Here Be Dragons [ORC Dominion of Drexel]

[Julius Sedaire]

[SIZE=11pt]Drexel[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=11pt]A lone planet in the Outer Rim territories, Drexel is a world comprised of vast, never-ending oceans. Inhabiting these oceans are[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt] [/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]sea-dragons[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt], sentient aquatic reptiles who communicate with each other using ultrasonic signals. Drexel has seen strife in the past with Governor Quarg and his pirates—many years ago, an exiled Governor Quarg found himself sentenced to Drexel along with his gang of pirates. A unique civilization was built in the form of a sailing ship that doubled as a mobile city. However, a revolt ensued over Quarg’s tyrannical rule. Rebels fled Quarg’s ship and reached out to the sea-dragons, forming a symbiotic relationship with the marine beasts. Those rebels became known as Dragon Lords, building an underwater civilization and waging war against Quarg’s city-ship. Eventually, Quarg’s ship was defeated and for a while, all was well.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Objective 1: [/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]Normally docile, reports of sea-dragons attacking civilians have begun to crop up. Pirates have set up shop on Drexel and are using signal jammers to cause passing ships to malfunction and crash on to the aqueous planet, making them easy raid targets. Sensitive to ultrasonic waves, the signal jammers are interfering with the sea-dragon’s natural method of communication and causing them to lash out. Investigate these reports, discover the pirates and take care of them Outer Rim style.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Objective 2: [/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]Explore the ruins of the underwater civilization built years ago by the Dragon Lords. Who knows what treasures await? Be mindful of the sea-dragons, though. They seem to be in a bad mood lately.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Objective 3: [/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]BYOO. Go for a swim, catch some fish, watch your toes.[/SIZE]

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

Objective 1: Pirates
Location: Utapau -> Drexel

"Captain, here is one more troubling report"

"Pirates are presumed to be preying on shipping routes from and to Drexel. However, I'll have an EWAR unit on standby if push comes to shove; load medium ion bombs into my squadron's craft" she told Griet before turning into the squadron's frequency for their pre-flight briefing. "We'll only have a short window to locate the jammers, drop ion bombs, guided by inertia and, if we disable the jammers, we may as well shoot them down, them and any other pirates preying on Drexel's shipping"

I got the idea of an ion bomb acting as a flare while I discussed flares with one Cassiopeia Caranthyr; now, if the siege of the Machine is any indication, although jammers can hide other units from sensors, they tend not to be able to hide themselves, she thought, while the assault on Tartarus was one occasion she did not deploy for, even though other ORC units did, in fact, participate. Meanwhile, all twelve of the craft were loaded with medium ion bombs, and, if the enemy was using heat-seeking warheads, some of them would bounce back onto them. Or at least it's how it would be. Also, Janick would have to brace herself for flashbacks from Dagobah, as it regularly happened when fighting combat sorties where bombing runs were the order of the day, with coordinates to Drexel being patched into the navicomputers of the squadron so that they can make the jump as soon as it was possible for them to do so. But she estimated it would be best to deploy a limited, elite group on the first wave, and, if it turned out to be the sort of engagement where numbers counted for more than the skill of the participants, the reserves would then be called in. Once the squadron took off and broke orbit:

"All craft, jump to lightspeed!"

Spoiler

Attack craft:

12 Alakaha elite fighters

 

[Vaudin Miir]

Location: Space enroute to Drexel
Objective: Dunno yet
[member="Joza Perl"]

The old TL-1800 freighter began the process of firing up the hyperdeive for the jump to Drexel. The heavy manipulator arms were pulled tight against the recently reinforced hull as they moved to the proper vector for the jump and Vaudin sat monitoring the systems.

He leaned back in his well used nerf hide pilot's chair and put his boots up on the consol with his hands behind his head. The best ship in the galaxy? Yup, this was it. He watched calmly out the cockpit view port. The stars glistened in the black like diamonds on a giant black canopy. It was. Beautiful, dangerous, but beautiful.

The klaxon alarm came on to say the hyperdrive was ready and he reached idly for his harness and then turned off the warning klaxon. Force knew he would have just made the jump if he was alone or with anyone else.

"Joza, we're ready to jump better strap in." He said as nicely as he could.


[member="Tyric"] [member="Janick Beauchamp"]

 

[Joza Perl]

Location: Space enroute to Drexel
Objective: Whatever
With: [member="Vaudin Miir"]
Post: #1

The only initial response Vaudin would get from Joza was a grunt as she strapped herself into the co-pilot’s chair. Oh, she was well aware that he was trying to bypass her irritation by using a polite tone. But he wasn’t an investor, he wasn’t a business partner, he wasn’t someone that she was trying to get something from.

No, he was her husband. And that meant that he’d experience the full length of her wrath if she sought to.

“I wasn’t aware that this rust-bucket could handle hyperspace.” Her eventual reply was monotone and completely, totally and obviously devoid of any sarcastic notes.

The Zeltron brush her hair over her shoulders and away from her back as she rested against the seat. Her brows furrowed just slightly, face set firmly as she stared at the viewport directly ahead. Joza was crafty when it came to hiding intentions and emotions after years of doing business, but if she wanted you to know that she was upset, you would know.

“Don’t screw this up, Miir. I can’t die until I put my son through university.”

 

[Vaudin Miir]

Loaction: Hyperspace
Objective: Stuff in places
With: [member="Joza Perl"]
Post #2

"If you die the insurance will be enough that he could buy several universities." He said as he sat up straight and focused pointlessly on turning nobs a fraction and adjusting things that did absolutely nothing in hyperspace but made him look like he knew what he was doing.

"And first of all, she's not a rust bucket. She's vintage." He said addressing the direct insult to his first wife, "Secondly, I modified her myself and she can make micro jumps to within .00003 of a kilometer cubed. So, let's not hurt her feelings here. She's not as smart or as beautiful as you are but she tries hard. Ok?"

He unbuckled his harness and swiveled his chair around to look at her and gave his best grin. She was pretty, way out of his league, and he had high standards, higher when he was sober, which was weird to think about, really. So, he smiled lovingly, which according to Jorus was what you did when you knew you were in trouble.

"How did I get so lucky." He concluded. Was he laying on thick? You bet. Did he think it would work? Not a karking chance in all of the Corellian hells.

 

[Arage Bao]

Objective 3: Find a legacy.
Allies: [member="Sortz"]

Decades had been spend training and honing his experience, but Daro knew firsthand that there was always another secret.

The Delilah's Hope broke atmosphere over Drexel fully cloaked and with its stealth systems engaged. The cockpit was still cramped, even if they had rearranged it just a bit to accommodate Sortz into it. There was only so much you could do with existing space after all. "I hope you are right about this, kid." Daro murmured as he angled the ship into an overarching trajectory.

It was Sortz who had found a trace of what he had been seeking for about three years now.

How? Daro didn't know, didn't much care either.

But Jorj Car'das was a figure of legend an' then some. One of the finest and best infochants of the old age, his connections had run through the entire Galaxy, he had played both sides for years, if there was one man that Daro had any respect for (even if it is just a memory) then it would be him. That's where the rumors started though, the hint that part of his legacy was still out there.

Not the original infochant network, of course.

That would have been silly as feth and unreasonable. Instead there was a legend- of a datacron, a little box fit for a palm, that held the secrets of his trade. Slicing algorithms, self-writing digital infrastructure to set up spy protocols, the whole big bantha.

"Tell me how you found out about this place again?" Apparently it was an artificial platform out on the ocean, but Sortz had been sketchy on the details.

...or maybe Daro had been drinking, maybe both?

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

Objective 1: Pirates
Location: Drexel

"These jammers are all we are able to detect in orbit: there are three of them. Fly towards them at attack speed, drop your bombs in their direction and then fall back; maintain distance - don't get too close"

Most people mistakenly think that bombs need to be dropped overhead a target in space, unless the bomb bay was, in fact, accelerating the bomb downward (relative to the launch platform); however, guided by the inertia, it was possible to use a fighter as a launch platform to lob unguided bombs at range. Just need to predict how the targets will move, it's otherwise very similar to firing guns. But the window of opportunity was short; four fighters came towards each of the jammers in the prescribed fashion, dropping ion bombs, and falling back, half-expecting the pirates to go after them, especially if the bombs hit. Janick then had a flashback of Dagobah, of how inertia was important in a bombing run in space, and also at the same time having a feeling of dread, thinking that perhaps the jammers could belie a trap that might be sprung on her if the bombs fail to hit. Speaking of which the bombs were closing in on whatever caused the jamming at speeds more akin to A-Wings' speeds, while suspecting that it was not the end for either side. I hope the others around here are safe, she thought.

Spoiler

Attack craft:

12 Alakaha elite fighters

 

[Sortz]

Objective 3: Find a legacy.
Allies: [member="Daro Tarsi"]

Oh, it was obvious that he cared alright. Honestly, Sortz hadn't even known he'd been looking for anything related to Jorj Car'das when she'd mentioned it. She'd been honestly surprised by the change in him from half drunk (it was only 10am, so half was actually pretty good for him) to fully focused in a matter of thirty seconds.

"Uh, I was just poking around."

Sortz had a knack for finding connections between things. She assumed it carried over from before whatever it was that had made her lose her memory, but beyond that she was stumped. How she could find these connections but not anything related to her old life was her own private mystery.... and her own private hell.

She explained what she'd been doing, and how she'd stumbled across a reference to Drexel- not related to Jorj, just in general. And it had sparked a memory. The problem was that she didn't have any context for the memory. It was just enough to send her digging deeper into the data. More than a hunch, less than evidence, but she hadn't had anything else to do that day so why not?

"It was the name of the platform that gave it away," she finished off with. "Daseas Kosk. It looks like nonsense, right? But if you bump each consonant down one letter, but you leave the vowels alone, then swap the two words....." She leaned over the dash, typing it out and showing him. In fairness, she'd been hunched over since they got into the cockpit so this wasn't any more uncomfortable than before.

"Jorj Cardas. See? He liked to use codes, substitution codes were his favorite- was kind of mad for them really- so that was kind of my cincher."

She looked up at they neared the platform in question.

"Does, uh.... that look safe to land on?"

From where she was sitting, it did not.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Objective 3: bringing my own

Two thousand kilometres from all this fuss with pirates and ultrasonography, Jorus presented a business offer to the locals. A waterproofed protocol droid translated his words into vibrations. Huge waterworms, also known as sea dragons, glided through the murky sea around him. They watched the holoprojector he'd modified, and listened in silence.

"... and that's how the Resu taught my people fluidic-environment starship engineering. You're far from the only sentient aquatic species in the galactic community, and plenty of starfaring species are larger than humans. Herglics, for example, aren't much smaller than you. They're partially aquatic too, and they build their own ships. Mon Calamari are fully aquatic by preference, and their technical displays are very easy to calibrate for your eyes. They're prolific shipbuilders. I believe it's possible to modify Herglic ships with upscaled Mon Calamari interfaces and life support, flood a good portion of the ship with seawater, and get you people out among the stars. You down?"

 

[Ria Misrani]

Drexel

---

---

---

Gorrammin' No Where.
Please Don't Die. Again.
"Sweet lekkus, when I said I needed a vacation this is not what I meant, ASHIN!"

It had become something of a 'sport' to rebuild Ria. After all, she had spent the last two years as a cat, the words 'character building' were quite often used by the two Sith women. The five foot three blonde stood there with her old racket bites on either side of her holster. "Thar! Get'er!" Yelled the Blue Scourge of Drexel, who happened to be a rather ugly Nautolan if she had ever seen one so ugly. Ria just took off running, her boots splashed into the sand. Now, then - Blue Scourge and his motley crew of pirates had discovered Ria digging through their crates. It would not have been so terrible if those crates had actually been empty or just did not hold the computer chip's responsible for the signal jammers. Good thing Ria wasn't interested in the signal jammers and was actually looking for her favorite snack, tonitran jerky. Unfortunately, that was not the story that the pirates bought.

"Fething abyss I think I should've just stayed a cat!" The blonde cursed as she ducked to avoid the blaster fire.

Get to a boat, get to a boat, get to a boat.

 

[Zak Dymo]

THE PLANET DREXEL​

1431 HOURS GALACTIC STANDARD TIME​

OBJ//2//EXPLORATION​

CODENAME: OPERATION BRING THE NOISE​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heHc41h47I8​

Thousands of years ago, human pirates had been exiled by the Jedi to the planet Drexel. There, they encountered the sapient sea-dragons of the planet. And together they built the most epic location for an underwater house party!

Seriously, underwater caves? The acoustics were going to be totes righteous, brah.

And where ever in the galaxy you would find righteous acoustics, where ever the rave scene might go, no matter the distance, if a sic beat echoed in the night you would find Zak Dymo. The most happy dancing moron of the known universe.

Plunging far beneath where the light touched the depths, the young Nautolan seemed to dance rather than swim. His movements neither resisting nor pushing against the water. Instead, the lithe aquatic seemed to weave in perfect harmony to the ebb and flow of the current.

A pair of specialized headphones were clasped to his head-tails, supplying some music as the child descended down over the caves.

Somewhere, there was the right spot for the party to go down.

Zak would find this spot and then deliver upon Drexel the most epic synth-pop that had ever been remixed.

Also, [member="Makai Dashiell"] was supposed to be somewhere. Zak had sent him an invitation to the underwater house party. He just wasn't sure where the party was going to be at just yet.

But there would be a party. For where there was music, water, and a questionably intelligence Nautolan... there would be a party! Guaranteed!

 

[Arage Bao]

Objective 3: Find a legacy.
Allies: [member="Sortz"]

Head tilted.

....Daseas Kosk?

.....Jorj Cardas?

He was getting too old for this kind of crap. "Ya did good, Sortz." Daro finally mumbled, while peering down the sensors an' trying to find a good place to land. It turned out there wasn't really one. In a world where they were supposed to be here the sensors of the platform should have automatically detected their approach, before engaging an internal landing platform for them. But... the Delilah was a stealthy mother an' then some, so that was outside the question.

Besides.

They weren't supposed to be here.

"Alright, trigger da NEEDLE, I will keep us afloat while ya slice into dem an' get da landing gears to extend." Officially Daseas Kosk I was a mining platform in the middle of nowhere. Abandoned, they hadn't made a delivery in decades if not more. Hell. Officially this place had been decommissioned around that same timespan. From what Daro was picking up on the passive scanners it was anything but though. The heat signatures were muted as all feth, yeah, but they were there.

Only recognizable if you were right on top of 'em like they were right now.

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

Objective 1: Pirates
Location: Drexel

After some travel time under inertia, where the bombs could be undetected by sensors, the bombs finally ended up hitting the jammers. The bombs hitting the jammers ended up overloading said jammers upon the bombs detonating in a burst of heated ions; although the ion bombs' incendiary effects proved to be rather ineffective, the jammers were now... fried. And frying the jammers meant that, in fact, the pirates were now visible on the sensors. And, also, given the long distances between them and her squadron, the pirates were now playing catch-up, inexplicablty attracted by her fighter squadron, letting others, such as [member="Zak Dymo"], [member="Vaudin Miir"] and [member="Joza Perl"] to get to the surface while the locals on the surface would no longer be importuned by ultrasound-based jammers. Preliminary scans of the pirate ship indicate that the escort frigate-sized ship has no aft point-defense, and a ship that size with no aft PD is, in fact, rather common. Less of a liability than it was with the Pellaeon or other SSDs, perhaps, but something that Janick thinks of exploiting.

"I know it's risky, but microjump off their aft quarter! They seem to be using a ship that has no aft point-defense"

Spoiler

Attack craft:

12 Alakaha elite fighters

 

[Jada Raxis]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Whatever Objective this is

She took another sip of her kelp beer and grimaced. Luckily nobody caught that lil bit and her faux paux didn't unravel the entire thing. She was clad in her familiar blue jumpsuit, with a black duster and two patches. One read Raxis, the other SS Quantum Cutter.

Normally she'd be down there in the sea, with her spacer armor on, kicking Pirates in the teeth and whatnot. But the chance to sample some local cuisine, and get some booze took her away from all that. Besides, she was interested to know how Jorus planned to pull off this lil Sea Worms to the stars type deal.

"How you know we even want to leave our planet Human Merrill. This reeks of a ploy. Are you here to steal our stuff, our secrets?"​

She pressed her lips thin, and then choked down another sip.

​

This ain't going so good.​

 

[Joza Perl]

Location: Hyperspace enroute to Drexel
Objective: Whatever
With: [member="Vaudin Miir"]
Post: #2

Vaudin’s winning smile would be met with a face of stone cold disapproval.

“We were drinking in a district where it was easier to get married than sober.”

His rhetorical question didn’t need an answer but she gave one anyhow.

Joza wasn’t the best pilot—or even a passable one—so it made sense that Vaudin would be the one out of their married duo to shuttle them over to Drexel. That part was fine, she knew him to be a capable pilot. However, she wasn’t enthused with his choice in ship. While Joza was no stranger to risky business, ever since she gave birth to her son she’d been more careful.

Nah, not really.

Did she settle down on Zeltros and buy a nice home for her little family? Yes. Did she stop running with the outer rim kids? Couldn’t drain that smuggler blood from her veins. Perhaps she was more like her father than she’d initially thought.

Joza snorted. “Guess that makes me the other woman. Sorry girl,” She tilted her head back, calling out to the interior of the ship. “You can have him back once we’re done with this job.”

She patted the blaster strapped to her thigh for good measure. Still, something troubled her. How were they supposed to land on a world that was basically one big ocean?

Oh well, they’d figure it out once they got there.

 

[Sortz]

Objective 3: Find a legacy.
Allies: [member="Daro Tarsi"]

"Oh, yeah. Um. Can."

Sortz leaned over the console- a special, custom made rig Daro had put together. Of course. She hunched over it, takking out commands carefully. Sortz's fingers were too big for the keys, but she was getting faster and the process was a fairly simple one. Remote access, check the base processes, see if she could override. Daro had a program all written up, all she had to do was get it going really. Didn't take much by way of brights, just enough know how once he'd showed her the details the first time.

When it came to this kind of stuff, Sortz was a quick study. She'd only needed once.

"Uh, something's pretty darn active on this system," she muttered dubiously, tapping a series of keys to boost the signal from the Delilah.

"Got it," she said a second later, looking up as the landing pad unfolded, clank by rusty clank. "Looks..... not sturdy, Daro."

The metal, even from this distance, was clearly pitted and corroded from the salt water.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Kaia always had a bit of work ahead of her, but today? It was more of the same, trying to make a credit off of what she found out in the galaxy. The Warden was working on reconnecting with others in her family, like her father, but it didn’t stop her from assisting the Outer Rim Coalition when it came time for that. And today? Well, she was heading over to Drexel, because there was a movement by the Coalition. That meant there was a need for supplies.

And who knew, maybe the water and swimming in it wasn’t that bad? Her father always claimed that space farers came from those who understood the water, and were ready to leap into the abyss. Maybe that was true, but the Corellian-descendant wasn’t completely sold on that. Her Bloodsteel YT-2400 entered real space around the planet of Drexel.

“Alright, lets see if there is anything I need to help with before we land, Drifter.” The dark haired Warden spoke, as the droid began to scan while she set the course for the landing platform on the planet.

While doing that, she reached out into the Force, just checking, seeing who was around and if anyone needed assistance. She was getting better at this whole Warden of the Sky deal. It was a matter of finding people who needed help, or just running the blockades if that failed.

Drifter started beeping and Kaia just shook her head. "Always something."

 

[Arage Bao]

Objective 3: Find a legacy.
Allies: [member="Sortz"]

Daro positively peered down at that landing pad.

It was one thing if he had been flying one of his random rust buckets, but this was the Delilah an' Daro wasn't comfortable putting it in that sort of risk. It was almost like throwing ya darn hat over the railing to watch it fly in the distance.

Not a smart thing.

"Hrm." He murmured, scratching at his cheek an' wondering what to do next. "Yeahno, I ain't putting the Hope on that fethin' thing." That didn't leave them with a lot of options though. Well. Technically they could maybe figure out a slaving rig, but he'd need more than his pair of hands for that. Daro glanced over to her, quizzically, before sighing. "Aight, how's ya engineering props? We gon' try an' see if we can rig up a slave process for the ship."

Slaving had always been on his check list, but somehow... it never really came up as necessary until now.

It wasn't complicated and truth to be told it could be handy in a pinch. Being able to link your ship to a digi-pad on your wrist, control it from a distance? That was the good kind of stuff. But they would need time to figure out how to do it right.

Probably take a while even with Sortz help tho.

Goody.

Either way- it had to be done, so Daro picked himself off the seat, started grabbing for a flask in his hat -- blue iridescent light looming bright when he did -- and wandered over towards the engine room a few decks over. The Hope could hover for a bit on its own, but he wasn't comfortable just letting it drift here by itself either. If they managed to jury-rig it to his digi-pad though? It would be possible to just send it off a distance and wait for recall.

Much more comfortable with that.

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

Objective 1: Pirates
Location: Drexel

"Villanova, Metronome, attack pattern delta, go now"

"Roger"

While, of course, Griet and her both found themselves behind the pirate frigate, and not far behind it, just outside point-defense range, her wingmen are now much more scattered because of the lack of precision in the other pilots, with Villanova and Metronome being the closest to them. Maybe, via inertia, dive-bombing the ion bombs towards their engines would cause a mobility kill, and hence much easier to hit further afterward. With attack pattern delta, the four fighters would be fanning out in different directions after dropping bombs outside point-defense rangebut at attack speed. Here goes nothing; in space anything can be construed as a dive-bomb, and you don't necessarily have to be facing the topside to actually dive bomb, she thought, while flashbacks from her dive-bombing on the Pellaeon's forward topside arc on Dagobah came back to haunt her and force her to pull up very close to the engine blocks (but not close enough to feel the ionic whiplash of the ion bomb detonating), forcing her to make a looping to her left, and with it the port point-defense to swing, while other elements were closing in on the pirate ship with erratic flying.

Spoiler

Attack craft:

12 Alakaha elite fighters

 

[Zak Dymo]

THE PLANET DREXEL​

OBJ//2//EXPLORATION​

CODENAME: OPERATION BRING THE NOISE​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnRMFmvKX9s​

He had two turntables and a microphone.

It wasn't much, but it was music.

...well, that much might be up for debate. But, in any case, sound traveled much, much faster in water than over air. So the beats spinning off the DJ table were likely to spread far and wide. Sure, it took a little energy to get the sound going, but Zak had daisy-chained a couple of powercells to a handful of recycled Corellia Digital SoundLinks that were strategically positioned for use as speakers across the underwater cavern in which the Nautolan had laid the foundation for the greatest underwater house party of all time!

That was the thing about glass screen technology. As soon as there was a crack, people threw it out. Even if the touch screen was busted, the SoundLinks were still good for audio.

But, Zak wasn't complaining. This DJ set-up had basically cost him the 1.75 credits that he'd had in the pocket, which covered the diet soda he'd bought the guy guarding the scrapyard that he'd wandered through to pull this together.

See? Not only was it sic righteous beats and unbridled awesomeness, it was also recycling.

Saving the planet. One house party at a time.

You're welcome.