unleashing the full power of his ships should the situation require such action.

As Rane focused his attack still on the bulk freighters, Medic, his copilot RX-24 droid beeped wildly as the scanners were quickly beginning to show that the Sith hadn’t been caught completely unprepared.

Well so much for surprise, it seemed like the Sith had finally decided to join in the fight. However, they weren't the only ones who were beginning to reinforce their position...

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OOC: Edited to add the following note.
This is my 6th post. I'll be out of touch through Sunday evening, but I'll post through the week upon my return.

[Xerxes Nova]

‘Marking Action V’s as Non-combatant primary targets.’ ‘YT-1300 and YT-2000 freighters being tagged as secondary targets either could be carrying merchandise but, both have a bite to them.’ “That leaves a gunship and a few fighters as harrying forces.” ‘Confirming BSP friendlies from transponders three fighters, two freighters and two gunships’ ‘Four ships unidentified, a fighter, two freighters and a gunship’ “Designate them as third party fa now, we’ll ‘andle them as we see fit. With luck the’ll be friendlies.” This was a nightmare, they couldn’t just jump in like this. They could tell who was BSP and who was Sith by intelligence markers but, the other four were unknown quantities that they hadn’t been expecting. Even Aurek understood the situation as their weapons finally came up hot he hadn’t hounded to get stuck in. “Load ta torpedo tubes and get ready, Aurek, I want ya takin’ rangin’ shots on ta two Action V’s as we make a beeline ta their ass, Shen keep track of the unknowns see how they respond.” Tex pulled the Ferrous Dream up round and made for the back end of the convoy as Aurek prepared to take ranging shots as they got within acceptable range.

“Bit of a free for all going on, but, that’s dogfighting for you. Scrap I want you to tag the TIE for me, don’t know if its foe or not but, that’s about the only thing I know that could give me a bit of hassle in terms of speed. I’d rather keep distance if I can.” A confirmatory whoop came from the installed astromech and Xerxes gripped the joystick as his eyes flittered over the HUD and the panels. Finally he decided to do a strafing run, pushing the ship to cut across the path of the foremost Action V. He didn’t anticipate doing much if any damage to the capital class freighter but, at least he would be able to tell from the responses of the unknowns where they fell on the spectrum of enemy to ally. He had to chuckle as he saw Tex had come to the same conclusion seconds earlier though his target was the rear of the convoy. “Good luck my friend, good hunting.”

[Silas Karn]

Cooperative strikes weren’t of Silas’s concern as he had been contacted for a specific purpose. While the pirates saw to locking down the actual transports of the convoy Silas sought out the more lethal targets. A skipray blastboat was of particular note as it held perhaps the largest arsenal and was particularly stout. Of what the vessel traded for speed was strong defenses mixed with a great array of offense. Silas honed in on the ship and locked its quad lasers on the target. It would take another pass with better positioning to unleash the defender’s ion cannons and missiles despite the target’s larger size. At the immense speed Silas traveled it was difficult to tell how well his shots connected but regardless he prepped the defender to bank into yet another strike. With any luck the full array of his weapons would disable the skipray. It seemed Nil was not yet done scanning as Silas had yet to receive the droids report. However, something about this raid felt off.

[Xerxes Nova]

Xerxes shot past amidships of the forward Action V unleashing a spattering of laser fire. The shots were haphazard and reduced in power, he knew that he could do comparatively little with random fire so was limiting the resourced wasted in this first pass. He didn’t even pay attention to whether he hit or not but, instead paid attention to the battle display. A sense of relief coursed through his body when he saw the TIE Defender veer towards one of the Sith escort vessels. That fighter was one of the few that could match the speed and agility of his Mytil Starfighter and truth be told outclassed the Starfighter in all aspects other than armour, and even that was near as to make no difference in his opinion. Since the TIE was an Empire design he had assumed that it was an ally to the Sith in this engagement and was trying to thing up how to counter the damn thing. “Mark the Defender as an ally, we’ll forget it for now, keep track of the other three I don’t need any surprises.” He instructed Scrap as he came out the other side of the strafing run and pulled up into a spiralling ascent to get a new angle of attack on the Action V hoping to see its tail.

‘TIE Defender is engaging Sith Skipray’ ‘Shots have found correct range, calibrated for run on targets engines.’ ‘Suggest we take evasive actions immediately after next run’ ‘Agreed, lasers with be recharged after PTorp release’ “Gotcha, Hi’ G turn coming, mark one off ta limit” ‘Will do once manoeuvre is executed’ “Get ready then we’ll have to make this one count.”

[Dastan Imatari]

His instruments flashed red the millisecond an incoming non-sith registered craft thumped from hyperspace.

Making sure his comm was selected to the public group-
*"There it is." He growled, looking behind him to see a few starships begin to near-apparate in the space far behind them. Instinctually, he flipped the safety from his cannons.

Their ships rocketed forth, thinking to get the group swarming in a hairball by making their entry passes.

The clock was ticking. Dastan's face curled into a smirk. Having many important targets in one place for the Sith was a dangerous gambit... It was also one to hope to bring other high value targets to them.

Had they not been attacked, the shipping operation would be successful. Had their enemies come to them- it was also a win. However, not necessarily a grand one. Maybe even just a small one... but it certainly wouldn't seem so on the surface- because this was not to be a martial victory. But that of intelligence. Knowing exactly who would participate in a raid against the order was good information to have. Victories were based on planning, and or losses. Resources can afford to be lost in favor of a list of names and vessels. "Plan B" wasn't to win a fight, but to see who would show up to one.

Paging his apprentice in the freighter- *"Mercy, throttle up and prep'. We can talk scan results after."
He immediately reached down to his throttle with his left hand, gripped, and pushed forward. This would create distance, and buy a few seconds of time. His smirk grew into a grin. His sensors were beeping- but it wasn't a beep indicating any 'lock'. He reached to his nav and flipped a couple switches after plugging some buttons the console. A hum started to crescendo...

[Silas Karn]

The pilot of the skipray seemed to have been caught off-guard as the vessel offered no emergency evasive maneuvering prior to Silas banking around and locking on. This time with the totality of his carried ordinance Silas opened fire. Ion cannons, quad lasers, and twin missiles all culminating upon the less mobile ship. As far as Silas was concerned the ship was no longer a priority target as he accessed the com back to Nil. “So what have you found?” There was only a moment of silence prior to, “Three freighter class ships, an Action V transport, Razorfighter, your victim, an Infiltrator, and a R-41.”

[Dastan Imatari]

[[OOC: feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but be careful with assuming the actions/inaction of another player before they get a chance to respond... I realize this is the spacelanes, and timelines get crunched. Though maybe i'm jumping the gun here. ]]

[Derric Starr]

Gah!

An arch of electricity shot from the controls of the turret, Starr shielded his eyes from the sparks as they shot toward him. Quickly he double checked the controls to see if there was a bigger problem to contend with. Eyes half flicking between the battlefield in space and his own more immediate problems.

We've got a small problem with the controls , where did you geniuses steal this freighters from anyway. You'll have to focus on evading and whatever you can do from the cockpit, while I double check the fire controls.

Affirmative Captain Starr! We'll do all the work and report that when the mission is done.

Scanning the fire controls in front of him he saw nothing to cause the electrical discharge. Nothing at all not even a char mark to start with.

Great well let's see if I can fry myself.

Sighting the nearest hostile ship Starr let off a trio of shots... the last sent an even larger jolt of electricity shooting toward him.

[Xerxes Nova]

Tex gripped the stick in front of him, not that he necessarily needed to being plugged directly into the ship as he was but, he wanted to make sure he maintained a grip in case the connection was severed. This manoeuvre he was about to try was insane even for a droid as it pushed the ship to its limits, limits which were far beyond the old republic era appearance of the ship. He counted down and then killed the main engines, dumped power into the manoeuvring thrusters essentially flipping the ship around 180 at G-forces that would likely kill any organic on board and then kicked the engines back into life as they streaked back towards the rear of the Action V. ‘Lasers at full capacity, releasing clearing pattern salvo, PTorp away, Second salvo released, pass complete.’ The idea had been to release a screen of laser fire before and after the proton torpedo in hopes of clearing any obstructions. Tex doubted that the torpedo would reach, more likely to be taken down by anti-ordinance fire but, it would hopefully draw attention to the rear of the convoy while the Kid positioned himself perpendicularly to this run to take a shot at the forward transports engines. With luck they could do damage, at worst they could at least distract them enough to slow their progress. The longer it took them to get to their waypoint the better chance they had to defeat them.

Xerxes watched the streaking line of the Ferrous Dream as it seem to abruptly retrace its trajectory and winced to himself. He knew the ship wouldn’t pull itself apart after only one such manoeuvre but, he made a mental not to do a strip down maintenance on the ship when they were next docked. As for he himself having nearly blacked out, his vision had been narrowed and greyed throughout the ascent, pulled the Bronze Goddess round into a gentler arc to position himself. “You ready Scrap, because we may be living up to that name of yours if we don’t time this right” he joked knowing that Scrap would have already calculated their trajectory. A small timer cropped up in his HUD counting down to the point when he needed to dive in and hopefully score a few meaningful hits.