Post by Storyteller on Dec 28, 2017 1:25:39 GMT
[23:05:42] Jeramiah Thrall was obviously beyond ready. He stormed through the dock, tossing his duffel bag onto the deck of the U-Wing. He turned to the deck, watching pilots hop in their TIE fighters, stormtroopers running from one post to another, and suddenly, everything felt right. He adjusted his blaster on it's sling, and turned to the crew that he'd assigned who were nearby. "What in the actual fuck are you doing!? Unscrew your shit and get on! We've waited long enough already!”
[23:18:28] Sera Shesh was the very image of imperial propriety. If anything, the recent promotion had ensured that she kept herself even more immaculately perfect, back ramrod straight, stride long, movements precise and sharp. There was the fact that she had painted lips and nails, and was a bit too ready with a smile for the expectations of most imperials, but one could only expect so much of kuati nobility.
She stopped not far from the vessel, paying Jeramiah a distant salute before striding up to the Carrack light cruiser. She set a hand fondly on the ship's side, running fingers along the hull as she walked to the on-ramp, like some strange lover's carress. The name had been stripped out for this operation, but she remembered her old ship well. In moments she was onboard, and it didn't take more than a few seconds to stride across to the main bridge and key herself into the comm line for the operation, "The Endurance is ready to go.”
[23:23:53]Shaena Karath: Shaena remained in the briefing room and only after the EW officer ensured her the line was secure did she insert yet another code cylinder into the console. "Roger that, Endurance. The map through the Transitory Mists is being transmitted right now. We'll be in constant contact through out. Good luck and godspeed." She reclined in a seat, though she found herself far from relaxed considering the stakes.
[23:30:02] Jeramiah Thrall Jeramiah returned with his sloppy slaute, before pulling his helmet onto his head. The radio crackled to life and started it's encryption process. To the rest of them, he would sound normal, but to anyone nearby his speech was not dissimilar to a Death Trooper. "Badger One is gear up." He replied as he checked his own gear, starting with the knife sheathed on his chest. "We'll remain radio silent once we reach the staging point. Admiral, I hope you picked your best crew, because once that beacon is active, every soldier, ship, and mynock is going to know we're there. We're counting on you.”
[23:32:49] Sera Shesh keyed in commands, setting up all the different commlines she would need: one for her own officers in the Endurance, one between her and the bridge in the U-Wing, one operation wide, one for each TIE Scout... not every ship captain ran their comm systems the same, and Sera made a point to always set things up to her preference. It was done in moments, well before her ship's helmsman could move them out of the hangar, "we have as much talent as can be crammed into a light cruiser, here. We'll hold our own, Badger One." As she spoke, the ship eased out of the structure, and began the burn away from gravity. She sent a few instructions to the two TIE Scouts, the pair surged out ahead. As soon as they were out of the gravity envelope, they both jumped out. "Badger One, path is clear up to Bilbringi. We can form up there and start our trek."
[23:40:19]Shaena Karath: There was a brief moment where Shaena felt Jeramiah's presence as strongly as if he were in the room right next to her. She could hear his voice, not filtered through the coms. She knew they had a connection via the Force but it had never spiked so strongly before. "Be careful." She murmured on instinct, wondering if he could hear her in turn. All formal channels gave the all clear to Shesh to jump when she pleased.
[23:44:35] Jeramiah Thrall shifted slightly as he felt his heart shift, more than the slight adrenaline boost of nervousness was causing. He could feel the U-wing shift as it took off, so he didn't get up to look out a window. Instead, he placed one hand on the wall next to him, as if to feel outside of the craft. Luckily, he remembered to reach up and mute his microphone before he replied, "I will, for you." to her. No doubt, the crew operating the mission in front of Shaena tapped a screen for a moment at Jeramiah's heart spike.
[23:49:51]Sera Shesh: "Helm, make lines." The man complied, pushing the hyperdrive handle forward, and in moments the starscape outside turned into lines, then into a tube of swirling light as they soared through hyperspace.
It wasn't a single jump to Bilbringi, but Sera knew the fastest routes, and the ones that would raise the fewest questions from their own personnel out on patrol. It made sense: she'd set up the Order of Battle they were now keeping. She took the time during the many jumps to get in touch with what few officers in the ship she hadn't met face to face during the mission yet, as well as a few more tasks necessary to set-up. Eventually, though, they were at the Order's outermost system. From now onwards, they would be going through Imperial Space. She waited outside the system's gravity well, waiting for the U-Wing and the two TIE Scouts. The later soon emerged into the system, pinging her to confirm safe arrival.
[23:59:24] Jeramiah Thrall waited until the jump was through before he got up from his seat. He could tell the rest of his crew had pre-combat jitters, and he would be lying if he said he didn't. Once he could see out the front window, he watched the TIEs roar off into the darkness, most likely to prepare for their next jump. His hands quickly found the "Oh shit" handles, before he unmuted his helmet. "This is where we part ways, Admiral. See you in an hour or so, Force willing." he explained as he reached up to his wrist to set his watch. Yes, a watch. He knew it was likely out of date, but it was reliable.
[0:05:35]Shaena Karath: [NPC] The team in the U-Wing likewise seemed restless as one might expect given the op they were about to undertake and the risks weren't lost on anyone. The second highest ranking member of the team, a man with cropped blonde hair and a matching goatee ran his hands through what little hair he had on his head and looked toward Thrall. "Where'd you find that thing, Captain? You didn't strike me as an antique collector.”
[0:06:13]Sera Shesh: From Bilbringi, it was tense nerves the entire way. She'd plotted out the route, and ensured there would be as few jumps, and those into as few inhabited systems as possible, but in some cases it couldn't be helped. The TIE Scouts always went first: one of them would jump into the outskirts of a system, wait until their sensors had picked up enough information about it, broadcast it back. Some time later, the U-Wing and Carrack would arrive. The paired Scouts were always one or two jumps ahead of them, forging the path, ensuring they weren't detected. In a couple cases, the Scouts jumped into a system to find Remnant forces present, but they jumped out before drawing too much attention. This was were the close borders with Zsinj came in handy: for all the Remnant knew, those TIE Scouts came from Zsinj.
Tense jump after tense jump, hours coordinating the two fighter-scouts and the two ships, and finally they came to where the challenge really started. Close to Republic space now, and at the edges of the Transitory Mists. The scouts forged ahead on the route indicated in the map, only until they made distant contact with Hapan forces. They jumped the heck out, fast. They'd been far enough away that it would be hours before the Hapans knew, and all they would know is that a single TIE Scout had jumped in, then out again. No big deal.[+]
[0:09:07]Sera Shesh: It was a big deal for the team, though. It meant diverting from the known path in order to avoid detection on arrival. It meant braving the Mists, even if only briefly. Sera and the two TIE pilots discussed over comms, and eventually the two set out, both making an intermediate jump 'sideways' so that they could skip the position held by the Hapan navy. A few tense minutes later, one of them reported back with a clear path. The other never reported back at all.
Heart heavy, they made the intermediate jump, then from it a long one, bypassing the Hapan fleet. A few more jumps and they were one jump away from Sargon. Sera set the comm towards Jeramiah, "final jump, and then you're going in. It's your op now, Badger One. When you can use us, just raise us and we'll do our part."
[0:09:22]Shaena Karath: Enter stormtrooper Prospero: 78.media.tumblr.com/45b9eb7eb334c9441cca4d7040571fa9/tumblr_omv2eiFrCc1tqob8bo2_r1_250.gif ]
[0:13:04] Jeramiah Thrall glanced back at the older man with a smirk. "You would be amazed how much junk the Rebels left lying around." he replied. To be honest, he usually would have shot the man down to shut him up, but he could use the break from his pre-fight jitters. "I needed something they wouldn't look twice at if I fudged the transponder. These things change hands more often than loaded dice on Nar Shadda." he explained, before glancing back up at the pilot. "Alright. Let's do this. If you could keep the crashing to a light thump against that fancy lawn, that would be fantastic." he teased the pilot. Although, Jeramiah couldn't tell what the pilot's reaction was under their helmet. With a surge of the ship, they were away. Jeramiah prayed they didn't suddenly have some AA blasters that he didn't know about, and if they did, hopefully they would raise them to see who they were, first.
[0:18:04]Shaena Karath: [NPC] "I don't think anything the rebels do amaze me anymore, Captain." The man replied as he did a final weapons check, probably the fourth one since he had boarded the craft. It was a truth that everyone had nervous habits and he was no exception. "I gotta admit, I was hoping to visit Hapes under less pressing circumstances.”
[0:26:13]Sera Shesh: The last time invaders had actually struck at a world within the Consortium had been a very, very long time ago. Oh, there were raids, and some outlying worlds actually got to see a bit of violence every other millennia, but for the most part, this land was untouched by war in a way that the rest of the galaxy could only dream of. The final jump through hyperspace had been carefully plotted: the jump actually aimed with some precision at the planet of Sargon, and didn't include a jump-out period. They were yanked out of Hyperspace by the planet's gravity well, emerging directly atop it, already inserted into a high orbit.
"Alpha, report in" She sent the call the moment they emerged, hearing the confirmation from the four bombers. The pilots were in their seat and ready should Jeramiah call them in.[+]
[0:27:34] Kixene had mostly been quiet at the U-Wing's controls as the mission unfolded, speaking more on the comms to command than the troopers on the transport and keeping to her own little work inside her helmet. Though the last joke from Jeremiah got him a thumbs up in return, arm raised to about head level so it could be seen.
[0:28:51]NPC Repository: [Sargon] The planet below was beautiful, more green than blue and much of that rolling grasslands with the estates of ultra-rich hapan nobility strewn here and there. Preparedness for an attack was low, and really, the class of all the vessels on arrival was such that even some Hapans, with unfashionable interests in foreign vessels, owned some of those. The first reaction when the few vessels showed up wasn't to start aiming weapons, it was to start calling neighbors to figure out who the boor was.
The U-Wing was given a surprisingly clear initial insertion into the planet's atmosphere, though the moment they started to approach the target compound's airspace, laser cannons on the ground began to swivel around in their direction. They were about to be under fire.
[0:33:23] Jeramiah Thrall glared down at the surface below as the approached. Already, the plan was up shit creek, but he half expected this to be the part that fell apart anyways. "Shit... Hold here, don't get any closer. Try to hail them." He muttered to Kixene, before glancing back to the rest of the crew to reassure that they were prepared before he already broke the plan wide open. He flicked on his encrypted channel to Shesh. "Admiral, I'm calling an audible. We've been made, we need those bombers ahead of schedule. Do you think you can hold out long enough in contact for us to get the VIPs?"
[0:39:57]Kixene: With the initial approach clear she would maneuver the ship gracefully as to not raise suspicion any earlier than it had to be. Her hand was on the controls to engage the S-foils into the swooped back position, only to pull her hand away and power up the comms for contacting flight control on the ground. "This is..." She would identify the ship per the transponder and script she had been given during briefing. While awaiting a response she kept the ship steady, slowly cruising in the atmosphere. SHe extended her arm, ready to go in hot as soon as thing hit the fan.
[0:43:24]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Prospero was experienced enough to know that no plan survived contact with the enemy so he remained outwardly calm. He had a couple of ideas about how to proceed from here on out, but Thrall seemed to be on point in his own right so he remained silent, gripping his blaster a bit tighter. Every second seemed to tick by slower than an hour.
[0:49:05] Sera Shesh 's voice was absolutely calm. By all appearances, she took the news about the arrival being intercepted the way most people would take news about incoming clouds on a tuesday. "Understood, Badger One. We'll make it happen." She keyed a different comm, shifting to the line to her officers and the TIE-Bomber pilots. "Team, prepare for a hot insertion. Helm, full acceleration into the gravity well, Alpha - be ready to launch when called."
Bombers were unshielded, if they were to go into an atmosphere, it would have to be a slow and gentle insertion. Sera trusted the U-Wing would keep it together for some time in there, but the faster this got done, the lesser the chance of a full military reprisal. That was why the Carrack faced planetwides and then burned its engines like there was no tomorrow, burrowing into the atmosphere fantastically hot. Her officers actually had to redirect some energy to the front shields, so tremendous was the friction being generated. When they were in deep enough, she sent the next orders, "pull up; compensate." A brief moment, while the entire ship juddered: the nose was pulling up, they were slowing down in relation to the ground below. "Launch bombers!”
[0:49:08]NPC Repository: The laser cannons trailed the U-Wing lazily. Maybe someone at the local security detail was just a busy-body, maybe the owner of the place was paranoid. Despite those predilections, they were more than happy to take the U-Wing up in a brief bit of conversation, exchanging calling cards, checking intentions for approximation, asking about occupants, all the standard. It took the people on the ground a while to notice that the little cruiser in high orbit had started to accelerate down. Really, it only got alarming once it was already burning through the atmosphere, and at that point it was much too late.
The four Bombers were released from the Carrack. Whereas the little cruiser started to pull back up immediately, the four of them took full advantage of the simply ridiculous speed they'd been imparted with during insertion, and just roared down towards the compound. A single, effective dive-bombing run later, all the laser cannons that had been targeted were smoking heaps.
[1:03:36] Jeramiah Thrall cringed slightly at the explosions, knowing that every loose explosion put Shaena's children at risk, but that was part of the job. He gave Kixene a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. "Alright, let's see if you can make this thing dance." he ordered, before turning back to his crew. "Alright, Troopers, I hope you sent your letters back to your families, because we are about to do something REALLY Goddamn stupid. When that deck hits the floor, I expect every blaster on this boat to be spitting fire at anything that even remotely resembles a guard." He ordered, before keying his com one more time. "Good Effect, Admiral. Keep the bombs outside the compound walls, and we'll handle it from there.”
[1:06:06]Shaena Karath: Fly good, Kix ]
[1:08:00]Kixene: "That shouldn't be a problem if you didn't fix this thing back up with two left feet." With the attention turned to the cruiser disgorging it's compliment of bombers Bodi activated the S-foils, causing the long forward facing protrusions on the craft to sweep backwards and lock into place. "Hang on." the words came out of her mouth calmly as she slammed the trust controls forward, causing the craft to accelerate hard. The land below filled the forward view from the cockpit as she brought the craft down, pulling back on the stick to level out close to the surface in a traditional landing craft approach to bring them under the radar for any remaining ground based air defenses. The U-Wing was quickly approaching the landing zone and with a hard bank and the hiss of air breaks the ship put down on target; she didn't make any promises about the landscaping though.
[1:10:25]Shaena Karath: [NPC] As soon as the terrifying ride down to the surface was done (During which he was pretty sure he could feel a couple of his teeth rattle loose) he unbuckled and took up a pose near the deck hit the floor he took only a micro-second before he fired off the first shot toward an approaching male, and then his partner a few feet away. "Let's roll!" He took a step off the ramp and covered the others as they unloaded.
[1:10:43]Sera Shesh: She decelerated until she was hanging above the defanged compound, many kilometers over it. Tactical policy dictated she should climb back up and out of atmosphere: her ship wasn't built for this, and any enemy vessels showing up outside the air envelope would have a tremendous advantage over them. However, the higher they went, the broader to stretch of the planet's surface where any surface gun could target them, and she didn't fancy the risk of getting hit by a heavy ion. So she stayed in atmosphere, faintly visible even to those on the ground, the four bombers flying around and around, wary and ready. For now, they had breathing space.
[1:14:06]NPC Repository: There was no question to anyone on the ground that this was a raid, and their response was as firm as could be expected from a paramilitary estate guard. Men surged to the walls of the compound, some even took pot-shots at the approaching U-Wing, despite the fact that their small-arms had little hope of even putting a perceptible dent on overall shield power. At the first moment their numbers were small, but they would fight fiercely to hold the enemies back from the edge of the compound, and it wouldn't take long for more of them to suit up, arm up and join the battle. Unsurprisingly, they only used small-arms - no one had bothered to give heavy or auxiliary gear for what were no more than armed guards.
[1:20:24] Jeramiah Thrall recognized their advantage, and didn't dare let them have an ounce of quarter. As the door dropped and the troopers disembarked, Jeramiah grabbed his Disruptor Rifle from the duffel bag, pointed it at the nearest hard cover that had some guards behind it, and opened fire. As soon as the ball of energy left his muzzle, he dropped the weapon back into his bag while he waited for it to recharge. While they were ducking from the other trooper's covering fire and the ensuing explosion (or, total disintegration of their comrades), he picked up his DC-15 and started laying down some suppression fire of his own. "Not one step back! If we let them breathe while we're out here, we're dead!”
[1:24:43] Kixene needed to keep the ship running and ready to go. She had her own blaster handy as the troopers disembarked. The ship's forward facing canons would be too much to use in this fight so she opted for something more defensive. She started rerouting power from the laser cannon systems to the shields, expanding the envelope of protection around the ship for what it was worth; they would still need to get inside and pull off this mess.
[1:27:43]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Prospero nodded. "Roger that, sir! Get that wall down!" He gestured toward the wall they were facing and one of the other troopers loaded a breaching charge in a rocket launcher and quickly launched it just that way, blasting a decent sized hole in the barrier. "Let's move!" He and the other storm troopers began to move toward the breach as quickly as they could, obviously not wanting to get bogged down and returning fire when they could. Their goal was the main building of the estate where they assumed the kids were being held.
[1:32:37]NPC Repository: For the second time, things looked like they could be about to turn bad very early on. The laser cannon being turned on the U-Wing early on had been an abortive start to the operation, and the surprisingly stiff response from within the estate could well have been enough to force the invaders back and to their ship. Sheer aggression - and the use of some very heavy weapons - worked wonders to break the opposition down, however, and that first obstacle was surmounted: they were through the outer walls, and running into the estate proper.
From a straightforward engagement around the walls, the conflict turned into a complex battle of terrain almost instantly. There were some hapans out in the open - they had been hurrying for the wall, when it got exploded - but enough of them had been far enough away to take cover around and inside the various buildings of the estate. There was fire coming from a lot of directions, and some of it was surprisingly accurate. Normal security forces throughout the galaxy would mostly shoot suppression fire in this occasion, but the hapans were a cut above, lots of fire for effect. They didn't have heavy weapons, but they had defensive positions, numbers, and somewhere among them a smart leader. From the U-Wing, Kixene could see a small group of the Hapans scale the back wall and then start the long way around, moving to outflank the team.
[1:32:57]Sera Shesh: (Safe to skip Sera for now)
[1:42:58] Jeramiah Thrall Jeramiah moved slower than the rest of the troopers, but he also was carrying a lot more equipment than the others, and had not stopped shooting once he'd brought up his rifle. By the time he reached the wall with the rest of his squad, the blaster rifle was smoking and beeping, ready for another battery. "Prospero!" he yelled, grabbing a bandoleer of Thermal Detonators and the Disruptor Rifle from the bag, before tossing it to him. It fell onto it's side, and revealed that he had just as many loose ones still in the bottom of the bag under the Disruptor rifle. "Give those bunkers something to chew on. When this thing recharges, Romeo and Chance, you go for the next chunk of cover. If you're not moving, you're shooting. GO!”
[1:43:58] Kixene was in her element aboard the ship, there was just something about the firepower of ship based weaponry that made her feel invincible... within reason. And when she saw the Hapans coming over the wall she knew what she needed to do. The controls could be abandoned for a moment as she jumped from her seat and ran to the rear hatches. The repeating blaster on the pintel mount on the door was brought to bare on the troopers attempting to flank the FO forces, red bolts of death coming from the muzzle of the blaster in controlled bursts.
[1:49:39]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Prospero moved to collect the bag and sling it around his body, grabbing a thermal as he moved into the yard proper. He showed off his old station-ball skills as he hucked one of the things right through the entrance of the bunker, the place going sky high a moment later. He continued to push forward, finding an ante-entrance to the main complex and kicked the door in toward a kitchen. "Second floor, let's move it!”
[1:49:56]Shaena Karath: Station-ball = Baseball. Best I could come up with in a hurry. xD ]
[1:51:54]NPC Repository: For the hapans on the ground, this was quickly turning into an unwinnable battle. The First Order's willingness to use tremendous ordnance negated what advantages they had - numbers, defensive positions and cover. A brave attempt to flank the main force which could well have pinned them down and put an abortive end to the entire operation was cut down by Kixene in a hail of red blasterfire. Before long Prospero was through the doors, and the sounds of battle grew quieter almost immediately. There were still some guardsmen in the other buildings, putting down what light fire they were capable of, but they were few. All those in the main building were aware that the structure was being breached and were scurrying to defensive positions inside. There was breathing room, for once, and the chance to actually consider how to pursue their goal, rather than work towards the more immediate needs of combat and survival.
[1:53:00]Kixene: [Bodi can probably be skipped unless something comes for the U-Wing. ]
[1:57:51]Sera Shesh: The comm officer sent the connection over to Sera, who grimaced immediately. One of the other noble houses had just sent a transmission up to the cruiser. Given the power that their force was just getting through the task of taking out the fortifications of one noble estate, she didn't fancy the risk of a second one sending them aid. It was time to stall.
"This is the cruiser Lorell's Memory, go ahead." She didn't have to wait for a response, the woman on the other side was very agitated, "what is going on there? What house do you serve? How dare you brazenly attack our neighbors, it is-" it went on and on. Demand on top of demand, rolling together without any chance for Sera to speak up in-between the words. She didn't bother trying. The longer the woman vented, the more time was wasted.
Once silence finally settled, she started, "your sensors must have a calibration problem. We're not attackers, we're a rescue ship. There was a reactor malfunction down there. A very bad malfunction, very dangerous." It was bullshit, but it got the woman on another tirade. Good enough.
[1:58:40]Shaena Karath: Those damn reactors ]
[1:59:24]Kixene: [Always leaking. Sometimes I hear they also cause spontaneous weapon discharges, too.]
[1:59:25] Jeramiah Thrall moved purposefully as he fired the second disruptor round into some of the few remaining guards that were shooting back at him. This time, he dropped the rifle in a direct line from the crack in the wall to the ship. He lagged behind the other troopers for a moment, eyeballing the courtyard for a moment before he stopped at the trooper who was pulling rear security. "Get on the line with those bombers, start designating fields of fire. As soon as we have the VIP's in hand, level every fucking building in sight." he ordered, reloading his blaster while he spoke. Without missing a beat, he moved up to Prospero and grabbed him by the shoulder from behind, so that he would be able to tell that he was there in all the blaster fire and explosions. After shouldering his weapon, he gave Prospero's shoulder a squeeze, and started to clear the next room.
[2:04:19]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Any experienced soldier hated urban warfare because it was a huge unknown bursting into buildings you had no real layout of, and this place was so massive it would have probably taken a regiment and a half of day to properly clear it, but they didn't have that kind of time. As soon as Captain Thrall was behind him Royce pressed forward into the atrium proper, greased a few guards and proceeded up a flight of stairs. The Force must have been with them or something because the first door he kicked in didn't have any more damn Hap guards, just a pair of frightened children huddling under a table. "We've got the HVTs. Let's get ready for exile."
[2:09:06]Sera Shesh: She stalled as much as she could. False information, requests for information, anything she could do to just keep the woman talking. It only lasted so long, though, and before long her sensors pinged for a large set of repulsorlifts firing at one of the neighboring estates. She reached for her comm, linking up to the people on the ground - Kixene and Jeramiah, specifically. "You have incoming enemy reinforcements, you can expect a heavy armored landspeeder. ETA three minutes. I-" she paused for a moment, furrowed her brow at the sensor reading. This had gotten even worse, "make that an armored landspeeder and a blastboat. ETA 40 seconds for the blastboat, the TIEs can't intercept in time."
She turned to the side to send some updated telemetry down to the U-Wing, but before she was even done with that, a second holonet connection came up. She paled. The Hapan Royal Navy was on the line.
[2:09:23]NPC Repository: (Enemy forces currently not present yet, so feel free the skip the NPCs)
[2:16:00] Jeramiah Thrall bolted into the room as soon as it was clear, running straight for the children. Immediately, he pulled out a picture of both of them, and held it up to their faces. If they matched, he pulled off his helmet. "Casius, Juliet, My name is Captain Thrall. I need-" he paused for a moment as Shesh's intelligence came across his radio. "-I need to verify your identity. Casius, what's your mother's first name?" he asked, turning to Prospero for a moment to point at the bag of thermal detonators, then make a knife hand out the doorway, before turning to the children again.
[2:19:29] Kixene paled a bit too when she got that call from the Admiral, listening in on headset built into her helmet. She abandoned the gun mount and ran back up to the cockpit and started to go o ver the data being sent. Instantly she regretted the earlier call to drain power from the weapons system and just as quickly rerouted power to charge them back up again. With the team still not back she turned the ship around to get the forward mounted guns aimed at the blast boat's incoming trajectory. If and when it came into sight she could veer up and blast at it, if the team wasn't back in time.
[2:24:44]Shaena Karath: [NPC] The child replied as any child might and simply shrugged. "Mom?" He said sheepishly. The girl, the older of the two slapped her brother upside the head. "Shaena!" She added in and looked toward the man just as Prospero made his way out to set up a perimeter if need be, he definitely wasn't liking the odds against a Blastboat. They could very well pull of being gone by the time they got here though given they had the HVTs and they seemed willing to come along now.
[2:29:32]NPC Repository: "Picket Cruiser Ashada, I repeat, this is a local matter that need not involve the Royal Navy." The conversation had been brief so far. The woman had demanded surrender, and so far was brooking very little stalling. "No, this isn't a raid. We are serving under House Everast, this is just a bit of... aggressive negotiations between houses."
"House Everast has been extinct for two centuries, raider." The response was curt and to the point, and followed by the ship's sensors indicating a picket cruiser in high orbit, far above them, adjusting their orbit to get a close encounter with Sera's Carrack. A close encounter that would probably entail a lot of turbolaser fire being exchanged, no doubt, a fact which was very unpleasant when she considered that the picket cruiser was close to a hundred meters longer than her ship, and massed more than 40% more than they did. Then it got worse: an encrypted transmission was sent from the picket cruiser, out through the holonet. No doubt informing the entire consortium that they were here.[+]
[2:31:57]Sera Shesh: Make do with what you have, Sera. First she sent a message to the TIE Scout, still sitting so far out that it might as well be interstellar space. She sent him on a short jump to the next system over, and demanded that they inform them immediately if any ships dropped in to align for a final jump into Sargon. Early warning was about all she could hope for.
Next, commands for the bombers. Two of them were sent down to hopefully intercept the armored landspeeder, for the other two the orders were less conventional, "Alpha 3 and 4, line up behind me. I need you two so tight behind me you'll feel the engine wash." She turned to the helmsman, "Helm - full acceleration up the well, once we hit thin atmosphere, make it a direct course for the picket cruiser."[+]
[2:35:17]NPC Repository: On the ground, the Blastboat came in fast and hot. Like most hapan technology, it was built for sleek speed, the thing skimmed through the air, almost ethereal in its grace as it started to pepper the U-Wing with fire. The heavier craft, grounded for the moment, returned with its own laser cannons, but there was a lot of advantage in such an engagement gained from simply being able to move.
The two TIE Bombers surged down, coming in for their second dive-bombing run of the day, this time towards the landspeeder still a ways from the compound. Things weren't so clean this time around. Laser cannons on the armored car shot up at them, long before the dive was done one of them was sent spinning away to slam into the ground in a massive explosion. The second delivered it's payload, but it wasn't quite the direct hit that would have vaporized the landspeeder. The vehicle, slowed and damaged, continued on the approach. Soon the men on the house could see the smoking, tank-like thing approaching on the horizon.
[2:38:00]Shaena Karath: Is this a Skipray blast boat? ]
[2:38:55]NPC Repository: (I was thinking a Hapan model, but probably something very similar to one in performance yes. No torpedo launcher, more speed and agility)
[2:49:59] Jeramiah Thrall nodded, "Alright kids, I'm going to need you two to be very brave, because this is a rescue. I'm going to take you to your mother, but first, we have to run, okay?" He explained, before slinging his rifle across his chest so that he could grab a fistful of Thermal Detonators. "Alright, there's a man over there, his name is Prospero, he's the guy with the goatee and should probably shave his head. You go to him, he will take you to the ship that will take you to your mom, okay?" He then stood up, about to bolt back into combat, before he stopped and turned to them again. "Oh, and don't you ever tell your mom what I'm about to do, okay?" He said with a rougish grin and a wink, before he pulled his helmet back on and started to run back towards the combat. "Prospero, the kids are coming to you. I'm going to take care of this speeder. Give me some cover fire so I can put some boots on it's hull." he ordered, as if him bolting towards a tank with a bandoleer of grenades was something totally sane and rational.
[2:52:44]Kixene: That didn't pan out as well as she had hoped. The shields held, though. But without taking off to engage she was rather limited in what she could do to return fire after they were out of their initial firing arc. With some power in the banks for the cannons she readjusted the flow to just maintain it and keep as much power as she could still feeding the shields. She now had an idea on what it felt like to be a fish in a barrel.
[2:53:36]Shaena Karath: [NPC] "Wait, WHAT?!" He shouted back as the children joined him at his side. He quickly ushered the little hooligans into the U-Wing proper and had the rest of the team join him. They began to provide the requested cover fire, and while he was still a safe distance out the rocket-wielding trooper shot off a HEAT round in its general direction to hopefully disable it before Jeramiah charged it. He sent out a call to Shesh. "We have the HVTs and are proceeding to exfil, are we all clear up there?!”
[2:58:36]NPC Repository: The Landspeeder was built like a brick wall. The thing hovered just a hands' span over the ground, trundling along painfully slow, trailing smoke, some of its weapons blisters and armor visibly melted and resolidified on one of its sides, where the heavy proton bomb had gone off. That didn't mean it lacked for weaponry, however, and as Jeramiah made his move, both a blaster mounted on its side and the heavy main laser cannon on the thing started swiveling for him. Luckily, the main gun wasn't really rated to hit a long infantryman, but that blaster had far better odds.
The U-Wing was taking it's punishment with remarkable sturdiness, and as the team boarded up, the odds of survival seemed to be improving. They became even better when the one TIE Bomber, having returned from its bombing run on the landspeeder, surged in to engage with the blastboat. The small fighter opened up with proton torpedoes, but the nimble blastboat dodged those aside and returned the kind of superior firepower a blastboat was well-known for. Before long the Bomber had glancing hits to both one of its panels and one of its ion engines. The pilot sent out a simple message, to both friends and foes, "W. B. D," before using what little maneuverability his bomber had left to veer into the blastboat in the next pass. The explosion was colossal.
[3:03:32]Sera Shesh: "We will be," she replied into the comm down to the ground team. Once they were in light atmosphere, they were also at extreme range for the picket cruiser's weapons, and turbolaser fire rained down on the little cruiser. The smaller vessel points its nose defiantly right at the cruiser and continued to speed up as fast as it could gather speed, returning fire with its own inferior weaponry.
"Shields down to 25%!" The report came distressingly early in the run, but the only response was a calm, "stay on target." They were up to ramming speed by then, putting the Carrack's famous speed to use to shorten the distance. They were doing some damage to the bigger cruiser, yes, but this engagement was favoring the other vessel heavily.
When they were approaching short range, a pair of concussion missiles shot out of the picket cruiser, exploding against either side of the Carrack. Idly, she looked through damage reports. Shields down - permanently so. Half their weapons melted, primary hyperdrive destroyed, several sections of the ship vented out into space. But still they went on, pushing towards the picket, ever faster.
At the last possible second, she gave the command, "dive!" The Helmsman did so immediately, and the two ships passed so close to each other you could have reached out and touched it. The two bombers close on the Carrack's tail, shielded by it the entire way, had only to unleash their salvo and then dive out of the way. The heavy proton bombs cracked the picket cruiser from side to side.
"We're clear," was the only report down to the ground.
Jeramiah Thrall bolted straight towards the armored speeder, with a speed that was obviously beyond what a regular trooper could manage. It wasn't quite "the editor of Episode 1 is retarded and couldn't figure out how to get the heroes out of the way of a destroyer droid so he just did some force bullshit" level of fast, but he was quick, either way. As he ran, the light blaster did indeed find it's mark, walking it's bolts across his chest. The first two hit him in the shoulder and the center of the chest, which was enough for the armor to stop. His unarmored midsection, however, was not so lucky. Had he not been pumping full of adrenaline, he might have noticed, but instead he leapt onto the turret of the tank and pulled his Vibroknife with his left hand, plunging it deep into the gunner's chest. The blade hummed as it tore through the man's flesh, spraying blood onto Jeramiah's helmet. Even though his vision was obscured, he could see well enough to dump the detonators down the hatch of the Speeder. Before they even hit the inside deck of the tank, Captain Thrall was running towards the U-Wing. Between the blood on his visor and the pain in his lower hip, he couldn't see well enough to shoot back, but all he needed to make was that last 100 yards. "Bodi, for the love of the force, get those engines spooled!”
[3:13:11]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Prospero moved forward halfway and helped Jeramiah the rest of the way. They had a very limited window now, and they had to get gone yesterday. "Everyone is onboard, let's get the frak out of here!" He repeated Jeramiah's orders. There was only one more step left to go and they were home free.
[3:14:43]Kixene: "Strap those kids in!" The pilot would call out as she lifted the U-Wing up. She was skimming along the surface towards Jeramiah, swinging the craft around so that he was pulled in by a helping hand or two from the rest of the troops on board. The escape was much like the approach in reverse, Bodi pumping power to the engines and banking the U-Wing into a steep climb even before the doors were closed. The hull groaned and the engines whined as the atmosphere became thinner, using the same exit path that the cruiser had cleared for them.
[3:19:44]NPC Repository: [One system away] Zack Goodry has been alone in his TIE scout for a very long time now. The ships could sometimes be fitted for multiple crewmembers, but this assignment called for as little overhead as possible, so he had been alone in here the entire time since they left Bastion. It was a good thing they tested pilots for cabin fever, or half of them would be deranged psychopaths before their missions were done.
He had only heard the comm reports of all the excitement going on down on Sargon, and to be frank he was happy to be away from it. He'd signed up for the TIE Scout for a reason, he hated being in the thick of things.
And four Hapan capital ships jumped into the system, and he was very much in the thick of things.
"Two Battle Dragons, two Novas, inbound! They're lining up the hyperspace jump as we speak!" He reported into the comms, while speeding away from the two ships. They'd spotted the odd, lonely TIE Scout sitting in the system and had decided that a quick bit of target-practice was in order while warming up the Hyperdrive.
[3:22:57]Sera Shesh: "Helm, set up the secondary hyperdrive. We're jumping out. Alpha 3, Alpha 4, come on home." It stung not to be able to call the leading pair of her starfighter unit, but there was no helping it. Forces had been expended towards achieving a goal. That was war.
The Carrack-class limped along up out of the gravity well, venting atmosphere from both sides, sparking where one of the concussion missile detonations had been nastier. Luckily, two of the TIE external mounts were still working, and before long the pilots were onboard. "Ready to jump out," she called out to the team, as the U-Wing joined her beyond the gravity well, "be advised, we will be going at twelve past lightspeed."
[3:28:28]Jeramiah Thrall: Using the very last of what energy his body had left, he leapt onto the moving U-wing, screaming in agony as he landed with the deck cutting into his wound. With the help of the other troopers, he slid onto the deck, blood smearing across the floor. The wound was bad, but considering they were now safely aboard the ship and he wasn't going to bleed out immediately, he wasn't in any immediate danger of dying. He sheathed his vibroknife and laid his head back on the floor, breathing heavily through his helmet's filters. After a moment, he peeled the helmet off to reveal the blood had splattered up under his visor, adding to the soot and blood that had already covered his face from the no doubt impressive explosion from the armored speeder. He reached up and pointed one finger at Casius. "Not a word of this to your mother." he said, turning his finger to Juliet. "Not. A. Word.”
[3:32:42]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Now that they were on their way out, one of the other troopers moved to trie and stabilize the wound while Prospero stood over Jeramiah with a grin, shaking his head. "You crazy son of a bitch. I gotta say, I've never seen someone suicide charge a blastboat before. Not anyone on our side anyway. When we get back to Bastion, drinks are on me." He clasped the other man gently on the shoulder.
[3:37:35]NPC Repository: The ships lined up, and just a few minutes ahead of the oncoming hapan fleet, jumped out of the system. At their next destination, they found the surviving TIE Scout, having survived his impromptu transformation into hapan target practice by micro-jumping as soon as his report was sent.
The same path they used to arrive in the system was used on the way out. The only stable paths through the Transitory Mists were known, mapped and patrolled, but if one found a secondary route through, one could count it would still be there for at least a few hours. Again, they bypassed the large hapan defense fleet sitting at the gate of the mists, and the long journey home began, leap-frogging their one TIE Scout the entire way to Bilbringi, where they were finally safe again. It was a short way to Bastion now. Mission accomplished.
[23:18:28] Sera Shesh was the very image of imperial propriety. If anything, the recent promotion had ensured that she kept herself even more immaculately perfect, back ramrod straight, stride long, movements precise and sharp. There was the fact that she had painted lips and nails, and was a bit too ready with a smile for the expectations of most imperials, but one could only expect so much of kuati nobility.
She stopped not far from the vessel, paying Jeramiah a distant salute before striding up to the Carrack light cruiser. She set a hand fondly on the ship's side, running fingers along the hull as she walked to the on-ramp, like some strange lover's carress. The name had been stripped out for this operation, but she remembered her old ship well. In moments she was onboard, and it didn't take more than a few seconds to stride across to the main bridge and key herself into the comm line for the operation, "The Endurance is ready to go.”
[23:23:53]Shaena Karath: Shaena remained in the briefing room and only after the EW officer ensured her the line was secure did she insert yet another code cylinder into the console. "Roger that, Endurance. The map through the Transitory Mists is being transmitted right now. We'll be in constant contact through out. Good luck and godspeed." She reclined in a seat, though she found herself far from relaxed considering the stakes.
[23:30:02] Jeramiah Thrall Jeramiah returned with his sloppy slaute, before pulling his helmet onto his head. The radio crackled to life and started it's encryption process. To the rest of them, he would sound normal, but to anyone nearby his speech was not dissimilar to a Death Trooper. "Badger One is gear up." He replied as he checked his own gear, starting with the knife sheathed on his chest. "We'll remain radio silent once we reach the staging point. Admiral, I hope you picked your best crew, because once that beacon is active, every soldier, ship, and mynock is going to know we're there. We're counting on you.”
[23:32:49] Sera Shesh keyed in commands, setting up all the different commlines she would need: one for her own officers in the Endurance, one between her and the bridge in the U-Wing, one operation wide, one for each TIE Scout... not every ship captain ran their comm systems the same, and Sera made a point to always set things up to her preference. It was done in moments, well before her ship's helmsman could move them out of the hangar, "we have as much talent as can be crammed into a light cruiser, here. We'll hold our own, Badger One." As she spoke, the ship eased out of the structure, and began the burn away from gravity. She sent a few instructions to the two TIE Scouts, the pair surged out ahead. As soon as they were out of the gravity envelope, they both jumped out. "Badger One, path is clear up to Bilbringi. We can form up there and start our trek."
[23:40:19]Shaena Karath: There was a brief moment where Shaena felt Jeramiah's presence as strongly as if he were in the room right next to her. She could hear his voice, not filtered through the coms. She knew they had a connection via the Force but it had never spiked so strongly before. "Be careful." She murmured on instinct, wondering if he could hear her in turn. All formal channels gave the all clear to Shesh to jump when she pleased.
[23:44:35] Jeramiah Thrall shifted slightly as he felt his heart shift, more than the slight adrenaline boost of nervousness was causing. He could feel the U-wing shift as it took off, so he didn't get up to look out a window. Instead, he placed one hand on the wall next to him, as if to feel outside of the craft. Luckily, he remembered to reach up and mute his microphone before he replied, "I will, for you." to her. No doubt, the crew operating the mission in front of Shaena tapped a screen for a moment at Jeramiah's heart spike.
[23:49:51]Sera Shesh: "Helm, make lines." The man complied, pushing the hyperdrive handle forward, and in moments the starscape outside turned into lines, then into a tube of swirling light as they soared through hyperspace.
It wasn't a single jump to Bilbringi, but Sera knew the fastest routes, and the ones that would raise the fewest questions from their own personnel out on patrol. It made sense: she'd set up the Order of Battle they were now keeping. She took the time during the many jumps to get in touch with what few officers in the ship she hadn't met face to face during the mission yet, as well as a few more tasks necessary to set-up. Eventually, though, they were at the Order's outermost system. From now onwards, they would be going through Imperial Space. She waited outside the system's gravity well, waiting for the U-Wing and the two TIE Scouts. The later soon emerged into the system, pinging her to confirm safe arrival.
[23:59:24] Jeramiah Thrall waited until the jump was through before he got up from his seat. He could tell the rest of his crew had pre-combat jitters, and he would be lying if he said he didn't. Once he could see out the front window, he watched the TIEs roar off into the darkness, most likely to prepare for their next jump. His hands quickly found the "Oh shit" handles, before he unmuted his helmet. "This is where we part ways, Admiral. See you in an hour or so, Force willing." he explained as he reached up to his wrist to set his watch. Yes, a watch. He knew it was likely out of date, but it was reliable.
[0:05:35]Shaena Karath: [NPC] The team in the U-Wing likewise seemed restless as one might expect given the op they were about to undertake and the risks weren't lost on anyone. The second highest ranking member of the team, a man with cropped blonde hair and a matching goatee ran his hands through what little hair he had on his head and looked toward Thrall. "Where'd you find that thing, Captain? You didn't strike me as an antique collector.”
[0:06:13]Sera Shesh: From Bilbringi, it was tense nerves the entire way. She'd plotted out the route, and ensured there would be as few jumps, and those into as few inhabited systems as possible, but in some cases it couldn't be helped. The TIE Scouts always went first: one of them would jump into the outskirts of a system, wait until their sensors had picked up enough information about it, broadcast it back. Some time later, the U-Wing and Carrack would arrive. The paired Scouts were always one or two jumps ahead of them, forging the path, ensuring they weren't detected. In a couple cases, the Scouts jumped into a system to find Remnant forces present, but they jumped out before drawing too much attention. This was were the close borders with Zsinj came in handy: for all the Remnant knew, those TIE Scouts came from Zsinj.
Tense jump after tense jump, hours coordinating the two fighter-scouts and the two ships, and finally they came to where the challenge really started. Close to Republic space now, and at the edges of the Transitory Mists. The scouts forged ahead on the route indicated in the map, only until they made distant contact with Hapan forces. They jumped the heck out, fast. They'd been far enough away that it would be hours before the Hapans knew, and all they would know is that a single TIE Scout had jumped in, then out again. No big deal.[+]
[0:09:07]Sera Shesh: It was a big deal for the team, though. It meant diverting from the known path in order to avoid detection on arrival. It meant braving the Mists, even if only briefly. Sera and the two TIE pilots discussed over comms, and eventually the two set out, both making an intermediate jump 'sideways' so that they could skip the position held by the Hapan navy. A few tense minutes later, one of them reported back with a clear path. The other never reported back at all.
Heart heavy, they made the intermediate jump, then from it a long one, bypassing the Hapan fleet. A few more jumps and they were one jump away from Sargon. Sera set the comm towards Jeramiah, "final jump, and then you're going in. It's your op now, Badger One. When you can use us, just raise us and we'll do our part."
[0:09:22]Shaena Karath: Enter stormtrooper Prospero: 78.media.tumblr.com/45b9eb7eb334c9441cca4d7040571fa9/tumblr_omv2eiFrCc1tqob8bo2_r1_250.gif ]
[0:13:04] Jeramiah Thrall glanced back at the older man with a smirk. "You would be amazed how much junk the Rebels left lying around." he replied. To be honest, he usually would have shot the man down to shut him up, but he could use the break from his pre-fight jitters. "I needed something they wouldn't look twice at if I fudged the transponder. These things change hands more often than loaded dice on Nar Shadda." he explained, before glancing back up at the pilot. "Alright. Let's do this. If you could keep the crashing to a light thump against that fancy lawn, that would be fantastic." he teased the pilot. Although, Jeramiah couldn't tell what the pilot's reaction was under their helmet. With a surge of the ship, they were away. Jeramiah prayed they didn't suddenly have some AA blasters that he didn't know about, and if they did, hopefully they would raise them to see who they were, first.
[0:18:04]Shaena Karath: [NPC] "I don't think anything the rebels do amaze me anymore, Captain." The man replied as he did a final weapons check, probably the fourth one since he had boarded the craft. It was a truth that everyone had nervous habits and he was no exception. "I gotta admit, I was hoping to visit Hapes under less pressing circumstances.”
[0:26:13]Sera Shesh: The last time invaders had actually struck at a world within the Consortium had been a very, very long time ago. Oh, there were raids, and some outlying worlds actually got to see a bit of violence every other millennia, but for the most part, this land was untouched by war in a way that the rest of the galaxy could only dream of. The final jump through hyperspace had been carefully plotted: the jump actually aimed with some precision at the planet of Sargon, and didn't include a jump-out period. They were yanked out of Hyperspace by the planet's gravity well, emerging directly atop it, already inserted into a high orbit.
"Alpha, report in" She sent the call the moment they emerged, hearing the confirmation from the four bombers. The pilots were in their seat and ready should Jeramiah call them in.[+]
[0:27:34] Kixene had mostly been quiet at the U-Wing's controls as the mission unfolded, speaking more on the comms to command than the troopers on the transport and keeping to her own little work inside her helmet. Though the last joke from Jeremiah got him a thumbs up in return, arm raised to about head level so it could be seen.
[0:28:51]NPC Repository: [Sargon] The planet below was beautiful, more green than blue and much of that rolling grasslands with the estates of ultra-rich hapan nobility strewn here and there. Preparedness for an attack was low, and really, the class of all the vessels on arrival was such that even some Hapans, with unfashionable interests in foreign vessels, owned some of those. The first reaction when the few vessels showed up wasn't to start aiming weapons, it was to start calling neighbors to figure out who the boor was.
The U-Wing was given a surprisingly clear initial insertion into the planet's atmosphere, though the moment they started to approach the target compound's airspace, laser cannons on the ground began to swivel around in their direction. They were about to be under fire.
[0:33:23] Jeramiah Thrall glared down at the surface below as the approached. Already, the plan was up shit creek, but he half expected this to be the part that fell apart anyways. "Shit... Hold here, don't get any closer. Try to hail them." He muttered to Kixene, before glancing back to the rest of the crew to reassure that they were prepared before he already broke the plan wide open. He flicked on his encrypted channel to Shesh. "Admiral, I'm calling an audible. We've been made, we need those bombers ahead of schedule. Do you think you can hold out long enough in contact for us to get the VIPs?"
[0:39:57]Kixene: With the initial approach clear she would maneuver the ship gracefully as to not raise suspicion any earlier than it had to be. Her hand was on the controls to engage the S-foils into the swooped back position, only to pull her hand away and power up the comms for contacting flight control on the ground. "This is..." She would identify the ship per the transponder and script she had been given during briefing. While awaiting a response she kept the ship steady, slowly cruising in the atmosphere. SHe extended her arm, ready to go in hot as soon as thing hit the fan.
[0:43:24]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Prospero was experienced enough to know that no plan survived contact with the enemy so he remained outwardly calm. He had a couple of ideas about how to proceed from here on out, but Thrall seemed to be on point in his own right so he remained silent, gripping his blaster a bit tighter. Every second seemed to tick by slower than an hour.
[0:49:05] Sera Shesh 's voice was absolutely calm. By all appearances, she took the news about the arrival being intercepted the way most people would take news about incoming clouds on a tuesday. "Understood, Badger One. We'll make it happen." She keyed a different comm, shifting to the line to her officers and the TIE-Bomber pilots. "Team, prepare for a hot insertion. Helm, full acceleration into the gravity well, Alpha - be ready to launch when called."
Bombers were unshielded, if they were to go into an atmosphere, it would have to be a slow and gentle insertion. Sera trusted the U-Wing would keep it together for some time in there, but the faster this got done, the lesser the chance of a full military reprisal. That was why the Carrack faced planetwides and then burned its engines like there was no tomorrow, burrowing into the atmosphere fantastically hot. Her officers actually had to redirect some energy to the front shields, so tremendous was the friction being generated. When they were in deep enough, she sent the next orders, "pull up; compensate." A brief moment, while the entire ship juddered: the nose was pulling up, they were slowing down in relation to the ground below. "Launch bombers!”
[0:49:08]NPC Repository: The laser cannons trailed the U-Wing lazily. Maybe someone at the local security detail was just a busy-body, maybe the owner of the place was paranoid. Despite those predilections, they were more than happy to take the U-Wing up in a brief bit of conversation, exchanging calling cards, checking intentions for approximation, asking about occupants, all the standard. It took the people on the ground a while to notice that the little cruiser in high orbit had started to accelerate down. Really, it only got alarming once it was already burning through the atmosphere, and at that point it was much too late.
The four Bombers were released from the Carrack. Whereas the little cruiser started to pull back up immediately, the four of them took full advantage of the simply ridiculous speed they'd been imparted with during insertion, and just roared down towards the compound. A single, effective dive-bombing run later, all the laser cannons that had been targeted were smoking heaps.
[1:03:36] Jeramiah Thrall cringed slightly at the explosions, knowing that every loose explosion put Shaena's children at risk, but that was part of the job. He gave Kixene a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. "Alright, let's see if you can make this thing dance." he ordered, before turning back to his crew. "Alright, Troopers, I hope you sent your letters back to your families, because we are about to do something REALLY Goddamn stupid. When that deck hits the floor, I expect every blaster on this boat to be spitting fire at anything that even remotely resembles a guard." He ordered, before keying his com one more time. "Good Effect, Admiral. Keep the bombs outside the compound walls, and we'll handle it from there.”
[1:06:06]Shaena Karath: Fly good, Kix ]
[1:08:00]Kixene: "That shouldn't be a problem if you didn't fix this thing back up with two left feet." With the attention turned to the cruiser disgorging it's compliment of bombers Bodi activated the S-foils, causing the long forward facing protrusions on the craft to sweep backwards and lock into place. "Hang on." the words came out of her mouth calmly as she slammed the trust controls forward, causing the craft to accelerate hard. The land below filled the forward view from the cockpit as she brought the craft down, pulling back on the stick to level out close to the surface in a traditional landing craft approach to bring them under the radar for any remaining ground based air defenses. The U-Wing was quickly approaching the landing zone and with a hard bank and the hiss of air breaks the ship put down on target; she didn't make any promises about the landscaping though.
[1:10:25]Shaena Karath: [NPC] As soon as the terrifying ride down to the surface was done (During which he was pretty sure he could feel a couple of his teeth rattle loose) he unbuckled and took up a pose near the deck hit the floor he took only a micro-second before he fired off the first shot toward an approaching male, and then his partner a few feet away. "Let's roll!" He took a step off the ramp and covered the others as they unloaded.
[1:10:43]Sera Shesh: She decelerated until she was hanging above the defanged compound, many kilometers over it. Tactical policy dictated she should climb back up and out of atmosphere: her ship wasn't built for this, and any enemy vessels showing up outside the air envelope would have a tremendous advantage over them. However, the higher they went, the broader to stretch of the planet's surface where any surface gun could target them, and she didn't fancy the risk of getting hit by a heavy ion. So she stayed in atmosphere, faintly visible even to those on the ground, the four bombers flying around and around, wary and ready. For now, they had breathing space.
[1:14:06]NPC Repository: There was no question to anyone on the ground that this was a raid, and their response was as firm as could be expected from a paramilitary estate guard. Men surged to the walls of the compound, some even took pot-shots at the approaching U-Wing, despite the fact that their small-arms had little hope of even putting a perceptible dent on overall shield power. At the first moment their numbers were small, but they would fight fiercely to hold the enemies back from the edge of the compound, and it wouldn't take long for more of them to suit up, arm up and join the battle. Unsurprisingly, they only used small-arms - no one had bothered to give heavy or auxiliary gear for what were no more than armed guards.
[1:20:24] Jeramiah Thrall recognized their advantage, and didn't dare let them have an ounce of quarter. As the door dropped and the troopers disembarked, Jeramiah grabbed his Disruptor Rifle from the duffel bag, pointed it at the nearest hard cover that had some guards behind it, and opened fire. As soon as the ball of energy left his muzzle, he dropped the weapon back into his bag while he waited for it to recharge. While they were ducking from the other trooper's covering fire and the ensuing explosion (or, total disintegration of their comrades), he picked up his DC-15 and started laying down some suppression fire of his own. "Not one step back! If we let them breathe while we're out here, we're dead!”
[1:24:43] Kixene needed to keep the ship running and ready to go. She had her own blaster handy as the troopers disembarked. The ship's forward facing canons would be too much to use in this fight so she opted for something more defensive. She started rerouting power from the laser cannon systems to the shields, expanding the envelope of protection around the ship for what it was worth; they would still need to get inside and pull off this mess.
[1:27:43]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Prospero nodded. "Roger that, sir! Get that wall down!" He gestured toward the wall they were facing and one of the other troopers loaded a breaching charge in a rocket launcher and quickly launched it just that way, blasting a decent sized hole in the barrier. "Let's move!" He and the other storm troopers began to move toward the breach as quickly as they could, obviously not wanting to get bogged down and returning fire when they could. Their goal was the main building of the estate where they assumed the kids were being held.
[1:32:37]NPC Repository: For the second time, things looked like they could be about to turn bad very early on. The laser cannon being turned on the U-Wing early on had been an abortive start to the operation, and the surprisingly stiff response from within the estate could well have been enough to force the invaders back and to their ship. Sheer aggression - and the use of some very heavy weapons - worked wonders to break the opposition down, however, and that first obstacle was surmounted: they were through the outer walls, and running into the estate proper.
From a straightforward engagement around the walls, the conflict turned into a complex battle of terrain almost instantly. There were some hapans out in the open - they had been hurrying for the wall, when it got exploded - but enough of them had been far enough away to take cover around and inside the various buildings of the estate. There was fire coming from a lot of directions, and some of it was surprisingly accurate. Normal security forces throughout the galaxy would mostly shoot suppression fire in this occasion, but the hapans were a cut above, lots of fire for effect. They didn't have heavy weapons, but they had defensive positions, numbers, and somewhere among them a smart leader. From the U-Wing, Kixene could see a small group of the Hapans scale the back wall and then start the long way around, moving to outflank the team.
[1:32:57]Sera Shesh: (Safe to skip Sera for now)
[1:42:58] Jeramiah Thrall Jeramiah moved slower than the rest of the troopers, but he also was carrying a lot more equipment than the others, and had not stopped shooting once he'd brought up his rifle. By the time he reached the wall with the rest of his squad, the blaster rifle was smoking and beeping, ready for another battery. "Prospero!" he yelled, grabbing a bandoleer of Thermal Detonators and the Disruptor Rifle from the bag, before tossing it to him. It fell onto it's side, and revealed that he had just as many loose ones still in the bottom of the bag under the Disruptor rifle. "Give those bunkers something to chew on. When this thing recharges, Romeo and Chance, you go for the next chunk of cover. If you're not moving, you're shooting. GO!”
[1:43:58] Kixene was in her element aboard the ship, there was just something about the firepower of ship based weaponry that made her feel invincible... within reason. And when she saw the Hapans coming over the wall she knew what she needed to do. The controls could be abandoned for a moment as she jumped from her seat and ran to the rear hatches. The repeating blaster on the pintel mount on the door was brought to bare on the troopers attempting to flank the FO forces, red bolts of death coming from the muzzle of the blaster in controlled bursts.
[1:49:39]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Prospero moved to collect the bag and sling it around his body, grabbing a thermal as he moved into the yard proper. He showed off his old station-ball skills as he hucked one of the things right through the entrance of the bunker, the place going sky high a moment later. He continued to push forward, finding an ante-entrance to the main complex and kicked the door in toward a kitchen. "Second floor, let's move it!”
[1:49:56]Shaena Karath: Station-ball = Baseball. Best I could come up with in a hurry. xD ]
[1:51:54]NPC Repository: For the hapans on the ground, this was quickly turning into an unwinnable battle. The First Order's willingness to use tremendous ordnance negated what advantages they had - numbers, defensive positions and cover. A brave attempt to flank the main force which could well have pinned them down and put an abortive end to the entire operation was cut down by Kixene in a hail of red blasterfire. Before long Prospero was through the doors, and the sounds of battle grew quieter almost immediately. There were still some guardsmen in the other buildings, putting down what light fire they were capable of, but they were few. All those in the main building were aware that the structure was being breached and were scurrying to defensive positions inside. There was breathing room, for once, and the chance to actually consider how to pursue their goal, rather than work towards the more immediate needs of combat and survival.
[1:53:00]Kixene: [Bodi can probably be skipped unless something comes for the U-Wing. ]
[1:57:51]Sera Shesh: The comm officer sent the connection over to Sera, who grimaced immediately. One of the other noble houses had just sent a transmission up to the cruiser. Given the power that their force was just getting through the task of taking out the fortifications of one noble estate, she didn't fancy the risk of a second one sending them aid. It was time to stall.
"This is the cruiser Lorell's Memory, go ahead." She didn't have to wait for a response, the woman on the other side was very agitated, "what is going on there? What house do you serve? How dare you brazenly attack our neighbors, it is-" it went on and on. Demand on top of demand, rolling together without any chance for Sera to speak up in-between the words. She didn't bother trying. The longer the woman vented, the more time was wasted.
Once silence finally settled, she started, "your sensors must have a calibration problem. We're not attackers, we're a rescue ship. There was a reactor malfunction down there. A very bad malfunction, very dangerous." It was bullshit, but it got the woman on another tirade. Good enough.
[1:58:40]Shaena Karath: Those damn reactors ]
[1:59:24]Kixene: [Always leaking. Sometimes I hear they also cause spontaneous weapon discharges, too.]
[1:59:25] Jeramiah Thrall moved purposefully as he fired the second disruptor round into some of the few remaining guards that were shooting back at him. This time, he dropped the rifle in a direct line from the crack in the wall to the ship. He lagged behind the other troopers for a moment, eyeballing the courtyard for a moment before he stopped at the trooper who was pulling rear security. "Get on the line with those bombers, start designating fields of fire. As soon as we have the VIP's in hand, level every fucking building in sight." he ordered, reloading his blaster while he spoke. Without missing a beat, he moved up to Prospero and grabbed him by the shoulder from behind, so that he would be able to tell that he was there in all the blaster fire and explosions. After shouldering his weapon, he gave Prospero's shoulder a squeeze, and started to clear the next room.
[2:04:19]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Any experienced soldier hated urban warfare because it was a huge unknown bursting into buildings you had no real layout of, and this place was so massive it would have probably taken a regiment and a half of day to properly clear it, but they didn't have that kind of time. As soon as Captain Thrall was behind him Royce pressed forward into the atrium proper, greased a few guards and proceeded up a flight of stairs. The Force must have been with them or something because the first door he kicked in didn't have any more damn Hap guards, just a pair of frightened children huddling under a table. "We've got the HVTs. Let's get ready for exile."
[2:09:06]Sera Shesh: She stalled as much as she could. False information, requests for information, anything she could do to just keep the woman talking. It only lasted so long, though, and before long her sensors pinged for a large set of repulsorlifts firing at one of the neighboring estates. She reached for her comm, linking up to the people on the ground - Kixene and Jeramiah, specifically. "You have incoming enemy reinforcements, you can expect a heavy armored landspeeder. ETA three minutes. I-" she paused for a moment, furrowed her brow at the sensor reading. This had gotten even worse, "make that an armored landspeeder and a blastboat. ETA 40 seconds for the blastboat, the TIEs can't intercept in time."
She turned to the side to send some updated telemetry down to the U-Wing, but before she was even done with that, a second holonet connection came up. She paled. The Hapan Royal Navy was on the line.
[2:09:23]NPC Repository: (Enemy forces currently not present yet, so feel free the skip the NPCs)
[2:16:00] Jeramiah Thrall bolted into the room as soon as it was clear, running straight for the children. Immediately, he pulled out a picture of both of them, and held it up to their faces. If they matched, he pulled off his helmet. "Casius, Juliet, My name is Captain Thrall. I need-" he paused for a moment as Shesh's intelligence came across his radio. "-I need to verify your identity. Casius, what's your mother's first name?" he asked, turning to Prospero for a moment to point at the bag of thermal detonators, then make a knife hand out the doorway, before turning to the children again.
[2:19:29] Kixene paled a bit too when she got that call from the Admiral, listening in on headset built into her helmet. She abandoned the gun mount and ran back up to the cockpit and started to go o ver the data being sent. Instantly she regretted the earlier call to drain power from the weapons system and just as quickly rerouted power to charge them back up again. With the team still not back she turned the ship around to get the forward mounted guns aimed at the blast boat's incoming trajectory. If and when it came into sight she could veer up and blast at it, if the team wasn't back in time.
[2:24:44]Shaena Karath: [NPC] The child replied as any child might and simply shrugged. "Mom?" He said sheepishly. The girl, the older of the two slapped her brother upside the head. "Shaena!" She added in and looked toward the man just as Prospero made his way out to set up a perimeter if need be, he definitely wasn't liking the odds against a Blastboat. They could very well pull of being gone by the time they got here though given they had the HVTs and they seemed willing to come along now.
[2:29:32]NPC Repository: "Picket Cruiser Ashada, I repeat, this is a local matter that need not involve the Royal Navy." The conversation had been brief so far. The woman had demanded surrender, and so far was brooking very little stalling. "No, this isn't a raid. We are serving under House Everast, this is just a bit of... aggressive negotiations between houses."
"House Everast has been extinct for two centuries, raider." The response was curt and to the point, and followed by the ship's sensors indicating a picket cruiser in high orbit, far above them, adjusting their orbit to get a close encounter with Sera's Carrack. A close encounter that would probably entail a lot of turbolaser fire being exchanged, no doubt, a fact which was very unpleasant when she considered that the picket cruiser was close to a hundred meters longer than her ship, and massed more than 40% more than they did. Then it got worse: an encrypted transmission was sent from the picket cruiser, out through the holonet. No doubt informing the entire consortium that they were here.[+]
[2:31:57]Sera Shesh: Make do with what you have, Sera. First she sent a message to the TIE Scout, still sitting so far out that it might as well be interstellar space. She sent him on a short jump to the next system over, and demanded that they inform them immediately if any ships dropped in to align for a final jump into Sargon. Early warning was about all she could hope for.
Next, commands for the bombers. Two of them were sent down to hopefully intercept the armored landspeeder, for the other two the orders were less conventional, "Alpha 3 and 4, line up behind me. I need you two so tight behind me you'll feel the engine wash." She turned to the helmsman, "Helm - full acceleration up the well, once we hit thin atmosphere, make it a direct course for the picket cruiser."[+]
[2:35:17]NPC Repository: On the ground, the Blastboat came in fast and hot. Like most hapan technology, it was built for sleek speed, the thing skimmed through the air, almost ethereal in its grace as it started to pepper the U-Wing with fire. The heavier craft, grounded for the moment, returned with its own laser cannons, but there was a lot of advantage in such an engagement gained from simply being able to move.
The two TIE Bombers surged down, coming in for their second dive-bombing run of the day, this time towards the landspeeder still a ways from the compound. Things weren't so clean this time around. Laser cannons on the armored car shot up at them, long before the dive was done one of them was sent spinning away to slam into the ground in a massive explosion. The second delivered it's payload, but it wasn't quite the direct hit that would have vaporized the landspeeder. The vehicle, slowed and damaged, continued on the approach. Soon the men on the house could see the smoking, tank-like thing approaching on the horizon.
[2:38:00]Shaena Karath: Is this a Skipray blast boat? ]
[2:38:55]NPC Repository: (I was thinking a Hapan model, but probably something very similar to one in performance yes. No torpedo launcher, more speed and agility)
[2:49:59] Jeramiah Thrall nodded, "Alright kids, I'm going to need you two to be very brave, because this is a rescue. I'm going to take you to your mother, but first, we have to run, okay?" He explained, before slinging his rifle across his chest so that he could grab a fistful of Thermal Detonators. "Alright, there's a man over there, his name is Prospero, he's the guy with the goatee and should probably shave his head. You go to him, he will take you to the ship that will take you to your mom, okay?" He then stood up, about to bolt back into combat, before he stopped and turned to them again. "Oh, and don't you ever tell your mom what I'm about to do, okay?" He said with a rougish grin and a wink, before he pulled his helmet back on and started to run back towards the combat. "Prospero, the kids are coming to you. I'm going to take care of this speeder. Give me some cover fire so I can put some boots on it's hull." he ordered, as if him bolting towards a tank with a bandoleer of grenades was something totally sane and rational.
[2:52:44]Kixene: That didn't pan out as well as she had hoped. The shields held, though. But without taking off to engage she was rather limited in what she could do to return fire after they were out of their initial firing arc. With some power in the banks for the cannons she readjusted the flow to just maintain it and keep as much power as she could still feeding the shields. She now had an idea on what it felt like to be a fish in a barrel.
[2:53:36]Shaena Karath: [NPC] "Wait, WHAT?!" He shouted back as the children joined him at his side. He quickly ushered the little hooligans into the U-Wing proper and had the rest of the team join him. They began to provide the requested cover fire, and while he was still a safe distance out the rocket-wielding trooper shot off a HEAT round in its general direction to hopefully disable it before Jeramiah charged it. He sent out a call to Shesh. "We have the HVTs and are proceeding to exfil, are we all clear up there?!”
[2:58:36]NPC Repository: The Landspeeder was built like a brick wall. The thing hovered just a hands' span over the ground, trundling along painfully slow, trailing smoke, some of its weapons blisters and armor visibly melted and resolidified on one of its sides, where the heavy proton bomb had gone off. That didn't mean it lacked for weaponry, however, and as Jeramiah made his move, both a blaster mounted on its side and the heavy main laser cannon on the thing started swiveling for him. Luckily, the main gun wasn't really rated to hit a long infantryman, but that blaster had far better odds.
The U-Wing was taking it's punishment with remarkable sturdiness, and as the team boarded up, the odds of survival seemed to be improving. They became even better when the one TIE Bomber, having returned from its bombing run on the landspeeder, surged in to engage with the blastboat. The small fighter opened up with proton torpedoes, but the nimble blastboat dodged those aside and returned the kind of superior firepower a blastboat was well-known for. Before long the Bomber had glancing hits to both one of its panels and one of its ion engines. The pilot sent out a simple message, to both friends and foes, "W. B. D," before using what little maneuverability his bomber had left to veer into the blastboat in the next pass. The explosion was colossal.
[3:03:32]Sera Shesh: "We will be," she replied into the comm down to the ground team. Once they were in light atmosphere, they were also at extreme range for the picket cruiser's weapons, and turbolaser fire rained down on the little cruiser. The smaller vessel points its nose defiantly right at the cruiser and continued to speed up as fast as it could gather speed, returning fire with its own inferior weaponry.
"Shields down to 25%!" The report came distressingly early in the run, but the only response was a calm, "stay on target." They were up to ramming speed by then, putting the Carrack's famous speed to use to shorten the distance. They were doing some damage to the bigger cruiser, yes, but this engagement was favoring the other vessel heavily.
When they were approaching short range, a pair of concussion missiles shot out of the picket cruiser, exploding against either side of the Carrack. Idly, she looked through damage reports. Shields down - permanently so. Half their weapons melted, primary hyperdrive destroyed, several sections of the ship vented out into space. But still they went on, pushing towards the picket, ever faster.
At the last possible second, she gave the command, "dive!" The Helmsman did so immediately, and the two ships passed so close to each other you could have reached out and touched it. The two bombers close on the Carrack's tail, shielded by it the entire way, had only to unleash their salvo and then dive out of the way. The heavy proton bombs cracked the picket cruiser from side to side.
"We're clear," was the only report down to the ground.
Jeramiah Thrall bolted straight towards the armored speeder, with a speed that was obviously beyond what a regular trooper could manage. It wasn't quite "the editor of Episode 1 is retarded and couldn't figure out how to get the heroes out of the way of a destroyer droid so he just did some force bullshit" level of fast, but he was quick, either way. As he ran, the light blaster did indeed find it's mark, walking it's bolts across his chest. The first two hit him in the shoulder and the center of the chest, which was enough for the armor to stop. His unarmored midsection, however, was not so lucky. Had he not been pumping full of adrenaline, he might have noticed, but instead he leapt onto the turret of the tank and pulled his Vibroknife with his left hand, plunging it deep into the gunner's chest. The blade hummed as it tore through the man's flesh, spraying blood onto Jeramiah's helmet. Even though his vision was obscured, he could see well enough to dump the detonators down the hatch of the Speeder. Before they even hit the inside deck of the tank, Captain Thrall was running towards the U-Wing. Between the blood on his visor and the pain in his lower hip, he couldn't see well enough to shoot back, but all he needed to make was that last 100 yards. "Bodi, for the love of the force, get those engines spooled!”
[3:13:11]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Prospero moved forward halfway and helped Jeramiah the rest of the way. They had a very limited window now, and they had to get gone yesterday. "Everyone is onboard, let's get the frak out of here!" He repeated Jeramiah's orders. There was only one more step left to go and they were home free.
[3:14:43]Kixene: "Strap those kids in!" The pilot would call out as she lifted the U-Wing up. She was skimming along the surface towards Jeramiah, swinging the craft around so that he was pulled in by a helping hand or two from the rest of the troops on board. The escape was much like the approach in reverse, Bodi pumping power to the engines and banking the U-Wing into a steep climb even before the doors were closed. The hull groaned and the engines whined as the atmosphere became thinner, using the same exit path that the cruiser had cleared for them.
[3:19:44]NPC Repository: [One system away] Zack Goodry has been alone in his TIE scout for a very long time now. The ships could sometimes be fitted for multiple crewmembers, but this assignment called for as little overhead as possible, so he had been alone in here the entire time since they left Bastion. It was a good thing they tested pilots for cabin fever, or half of them would be deranged psychopaths before their missions were done.
He had only heard the comm reports of all the excitement going on down on Sargon, and to be frank he was happy to be away from it. He'd signed up for the TIE Scout for a reason, he hated being in the thick of things.
And four Hapan capital ships jumped into the system, and he was very much in the thick of things.
"Two Battle Dragons, two Novas, inbound! They're lining up the hyperspace jump as we speak!" He reported into the comms, while speeding away from the two ships. They'd spotted the odd, lonely TIE Scout sitting in the system and had decided that a quick bit of target-practice was in order while warming up the Hyperdrive.
[3:22:57]Sera Shesh: "Helm, set up the secondary hyperdrive. We're jumping out. Alpha 3, Alpha 4, come on home." It stung not to be able to call the leading pair of her starfighter unit, but there was no helping it. Forces had been expended towards achieving a goal. That was war.
The Carrack-class limped along up out of the gravity well, venting atmosphere from both sides, sparking where one of the concussion missile detonations had been nastier. Luckily, two of the TIE external mounts were still working, and before long the pilots were onboard. "Ready to jump out," she called out to the team, as the U-Wing joined her beyond the gravity well, "be advised, we will be going at twelve past lightspeed."
[3:28:28]Jeramiah Thrall: Using the very last of what energy his body had left, he leapt onto the moving U-wing, screaming in agony as he landed with the deck cutting into his wound. With the help of the other troopers, he slid onto the deck, blood smearing across the floor. The wound was bad, but considering they were now safely aboard the ship and he wasn't going to bleed out immediately, he wasn't in any immediate danger of dying. He sheathed his vibroknife and laid his head back on the floor, breathing heavily through his helmet's filters. After a moment, he peeled the helmet off to reveal the blood had splattered up under his visor, adding to the soot and blood that had already covered his face from the no doubt impressive explosion from the armored speeder. He reached up and pointed one finger at Casius. "Not a word of this to your mother." he said, turning his finger to Juliet. "Not. A. Word.”
[3:32:42]Shaena Karath: [NPC] Now that they were on their way out, one of the other troopers moved to trie and stabilize the wound while Prospero stood over Jeramiah with a grin, shaking his head. "You crazy son of a bitch. I gotta say, I've never seen someone suicide charge a blastboat before. Not anyone on our side anyway. When we get back to Bastion, drinks are on me." He clasped the other man gently on the shoulder.
[3:37:35]NPC Repository: The ships lined up, and just a few minutes ahead of the oncoming hapan fleet, jumped out of the system. At their next destination, they found the surviving TIE Scout, having survived his impromptu transformation into hapan target practice by micro-jumping as soon as his report was sent.
The same path they used to arrive in the system was used on the way out. The only stable paths through the Transitory Mists were known, mapped and patrolled, but if one found a secondary route through, one could count it would still be there for at least a few hours. Again, they bypassed the large hapan defense fleet sitting at the gate of the mists, and the long journey home began, leap-frogging their one TIE Scout the entire way to Bilbringi, where they were finally safe again. It was a short way to Bastion now. Mission accomplished.