SithLore

Decker took out the TIE Avenger for a routine run. It was the Empire's property, so he hadn't made any so to say...personal changes...well besides knocking out some kinks in the turns and throttling speeds. Something had seemed off with those.

It may not have been smart to head out into an unpatrolled area, but he felt rather secure in this TIE and his capable skills. Even if help would take time to arrive. He wanted some open space to fully test out this starfighter. See what it was really made of compared to the TIE Interceptor he used to use before being moved up into this line.

The frontier of Galactic Alliance and Imperial space was ripe with patrols and picket forces skirmishing and probing the enemy. The front lines were active and a good source of intelligence, as a watchful eye left undetected could glean much about patrol patterns, force composition, as well as tactics being employed. The Blue Star Pirates utilized system probes to gather this information. The sensitive monitoring equipment within the compact probes could capture a plethora of information, enough to keep the BSP technicians busy on a full-time basis. Unfortunately, though, the one weakness of these monitoring devices was that they lacked the ability to remotely communicate or move themselves from their position once dropped off from their mothership.

This meant that the information within their databanks had to be manually collected.

A small ship was holding position beside one of these system probes at the moment, diligently downloading information from the probe's internal storage. With the pilot's focus on the collection of data, they failed to be alerted to a lone Imperial fighter hovering about just at the edge of sensor range. Perhaps, though, the TIE pilot also had failed to notice them...

Decker Willo kept to the trajectory that he had pre-planned. Nothing of a combat patrol, just something that would bring him by potential targets to test laser cannons on from any prying eyes. He had even went to avoid other Imperials on patrol, not wanting this mini training session of his to be disrupted by routine pilots that would no doubt throw questions of suspicion his way.

He kept his comms open, to listen out for any reports of nearby enemy contact or in case he had to quickly call on out for help. Decker, for once, threw caution to the wind, thinking he would be safe enough from anyone looking out for ships since he were just in a single fighter. Who would bother with one small ship over a cruiser? Humming a bit to himself a tune, he kept his fighter going straight, occasionally doing a routine check on the systems. To get used to the system.

As the pilot harvested the data from the system probe, a small screen on the device used to transfer the data displayed the visual footage captured by the probe. The footage was sped up by several times, and mostly consisted of vacant deep space. From time to time, a low resolution shot of a patrol at the edge of the system was captured, or the brief flashes of energy from a skirmish. All of this information was disregarded by the pilot, as it was the job of the data analysts to pick through it. As that thought passed through the pilot's mind, though, the briefest of glimpses at something significant passed by the screen. The pilot took a moment to come to terms with what they had seen, before they hastily set about tapping at the controls, trying to reverse the footage and get another look. After a few unsuccessful attempts at freezing the footage at exactly the right place, finally they succeeded in stopping the recording with the object they sought directly in the center of the display.

The system probe had captured footage of a Super Star Destroyer.

An urge to leave the system now bubbled from the pilot's stomach to their head and threatened to make them stop the data transfer altogether so that they could flee. If there was a Super Star Destroyer in the system, the pilot didn't want anything to do with it. More than that, this footage needed to be sent directly to the Pirate Council. It was possible that the probe had captured more footage, but wasn't this brief glimpse at the Imperial dreadnought enough? No, the pilot decided, they needed to remain. They were one ship in deep space, it would be astronomically unlikely that anyone spotted them out here before the data transfer could complete. The pilot flipped the display to show how far the data transfer had progressed and anxiously watched the estimated time to completion slowly count down.

Decker Willo he was plenty far away from anyone that could disrupt this test. He halted the fighter to a standstill in space, floating forth before stopping in the vacuum with the use of small directional thrusters. The Imperial pilot wanted to test out the blasters first. Connecting a target practice module to his HUD, he got some holographic markers appearing across the screen within his helmet. Some remained motionless, some moved about like another starfighter. Decker used the directional thrusters to begin turning on the spot.

Then he got to firing, just at some of the motionless targets. The first test of his was for the laser cannons, to see how accurate they were and how fast those lasers got out before another would follow. It would come in great practice in a real dogfight when leading targets. Of course, he wouldn't make himself motionless either in a real dogfight but rather would stay on the move. However, he had no means of knowing another pilot was nearby. Nor did he think to engage, if he had known. By technicality, he was off duty.