Private Jack in the box

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

IN THE LOWER HOLD OF THE FIRST ORDER GUARDIAN PATROL CORVETTE LORD PHONYX

“No! Kriff off! Screw you and the freighter you came in on!” Yelled Lieutenant Dothea Dobson up the stairs at Chief NCO, Lead Ableman, Alro (Bubba) Doreen as he trotted down the stairs from the gangway that ran around the small cargo bay. The ceiling of the cargo bay ran up two decks and the quarter masters officer was connected to it on the bottom level with a large open bay window. Sitting just inside was lieutenant Dobson, chief Quartermaster, with a face red with her signature outrage.

Chiefly Bubba, the oldest man on the ship, and senior NCO, strode gleefully up to the window of Lieutenant Dobson’s office and leaned against the bottom of the frame and rested his elbow on the table on top of it, “Now now, I didn’t even ask for anything yet.” He chided, cleaning his nails, “what if I just wanted to say hi? What would that do to our relationship?”

Dobson huffed, “well. You and I both know why you’re really here, and I’m absolutely resurgent that you would even endorse this poodoo scheme! He has been sending me requisitions all week, and I will not be bullied into it by you!”

Chief Bubba nearly snorted at her misuse of the word “resurgent” and had to run a hand over his mouth to keep from ticking her off even more, “oh please,” he said, “it’s just a little rhydonic acid. The stuff we got in our last resupply for cleaning the tibanna tanks was useless anyways. If we use it up sooner you can get the proper solvent sooner. It’s a win-win”

Dobson scoffed, “That’s such a stupid argument! If you give that stuff to Drayle he will likely kill the whole ship! And he’s a horrible cook anyways! If I give you that stuff, at best, he’ll have the whole ship running to the head every five minutes!”

Chief Bubba did let himself chuckle at that. The joke that passed around the ship was that Ableman Drayle had been sent to the Lord Phonyx to make her crew lose weight so that they didn’t use up as much fuel when waltzing around on patrol in the Red Nebula. “Well” he sighed, “look, he says he can make that stuff into a decent vinegar substitute. He even gave the formula to one of the new engineers we got with the ship rebuild and she says it’s a good ‘solution’ as long as he dilutes it enough. If this makes his food less horrible, I’m willing to put my name on it” he looked her dead in the eye and almost pleaded, “Please don’t be the reason we have to keep eating his protein loafs.”

“Oh I can’t even right now,” Lieutenant Dobson huffed, stood up, and stormed out into her back room. An instant later she came back with an industrial looking army green plastic jar and threw it on the table as if holding the thing in her hands was an insult to her very existence, “I better not catch any kriffing flack for this!”

Chief Bubba just stared at the jar for a second as it settled onto the table and was hesitant to touch it out of fear. Even he was a little scared of what Ableman Drayle might do with it, and picking it up might agitate Dobson to the point of pursuing this argument even further. Not that he couldn’t handle her, but she was an officer, his superior, technically, and could be a pain in the rear. And she could be a little touchy...

“What do you think of the new skipper?” She asked suddenly. Bubba looked up, eyebrows raised in surprise at the sudden change of topic.

“You haven’t met him yet?” He asked.

“I did when he introduced himself and his new staff to what few of us old officers are still here.” She replied, “but you are the one with the gut instinct.”

He rubbed his chin and looked around. He wasn’t keen on eavesdroppers so he kept his voice low but casual, “Well, he’s a chiss. They are hard to read, even for one of my talents”

Lieutenant Dobson scoffed at him and raised an eyebrow, “We’ve known each other too long for these games, Bubba. You read people like a book. What’s the scoop? Is he gonna get us all killed, or will he just be another ‘Lieu-cer’ trying to move up the ladder in the cushiest way possible?” She said, using the slang for Lieutenant Commander.

He conceded to her and shook his head, going back to his fingernails, “I don’t think many chiss are big on the ‘cushy’ approach, and he doesn’t seem to be the exception. And he has some of that confidence that they all got, but with him it seems more like he knows what battles he can and can’t win whereas most other chiss seem to have that ‘always in control’ vibe about them. I don’t think we got the 'pride of the chiss people' here, but I don’t think he’s a bad guy either. He just seems like he’ll have more blind faith in his own subordinates than others. He’s different.”

“Funny,” Dobson mused, “His history says otherwise. I heard he was a lieutenant flying pilot for channels for 10 years from some of my supply contacts. That's not really a job that an ambitious man would do for that long. He only just made Lieu-cer”

“I’m willing to bet that he’s had some kind of change of heart. There’s some fight in his eyes. I can't speak for if he's always had that look during his service, but I think he got a taste of action somewhere in the channels and now he’s being put where they think he can do something with that.” Bubba guess. He then smirked at Lieutenant Dobson, “I think you better get your affairs in order, ma’am.”

Lieutenant Dobson just scoffed at him, “Yeah right. This ship has never even seen a battle line in its ten years of service and bigger ships are used for raids. The best he’s gonna see with us is shakedowns and some picturesque patrols in the nebula”

Just as Chief NCO Lead Ableman Alro Doreen (Bubba) opened his mouth to remind her of some of their more strange adventures, including the one that just killed most of their last crew, the lights throughout the whole ship turned red and the general alarm sounded. The two of them just stood there for a second, chewing on those words.

*****

“Captain on deck!” The bridge officer announced as Lieutenant Commander Rhob’urt’chistagh stepped from the hallway into the cramped bridge space. It was already dimmed from the sounding of general quarters, and red lights were the only illumination besides the large holographic projector in the middle of the space.

“I have the bridge” Lieutenant Commander Burtch said in lightly accented basic and he took a couple short steps to the projector. He took a quick glance around the ship to take a quick stock of the personnel and tiny snippets from the several hours of dossiers he had just been reading through got all jumbled up in his head. Best to just focus on the task at hand. I can learn the specifics of my crew composition later he thought to himself.

This patrol was supposed to be a shakedown run for the Lord Phonyx after her rebuild and new crew. No one was expecting any contacts on the spinward side of the red nebula. Hopefully this was a false alarm.

“The commander has the bridge” repeated the bridge officer.

Lt. Commander Burtch looked to his XO Lieutenant Adar Tanon, “What did we find and what is our range and heading?”

****

Heath Valhoun

 

[Elysium Eternal]

The Red Nebula
Post: 1
​

The low hum of engines rumbled through the silence of space. The cause of this disturbance was an Elysium Patrol. The empire, strained of resources, had to send the patrol as a single ship. Beyond this setback, the ship was damaged and had been for some time now. The King had decided to send it as a patrol rather than an undamaged ship as an attack by The First Order or The CIS could take place at any time and the "good" ships were needed in the main fleet.

Thus the lonely ship travelled into First Order territory with a half-full crew, a shield unable to yield any more than 75% of its' designed efficiency, and several destroyed or immobilized weapons in its' arsenal.

The man in charge of the risky patrol mission was a rising star among The Elysium Empire....Admiral Johnathan Cousins. He had risen through the ranks after performing well during the battle against The Agents of Chaos, and in an Empire in need of military leadership, he was an obvious choice. The man was daring, but knew not to take unnecessary risks. He was a capable leader on a smaller scale, and as he ascended the ranks he was being evaluated to see how well he could handle larger groups. The man's main fault was that he was textbook. He didn't experiment, he knew the procedures for combat and followed them without question.

Today the mission was to try and intercept any fleets that may approach The Elysium Empire and give a warning so every patrol could return to The main fleet. It was further in First Order territory than usual but The King and Admiral Richard Ringo, another prominent Admiral, had determined it a necessary risk.

Admiral Cousins awaited patiently, looking for anything the scanners may miss....


Grand Shepherd Burtch

​

​

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

ON THE BRIDGE OF F.I.V. LORD PHONYX

“Is there any indication that they’ve seen us yet?” Asked Commander Burtch the ensign to his left. Lieutenant Tanon had just left via the turbolift to head for the auxiliary conn deeper in the superstructure of the small Corvette.

“Not yet sir,” called a small woman from the opposite direction commander Burtch was looking, “at least we don’t think so.” Keeping a cool demeanor about him he turned his head to the young officer and nodded as if he knew she was there the whole time. Inwardly he quickly berated himself and moved on.

With his left hand leaning on the base of the holoprojector, he tapped one of the small holographic icons in the map next to the vessel they had just found with his right hand. The map disappeared and an image of an unknown-class Star Destroyer came up, dominating the field. With the interference of the nebula, and without making more aggressive scans to alert the mysterious vessel to their presence, the scans didn’t tell them much. But some lucky long range visual scans with heavy electro-telescopes peering between the swirling gas clouds showed a grainy unkown Faction symbol on the hull of the vessel (the computer recognized it in the records as other ships having seen it, but no faction name has been identified to date). And were those scorch marks? It was hard to tell with this image...

“They haven’t tried to hail us yet,” called out another ensign from the talker station to Burtch’s left.

“We haven’t picked up any scans that are powerful enough to suggest that they can see a ship our size in this maelstrom” continued the same Ensign Scanning Officer that had just spoken before. Her tone was tense, a little shaky.

Burtch simply said, “thank you,” to both of them and nodded. He minimized the display so that the map was back up, but a smaller version of the destroyer was moved to the bottom and to the right with a couple flicks of his right index finger.

Ok, he thought to himself, whoever this unknown faction is, they are not welcome here, that’s a fact. I've studied the specs on most destroyer classes out there, and it's a safe bet that she has guns that will crack this ship in half with a couple well placed hits. That might as well be a fact. They are not scanning very aggressively which would indicate that they aren’t attempting some kind of raid. This is a speculation. Is this some sort of heavy recon picket? A destroyer seems a tad heavy to be using for scouting missions, even into enemy territory. Whoever this is, if they can afford to maintain and deploy a destroyer surely they can afford lighter warships for their recon work. He grimaced inwardly. I can’t be jumping to conclusions.

“Med bay is reporting ready,” announced the talker.

“What do you mean they are reporting ready?” Commander Burtch asked, alarmed, “Now? It’s been 5 minutes since Lieutenant Tanon sounded General Quarters. All stations should have reported ready in less than a minute.”

The bridge talker, a small framed male human Ensign whose name Burtch couldn’t remember swallowed hard and struggled to keep his nervousness from showing on his face, “The crew chiefs are reporting confusion in various stations. The crew is mostly new, sir, and this patrol was supposed to be our opportunity to run some practice drills.”

Burtch relaxed a little, not much, but nodded understanding. They needed to take action here, but it would be hard when he needed to account for an untested crew.

“What’s your name, Ensign?” Commander Burtch asked. He figured it would help to remind them that he was also new by exposing that he couldn’t remember the names of his bridge staff.

“Ensign Silverstrike, sir” Burtch saw the small man’s tension ease a little, showing that he had picked up on Burtch’s reassurance.

“Give me a ship-wide circuit,” with that, a small red circle appeared in the hologram right in front of him showing that he was live, “All stations, hear this. This is your captain, Lieutenant Commander Burtch. We haven’t had any time to run practice drills or even get to know this old tub we’ve been assigned to, but we have just encountered an enemy that outclasses us and outguns us badly. In war we are rarely engaged by an enemy when we are ready for them, so this is simply what we do here, and this is real. Take this one moment to look at your fellow crewmen.” He paused for a small second, “every single shipmate you see and the ones you don’t are your responsibility. Whether or not we survive this day will depend on your ability to work as a team and no one can use each other as an excuse to lax behind, because if we do, we die. It is that simple. Proceed to your GQ stations as quickly as possible and be ready to protect your fellow spacers. That is all” he touched the red icon to shut off the intercom.

“LTL local control and damage control parties just reported ready sir” announced Silverstrike.

Is that a tattooine name? Burtch wondered. He brushed it aside, “who isn’t ready, ensign?”

“Just the hangar bay, sir” he reported, “they report difficulties operating the launch rack software,”

“Tell them to get it sorted out quickly. I need fighters now.”

“Yes sir!” The ensign replied. A moment later his console binged, “Sir I have Lieutenant Tanon from the auxiliary Conn. He says he has an observation he wants you to hear.

Burtch frowned. That wasn’t standard practice on a First Order ship, so Tanon must have something important to say, “Patch him through to me here.”

As Ensign Silverstrike keyed his console, Burtch glanced out the viewport towards where the Mystery Star Destroyer should be. At this range it was way too far away to see with the naked eye. Still, no flashes that were inconsistent with the lightning in the clouds that swirled all around their tiny Corvette and the corridors of noble gasses that flowed through the nebula like rivers in a mountain range. So they weren't firing at his ship yet.

A moment later, Lieutenant Tanon’s youthful, broad face was directly in front of Burtch’s in the holoprojector, “permission to speak freely sir” he asked immediately.

“Permission granted, keep it brief” Burtch replied crisply,

“Sir, I don’t think it’s inappropriate consider that whoever this is, is a sort of recon picket for the Elysium Empire. It could be a million other things, but it would be foolish for them to make a raid, and what intel we have access to suggests that they aren’t well equipped enough to grab territory from the First Order.”

Burtch frowned and raised his eyebrows to wordlessly say “get to the point”. He figured whoever this "Eldanium Empire" was as likely of a guess as any, but it was a weak speculation, and speculations were a waste of his time right now. There were a thousand fledgling factions out there and trying to blindly guess which one they were looking at was stupid until they were in a position to investigate properly.

Lieutenant Tanon proceeded calmly, “Because of all the interference they aren’t in a position to send communications back to their base, same as us, without a decent relay.”

It hit Burtch like hover train, “we need to hit that relay!” he blurted out.

“Am I dismissed?” A little cockiness shined in the young officer’s eyes.

“Yes,” Burtch replied and the image disappeared. Whatever these glorified pirates were doing, they were definitely going to need a comm relay to send reports to their command base. He wasn’t sure if he bought Tanon’s assumptions that this was a recon picket for the... Erdylious Empire? (he secretly hoped his XO wasn’t an idiot for suggesting it out loud), but a million other mission profiles would require a relay in this environment. And they didn’t appear to be doing anything specific, nor were they headed for any specific destinations. But he needed his damn fighters...

“Do we have probe droids?” He asked the talker.

“Let me check with supply.” A couple moments later the talker said, “Sort of sir. Lieutenant Dobson says they aren’t very good. Basically just ball droids with boosters on them. We use them for EVA maintenance on our fighters.”

“Can they relay tight beam transmissions?” Burtch asked.

A moment later, “she says they can if you know where they are. All astromechs have limited tight beam capabilities. She also says we have 4 of them.”

“Ok, launch a couple out the airlock and have them set a course for our own nearest relay in the nebula. Have them both carry a copy of a message packet describing what we’ve found here, that we intend to seek and destroy their relay and drive them out. Also include instructions to send to First Order command and a request for reinforcements.” Commander Burtch shrugged, “the probes won’t be in tight beam range of the relay station for a couple days if they follow the main channels, but at least we can keep whoever this is from coming back here if Command knows they were here at all. Then launch another one to hover right here. Once our fighters are out, they can use it as a relay to communicate with us as they scout around. With tight beam comms, these intruders shouldn’t be able to detect our transmissions very easily, and having a relay will help conceal our position if they get a whiff of our fighters transmissions at all.”

“Are we hiding sir?” The navigator asked.

“In a manner of speaking. We’ll use this narrow channel,” Burtch drew a line through a stormy cloud that covered most of the distance between them and the destroyer on the holomap, “and make a stealthy approach once our fighters launch and we will make a distraction for them while they seek and destroy the enemy relay. I use to pilot these clouds all the time as a channel pilot, so they will make for excellent cover. Once we are in effective range, we can play peekaboo for a while and keep the destroyer busy. If our fighters take out that relay, he won’t have any choice but to leave and never come back.”

“Permission to speak, sir?” Came a voice from a console just under the front viewport.

“Permission granted,” Burtch replied, looking at the source. He blinked. The officer that just spoke was a Pantoran Female Lieutenant sitting at the Bridge Gunnery officer’s station. Of course there is a Pantoran on board. Pantorans and Chiss rarely appreciated each other. He secretly wished he would have read the dossiers more closely so that he wouldn't be so surprised.

“If we attack them without provocation, wouldn’t that be an initiation of war with a potentially legitimate faction? Last time I checked, we may not have a lot of friends amongst small time factions, but we still aren’t cleared to engage in unprovoked hostilities.”

“My apologies,” Burtch grimaced. He could see how she would misunderstand his intentions, “I should have clarified better. Once we are within effective firing rang for our turbolasers and we have substantial cloud cover, we will hail them while our fighters discreetly search for the relay. We will ask them to identify themselves and demand that they leave or be fired upon. They will have 2 choices. Retreat or fire on us. If they retreat, they won’t likely want to stop and pick up their relay since planting a relay is technically considered an occupation of territory and an overt act of war. That will give us time to find and destroy it, which they are hoping we won’t do. Option 2, they will fire on us and hope they can destroy us before we reveal their position, which our probes will soon already be setting out to do now as we speak. If they fire on us, we play ‘shoot ‘n scoot’ from inside the cloud until the fighters destroy the relay. We collect our squadron and fall back. Without the relay, and knowing that they’ve been had, they will likely leave too.”

The young gunnery officer nodded understanding and turned back to her console. Burtch grimaced again. He shouldn’t be letting his crew question his orders like this (especially a pantoran), but he felt that they needed a bit more reassurance given how poorly prepared they were for this fight. He glanced back at the viewport in vain to see the far-too-distant enemy warship and was thankful that they hadn’t been detected yet. Even with most divisions at their ready GQ status he couldn’t help but feel like they still had their trousers down.

“The hangar chief reports that he has staff assigned to manual overrides if you need it,” Silverstrike reported.

“Thank you ensign,” Burtch responded, “include a bullet in our message packet to Navy Command saying that we will attempt communications first.” He shot a small nod to the Pantoran Gunnery officer who had glanced back at him. He decided to summarize his orders for clarity, “once the probes launch, wait a full minute and launch fighters. Then dive for the cloud and make our stealth approach. Make sure we launch fighters before we enter the cloud, not after. Small ships don’t do well inside those storms. Once in range, hail them and let’s see what kind of Commander is conning that ship. If they fire on us, helm be ready to dive back into cloud cover, and we will play peakaboo until our fighters complete their mission, hopefully without being detected." Burtch added one more thing, "While we are making our approach, Ensign Silverstrike, please encourage all division chiefs to go over things with their personnel and keep their minds focused. If we come under fire, we need to be fighting like we know what we're doing. We don't have any other choice today."

@ Elysium Eternal

 

[Elysium Eternal]

The Red Nebula
Post: 2
​

Admiral Cousins continued watching for any hostiles. The Elysium Empire had a solid military but lacked the latest technology when it came to scanners, radars, and other detection devices. That flaw on top of their lack of smaller ships made patrol missions like this rather difficult.

"Anything on the scanners?" he asked the crew around him. The reply was a simple "No sir."

Yet another thing working against the patrol was the nebula itself. It caused interference and blocked their natural line of sight. The Admiral had a bad feeling about this, but he had his orders and most likely any First Order ships would flee at the sight of a capital ship deep in their territory. Hopefully.

If an enemy were to engage the ship, even a smaller enemy ship could potentially defeat the damaged destroyer.

Just as the thought crossed The Admiral's mind the scanners let off a single beep, signaling they had detected something. However they didn't repeat the noise. It could have been interference, or debris even, but The Admiral would take no chances. They were damaged and cut off from The Elysium Empire at the moment.

Where did the sensors detect an object?"

"Portside, sir."

"The Nebula. Okay, increase shields on our port side, pull them from starboard if necessary. Meanwhile turn us toward the nebula, not so we are facing it directly, but enough that some of our forward guns can hit any potential targets as well as our portside guns."

It was the design of The Star Destroyers, created back in the days of The Old Republic, or potentially before then, to have a triangular shape. This wasn't for looks as it allowed any target in front of the ship to be fired at by every gun in its' arsenal, rather than just forward guns or a broadside. Thus the reason he wanted to face The Red Nebula...giving more guns a chance to fire.

He would feel foolish if nothing came of this but he had a feeling that the scanners were not malfunctioning. They would find out soon......








Grand Shepherd Burtch ​

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

Lieutenant commander Burtch choked down another rancid bite of what was left of his sandwich. He hadn’t eaten all day and the bridge steward droid had brought up sandwiches from the galley for the whole bridge to eat a few minutes ago. No one passed up the sandwiches. No one on the bridge, anyways. Everyone was keen on keeping their energy up in case this turned into a gunfight. Still Burtch thought who in their right mind makes bread with copious amounts of vinegar in it?

He decided that he would need to address the kitchen staff later and see what was wrong with the food processing droids. No way a sentient being in their right mind could live with themselves for serving food this bad, so it had to be a bad droid...

He went over to the navigation station and assisted the nav officer with a couple course corrections and gave him a small nod. His experience with nebulae and other channel piloting was really paying off here and the nav officer was appreciative. He was talented, but almost entirely new to his job. Burtch would have to take him under his wing and share his experience, he decided.

They had transmitted a small course correction to the fighters heading out to look for the enemy relay. They had of course transmitted via tight beam to their probe droid they had left a ways back, but the energy output had alerted the large destroyer somehow and they had clearly made some kind of course correction. The only way they could know this was by receiving a short transmission burst from the fighters through the probe droid about the destroyer’s change of status. The squadron leader had exhibited the foresight to dive into a storm cloud before transmitting to the Lord Phonyx to cover up his energy output and had included a blurb that he wouldn’t be able to send any more transmissions until they found the relay. The transmission had been a big risk to the squadron, and a single lightning discharge could’ve destroyed the squadron commander’s ship, but was likely worth it. At least they were aware of the destroyer’s readiness level now, and that little bit of information could save lives.

Burtch went back to the large holoprojector that was displaying a distorted tactical map due to the nebula interference. He set what was left of his horrible sandwich on a plate that was already sitting there from before and it was whisked away by the steward droid. They were almost in position to emerge and hail the other ship. Burtch didn’t want to do that now that the enemy was likely at general quarters status, but they had to keep them distracted until the fighters could find the relay...

“Sir, may I make an observation?” Asked his pantoran gunnery officer Lieutenant Treyfa. He had looked it up earlier while they were in transit through the cloud.

He stifled a sigh, oh what the heck, I’ve let them go this far already, “go ahead, lieutenant.”

“Sir, we don’t want to be under those guns if we can help it. I don’t think I need to tell you the difference between destroyer guns and corvette guns”

Burtch nodded, getting annoyed, and waved his hand in a circle to say get to the point if you have one.

“Sir maybe we should transmit through the probe droid we dropped earlier? Or send out our last one as an envoy?” She sounded a little nervous.

“No” he replied, rubbing his forehead, keeping as much irritation out of his voice as he could. He figured he might as well sound out his own thoughts. She was probably testing him, but he needed someone to relay his thoughts off of and if she really was was testing him, she might challenge him to think of a better plan anyways. There was value in having an unlikable subordinate around after all. One had to have humility to see the advantage in it though, “They wouldn’t take a droid envoy seriously. They would destroy it before it could even transmit and they could assume that we would assume it was destroyed in the storm which get us all nowhere. And transmitting through the probe that we already launched will... well...” he had to think about that. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea? No, “They will find us when our power output jumps from the transmission anyways since we just saw they can do that. They might see a tactical advantage in firing on our position since we will be showing to them that we are keen on keeping it a secret. Better to make them think that we are ‘ready’ to reveal our position to them.”

Lieutenant Treyfa tilted her head slightly and almost began to speak then stopped and looked around the bridge. Burtch knew right away that she was afraid of questioning his observations openly in front of the other officers, and he felt some relief deep down. He had let her go a bit far with her questions and she could have hurt his standing right then and there if she tried. The fact that she was a professional was to her credit and he needed to recognize that. He quickly strode to her and nodded for her to continue, so she whispered, “so we’re going to bluff them?”

He nodded understanding. It is pretty ridiculous to bluff a destroyer in a corvette . He whispered back, “we need to distract the destroyer from our fighters. If we had a better way to do that I would take it." He tried to assure her, "But, once we get their attention, we can dive for cloud cover like we originally intended and get them to chase us. We shouldn't be too easy to find in here.”

“Sir” she kept her whisper calm, and her body language professional for the sake of the crew who were trying not to watch, “with all due respect, this plan means they will be able to get a couple salvos off at us until we can conceal our position again. Destroyers eat corvettes for breakfast. I’m no coward, but can’t we think of something better?”

Burtch shook his head, “protocol dictates that we must attempt communications with them upon contact unless we are in open war with them. But if we do that without a tactical advantage, he’ll just blast us and run off to another part of the nebula. This cloud cover is all we got so I figured we could at least get inside our own effective firing range to even the odds a bit since their range is much longer. Our best option is to peekaboo and dive for cover, unless we can bypass the contact protocol, which we can't. Just witnessing them means we need to follow it and if we just run away without contacting them, that is a dereliction of duty. That, and we simply just can't let them stay here. By following protocol, we actually make a sufficient diversion for the fighters to take out that relay and force out this destroyer.”

Lieutenant Treyfa’s eyes locked onto Burtch’s eyes, but by the way they glazed over and she started scratching her chin he could see that she was in deep thought behind them. He noted that her skin temperature lowered in deep thought with his chiss eyes. After a moment, she blinked, “what if they fired on us first? Would that keep us from having to leave the cloud? If they fire on us before we can ‘establish contract’ then that nulls the contact protocol, right?”

Burtch nodded thoughtfully, but frowned, “That would also prove that we have their full attention away from the fighters. But how exactly do you propose we get them to fire on us without violating protocol?”

“We still have our last probe droid,” she whispered, “if you plot a course for it to fly inside the noble gas channels we just need to have it emit energy busts at random as it ‘sneaks’ around.”

“And that way,” Burtch began to add for her, “if they think that someone is trying to get the drop on them by sneaking around, they will be focused on finding the probe droid instead of searching for fighters...”

“... and even if they never fire on us, we don’t need to establish contact to maintain a diversion.” She finished, "Because they will at least be trying to blast the cloud with scans."

Then they both coughed and looked around as they realized they were both smiling at the idea of not having to take direct fire, “ok, as you were lieutenant,” Burtch almost mumbled, embarrassed. Damn Pantorans and their ideas...

“Ensign Silverstrike,” he addressed to his bridge talker, speaking loudly, “Inform our droid techs that we need to modify our last probe droid’s programming slightly and quickly. We need it to ‘make some music’ before our fighters deliver our surprise to their relay. Here are the specifics...”

Elysium Eternal

 

[Elysium Eternal]

The Red Nebula
Post: 2
​

Admiral Cousins held his breath as the silence remained. He squinted, looking into The Red Nebula, but he saw nothing in the endless mass. Protocol would suggest that he continue on as normal, but for once the man didn't like following the protocol. This whole thing felt off to him, similar to the feeling prey often get when being stalked by predators.

He would take an extra precaution, a necessary one if there truly was a threat.

"Deploy the fighter squadron, have them move into the Nebula."

"Yes sir."

The fighters were a mess, some just as damaged as the ship itself. They were ancient too, some T.I.E. fighters from the Galactic Empire of old, hundreds of years had passed. They were barely upgraded, more of a maintenance than an upgrade in truth. There was only one squadron to make matters worse. The Elysium Empire jad designed Longneck Hangar ships, but they had only produced one so far, meaning the capitals had to supply any fighter, bomber, interceptor, and transport squadrons. The Majesty class only held one squadron, while the other capitals could hold more. At least that's what Cousins remembered. Perhaps he was wrong, he hadn't memorized the original ships of The Elysium Empire, and already they were talking about designing some new cruisers and corvettes, and the rumor was they were named after some Jedi fighting technique. That certainly wouldn't be an easy name to remember.

The squadron would fly into the Nebula at a low speed due to the low visibility. The hope was that anything out there would react to their movements. If not, it was a safe assumption that there was nothing out there. The downside of the move was the T.I.E.s themselves. Outdated, slow-moving ships were an easy target and the Twin Ion Engines were loud, thus the ships were easily detectable by any creatures that may be lurking. Cousins wasn't sure what he preferred...a creature or a ship. Each could be formidable. He decided a creature would be safer because it had no chance of alerting The First Order of any disturbance. Though it could still destroy the ship and end his life. He shivered at the thought of dying. He was too young, and just recently he had begun to ascend the ranks of The Elysium Empire.

He shook off the thoughts as the fighters departed, disappearing into the Nebula....

Grand Shepherd Burtch
​

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

ON THE BRIDGE OF F.I.V. LORD PHONYX, HIDING IN THE RED NEBULA

“An explosion!” Cried out an ensign from the scanner control console.

“What heading?” Asked Lieutenant Commander Burtch.

“20 degrees off starboard stern, up 30!”

“Helm, bring our nose right on it. Right full e. rudder. Execute now.” Burtch ordered. “Sensors, I understand that all wavelengths are getting pretty scrambled up in these clouds. Can I assume that we found this through passive atmospherics?” His experience with gas nebulae in the past had taught him to rely more on primitive atmospheric readings than hyperwaves or radionics when conditions were harsh like this. He had passed info that along to his crew only a few minutes ago and was guessing that it had paid off.

“Yes sir, that was a... Sir, another explosion! Right next to the last one!” He shouted with intensity.

It can’t be far off if we’re detecting it through atmospherics. He thought to himself.

“All batteries, train to zero by zero on the bow quarter!” Called Lieutenant Treyfa into her headset, “LTLs switch to local control, main battery standby for rapid fire salvoes!”

Burtch nodded approval as he noted that she must’ve come to the same conclusion as he did on her own and didn’t even wait for orders. At close range the gun directors were not as effective as local control gunnery. She’s damn good at her job. She thinks ahead and knows what’s needed of her. I mean, not bad for a Pantoran. “Do we know what that was, ensign?” He asked his sensory officer.

“No sir. Not without active scans or a direct visual.” He answered, then suddenly his hands danced over his console frantically, “Scratch that, we have a visual! Two contacts moving from left to right across our front! They look like... TIE fighters?”

Burtch noticed ensign Silverstrike perk up from his talker post and look out the front viewport just as the Lord Phonyx finished her turn.

"Rudder amidships," Burtch asked, “Are they ours?”

The ensign at the sensory control station widened his eyes in confusion and tried to get a better look, but it was ensign Silverstrike that spoke up, “No sir. Those things are antiques. We use diff...”

“Lieutenant, Treyfa!” Burtch interrupted.

“All batteries, open fire!” She called out.

Light turbolazers and main turbolazers barked as one as if the gunnery crews were itching with a hair trigger to open fire all at once. The LTLs quickly settled into a stuttering fire pattern of multi shot bursts and the turbolazers settled into a steady cadence of rapid salvo gun fire. The clouds around the two small hazzy geometric forms lit up green as a hail of bright green spears lanced all around them. A full second and a half after the first shots converged on the two small ships a lucky LTL shot punched straight through the fighter on the left and atomized it into a cloud of fire and metal dust. The second fighter, although hard to keep a visual on in all this cloud cover, seemed to be using the aggressive wind gusts to knock itself around and throw off the gunners’ aim. It began to sink deeper into cloud cover and was getting harder to see until it became completely invisible. Burtch heard Lieutenant Treyfa call out firing pattern changes and the turbolazers and LTLs began to spread their fire into a larger cone to find the small ship. The effort seemed in vain, so Burtch was just about to call for a cease fire when he noticed purple flashes deep inside the dense cloud cluster right in front of them.

“Cease fire!” He proceeded urgently, “extend all static discharge veins! Redirect power from the weapons to the shields immediately!”

He watched as the purple flashes got brighter and became more blue, building into a crescendo light show of world-shattering power. Sound travelled through the gasses that surrounded his little corvette, and thunder roared in their ears in a constant barrage of low and sharp cracks as the shockwaves began to caress the Lord Phonyx's hull. Suddenly a tiny orange ball of flame blossomed in the distance in synch with a particularly bright lightning flash, finishing their kill for them. But the storm didn’t stop there. Bolts began to lick, claw, slash, and outright strike the shields of the small Corvette. The small, barely noticeable rumble under his feet told him that there was nothing terribly kinetic about the lightning strikes and it was all electrical. The shields could handle that for a while, longer than the storm could keep feeding this maelstrom of static power... he hoped.

But the old TIE fighters couldn’t handle it at all.

“I guess we know what those other 2 explosions were, eh sir?” Spoke up the sensory officer again.

Lieutenant Commander Burtch nodded, “Yes. These regional nebula storms are too much for small ships. Anything smaller than a large transport is suicidal to take into the nebula if you intend to go off of the marked channels at all. There are even some regions in the Red Nebula that would even tear apart a proper dreadnaught on a good day. We can’t stay here in this particular location forever, of course, but the lightning might be enough to cover up our weapons discharges for a while as long as it doesn’t get any stronger. For all intents and proposes, the storm should be concealing our position.” He took a deep breath, “Okay, I need reports. Do we see anymore fighters?”

“No sir,” the sensory officer replied, “the lack of explosions besides the 4 we just witnessed suggests that these 4 were a scouting group that got separated from the main group. We have no way to know how many more fighters there are out there”

Burtch nodded thoughtfully. Those TIEs probably came from that destroyer up there. Destroyers are usually known to carry at least a full wing of fighters at any given time. We’ve seen 4 get destroyed, but we’re probably hiding from at least 32 more scouts out there right now... we don’t have much time...“How much longer until the probe droid is ready? That’s taking way too long.”

“They just finished sir!” Announced the bridge talker, ensign Silverstrike, “they had to get help from one of the older crew from before the rebuild. I guess the reprogramming was harder to do than they predicted.”

Burtch didn’t care about excuses, “Good enough. Strap a static marker antenna on it and launch it out the airlock. Now. The marker should be enough to protect it from the lightning storm long enough to get it out of this storm and start transmitting. We need to keep the attention of that destroyer until our fighters take out that damn relay. Now that we’ve accidentally started a thunderstorm in this region of the nebula, they might think we were just a natural anomaly and pull back to the relay. If they do that, we can’t get rid of them until reinforcements arrive in a few days. Helm, have us zigzag through the lightning storm for a bit and make sure they can’t guess our location. This storm is good cover, but they might want to investigate those missing TIE fighters once they realize they aren’t reporting in.” then his heart nearly stopped, “They didn’t transmit, did they?”

The comms officer spoke up, “We didn’t get anything on the receivers, sir. They were probably struggling to keep those old fighters from tearing apart in the wind and their scans would’ve been useless in this nebula. Otherwise, TIE fighters have terrible visibility. They probably didn’t even know what hit them, honestly.”

Burtch grimaced. They probably didn’t even need to shoot the last two ships they saw. Flying adjacent to the Lord Phonyx, it was likely they wouldn’t have even been able to see their corvette. Now they would have to rely on luck and the storm to have kept their discharges concealed to avoid detection.

“Probe has launched, sir.” Said Silverstrike.

“Is it holding together?” Burtch asked.

“Seems to be. The marker is doing its job. The probe will be out of the storm and transmitting in 10 minutes at its current rate of acceleration.”

“Ok, keep zigzagging the ship for the next 10 minutes then. Let’s not be where we were. I know it’s unlikely, but is there any word on how the search for the relay is going?” The comms officer shook his head.

“Not with this interference, sir”

*****

Major Chen “Slim” Ledvue and his squadron were spread out over a 3 kilometre wide combing formation just on the edge of the Red Nebula, reaching out further and further away from the cloak and dagger charades of the two capital ships behind them. They knew from the position of the destroyer, in relation to the outer edge of First Order space, that the relay would be somewhere in this general direction. Slim had hypothesized that it would be just barely hidden under the gassy surface of the red nebula clouds to achieve an effective transmission signal and mild concealment simultaneously. Soon they would be far enough away from the destroyer to initiate light active scanning.

His squadron was new. He only had about 5 minutes of actual combat time himself and no kills. His focus and impeccable performance as a professional and an officer had given his superiors enough confidence in him to give him a command of his own. But when he had received his assignment, it was to a squadron on a similar, but also underwhelming corvette in the first Order navy. The squadron consisted of third rate pilots from some farming world on the edge of First Order space. They hadn’t even trained at a proper academy. More like a “camp” with some airspeeders to practice maneuvers in. And then they had just barely graduated and were handed to him as if to say “they’re your problem now. Good luck.”

At first, he had been bitter, even a bit resentful. He would’ve preferred to stay a lowly squad mate for his previous squadron and gained more clout before being given a better command. Commanding a group of bantha-boys into battle was a sure way to get yourself killed. But as he got to know his squad mates, his perspective began to change.

They weren’t the typical high born academy snobs that he was used to and had learned to work with before. They didn’t have the “best education that money could buy” and well-tutored pilot skills for dogfighting with the best. But they were dedicated, and humble. And strangely capable in their own weird way. They made mistakes and could take a verbal reaming from their superior officers. They could take that criticism and turn it into improvements. They relied on each other too. They worked together to form a team and pick up each other’s slack when needed. With the pilots he was used to working with, he had to admit that it was nice to work with kids that you didn’t have to choose your words carefully to give them feedback. With this squadron, the 163rd FO TIE fighter squadron, he could crap on them for falling short and they would fire gratitude and enthusiasm back at him.

But the First Order brass could never see them as valued assets. The politics of starfighter command meant that high born pilots typically moved up, and peasants stayed down. So they were moved between backwater assignments with nothing to shoot at or prove themselves on. They had recently been assigned to the Lord Phonyx just after its rebuild and they didn’t expect much. The Lord Phonyx was known for being on boring patrols, just like every other assignment they ever had.

Today was certainly different though. Perhaps they might not get to test their mettle against other fighter pilots on their current assignment, but there was real danger and a real enemy. They had a real target and a real objective.

Besides that, Major Slim didn’t feel like his squadron was really ready for a real dogfight. That was a bit much for their current skill level. This “seek and destroy” mission was a perfect way to break in his green pilots and they were all hyped to do their best. A little too antsy maybe...

He keyed his comm to the squad-wide tight beam channel. Each fighter was responsible for relaying the tight beam transmissions to another squad mate, completing the circuit, “alright we’re far enough out now.” He didn’t need to point out that he was only transmitting now because they were too far to be detected by their low power transmissions. “All wing-pair leaders will begin directional scans away from that destroyer. I repeat, away. If we get shot at because someone thought they could attract a bantha to mate with on that giant tub behind us, I’m going to die knowing I was right about all of you. No farm-boy shenanigans!”

A laggy chorus of affirmatives came in with some snickers over his speakers. He smirked, “let me know the moment we got a ping...”

“Lead, this is nine. We got a ping. 32 degrees off port bow, down 7.”

That was fast. We didn’t even have a chance to practice proper search patterns. “What’s our range to target, nine?”

“Calculating... 15 minutes to target.”

“Is it the relay?”

“Analyzing scans... it appears to be. No life forms and it doesn’t show up on our First Order database for permitted objects in this region of the nebula. Low power output indicates a dormant electrical object waiting for commands.”

“Ok,” Slim felt a bit of relief. If it took too long to find the relay, their corvette could end up in danger and could compromise their only ride home. TIE Fighters still didn’t have hyperdrives after 800 plus years of so-called engineering, “Nine, take your flight and destroy that relay. Flights 1 and 2,” indicating his own and the only other remaining flight, “will form back up and act as a reserve right behind you. All pilots, confirm?”

Another laggy chorus of affirmatives came in over the tight-beam circuit and they all began to execute maneuvers. 8 fighters from flights 1 and 2 closed in from being spread out over three kilometres, and the third flight tightened up formation and roared out to reach the relay. They were already half an hour away from the Lord Phonyx and they were about to add another fifteen minutes to their outward leg.

I hope they don’t need us anytime soon he thought to himself.

Elysium Eternal

 

[Elysium Eternal]

The T.I.E. Fighters hadn't returned yet. There had been some light explosions but it was right next to the lightning produced by the nebula. It wasn't enough to worry about...yet. But the explosions, the one energy signal that appeared, and now the disappearance of the fighters had Admiral Cousins' heart beating faster than a speeder bike in a race. He didn't like it. He wanted to leave, but he had a duty. He needed to serve. He owed The Elysium Empire so much after his business collapsed and forced him to leave his home. They had taken him in, given him food, a home, and a way to have success again. If he retreated, he'd be throwing it all in the garbage disposal.

But what was in the Nebula? Where were the fighters? He could die along with hundreds of crew members in his ship if he stayed. He had to run, surly it would save more lives and they could fight another day, with a restored ship and maybe even an escort ship. He was shaking and he didn't even notice it. He needed to go home.

No.

He would fight. Death was better than disgracing those that had given him so much.

"All batteries..." one more hesitation "...all batteries fire in the Nebula. Make three firing sections, the left, then the right, finally hit the middle. Turn anything inside into space dust."

"Sir, are you sure? It isn't protocol."

"Yes."

"But sir, our fighters, they're out there somewhere."

"You don't know that. But what we do know is there could be a fleet preparing to crush us without a second thought out there! I'd rather hit it first, maybe take one down with us and risk the life of a few pilots rather than hundreds in this ship!"

"And you don't know that anything is out there!"

"You are out of place, boy. Sit down and do as I have ordered. Everything I do is to protect this ship and the people inside it. Do you understand?"

Silence. Cousins broke.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE BANTHA-KARKING WORDS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH, ENSIGN!?"

The man didn't question the fact that Cousins had called him the wrong title, instead replying only with a soft "Yes sir."

The batteries opened fire, the guns releasing an entrancing Thump. Thump. Thump. Though every few shots the rhythm was interrupted by a non-functioning weapon. Cousins had never been so stressed, so pressured in his life. He always followed orders perfectly, never straying from protocol. He didn't know what changed this time. Was it the fear of the unknown? The knowledge that his ship was in no condition to fight? He didn't know, but he felt the guilt already. The cannons' music played on....

It wasn't protocol.
It wasn't logical.
It could hit the fighter squadron, if it was still there.​

But he had given into his panic, only instead of running, he ordered a blind attack. This was a failure, one he may pay for shortly.​

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

The wind howled against the transparisteel viewports and lightning strobed light into the once dim bridge space. Blue and purple flashes came from every direction as the shields held the strikes at bay. For minutes the most anyone could do was sit and wait while the navigation systems put the ship through a pre-plotted zigzag course. The course had been set by lieutenant commander Burtch, using some old routes he had stored on his personal data pad. Being an ex-channel pilot was really paying off today…

“Captain,” said Ensign Silverstrike, “Laxxy is bringing up some Cafe. He asks if you want him to bring anything else?”

“Laxxy?” Burtch asked. No rank? He wondered.

“Sorry. The steward droid. LX-44. I guess the old-timers call him Laxxy.” Silverstrike explained apologetically.

“Why do they call him that?” Burtch asked. This was the slowest moment they had since he boarded the ship for this patrol. It couldn’t hurt to ask an idle question for the time being while they waited.

“Um…” Silverstrike seemed to hesitate, “I guess it has something to do with the food here. I guess the old crew has some horror stories about days when they all had to run to the head because of some bad protein loafs. Since LX-44 is the one who delivers the food to the bridge…”

“Ok I get the point,” he regretted asking. He noticed Lieutenant Treyfa’s shoulders twitching in a silent chuckle. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. He peered out the window with the newfound silence. He watched as the blue and purple flashes lit the clouds ahead of them. A couple green flashes sheeted through the clouds from top to bottom… green?

“Are we getting any strange energy discharge readings?” Burtch asked his sensory officer, just before a particularly loud thunder crack rattled his ship.

“Sir, I was just about to say that we…” the sensory officer began to reply, just as a loud shriek quickly punctuated his sentence in a rapid split second crescendo. The whole bridge lit up green. The sound was immediately followed by an increase of agitated lightning storm activity.

“Sound…” Burtch almost said general quarters, but remembered that they were still at that status. More green flashes began to fall near them and were getting closer.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Treyfa said, her voice tense, “I recognize the firing patterns. This is a sweeping fire to find a hidden target.”

Burtch nodded understanding, “very good lieutenant. Helm, bow to 80 degrees up. Put our nose right on the destroyer to narrow our target profile. This fire should pass right over us if the gunnery officer is correct.” And then a thought occurred to him, “drop the shields”

The whole bridge staff turned to look at him, eyes wide in disbelief. The only sounds were the storm outside the viewport and the soft bleeps of the consoles all around them. Burtch kept calm and explained, “Lowering the shields will tighten our target profile. If we catch so much as a single turbolazer shot it will give away our exact position and they will concentrate their fire on us. The static discharge veins will hold off the lightning for about a minute at this intensity. The barrage should pass over us in less time than that. Execute now!” And with that he heard ensign Silverstrike relay the order into his headset. In the corner of his eye he watched Lieutenant Treyfa roll her eyes and shake her head as she turned back to her console. Oh what do you think you know?!

Then, an old feeling came to him. It was an instinct that he couldn’t ever explain, but he was quite familiar with. Something primal that had grown within him during his time as a channel pilot. This feeling had saved his life many times over the years.

“Helmsman,” he ordered, “give me the helm.” The helmsman tried to hide his incredulity in his face, but quickly rised from his seat and made room for his captain. Burtch quickly sat in the helm seat and keyed the ship over to direct manual control.

****

Ensign Silverstrike watched in total awe as their captain that they barely knew began to thread the eye of a needle through the hailstorm of turbolazer fire.

Silverstrike was a total history buff. He loved old stories, old technology, and especially old ships. He had joined the First Order navy so that he could get “front row seats” to history in the making, but as it were he never would have guessed that some spiteful training officers would have assigned him to a nothing outpost where all of his skills and intrigue would be horribly wasted. For the past couple years he had begun to lose hope. Being reassigned to the most neglected Corvette in the First Order navy did nothing to inspire any renewed faith.

But today he could see that something special might be happening. At first, he had thought that this day would be just a stand-off where commanders traded threats and insults with the enemy and either someone would die, or everyone would just go home. History would go on, undisturbed . But as soon as the Lieutenant Commander had sat down to take direct control of the ship, Silverstrike could plainly see that something special was happening. The look in the Chiss’s eyes was intense. Focused. Layered. Deep. In that moment, Silverstrike knew that he could have thrown a code cylinder at the skippers head and he probably wouldn’t even react. He was in “the zone” and the confidence that Lieutenant Commander Burtch filled the room with consumed everything.

Outside, the turbolazer fire intensified as the center of the destroyer’s field of gunfire began to pass over the Lord Phonyx. Burtch only apparently had to make subtle changes to the ship’s vector and heading to just barely fit between the gaps of the destroyer’s bolts. Slight vibrations throbbed under his console seat and his feet, and Silverstrike couldn’t shake the feeling that those sensations might be turbolazer bolts that just barely scraped the edges of the Corvette’s outer hull.

He noted that they just happened to be flying straight into the wind. With the ship flying straight into turbolazer fire without shields, lightning crashing all around, and dense gas cloud clusters smashing against the hull, he began to think about the ancient notical warships that once bounded through high stormy seas. If only they had a giant battle flag to fly in the wind... Someone had repeated himself in Silverstrike’s headset speakers to get his attention…

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Silverstrike apologized nervously, snapping out of his trance.

“I am talking to the bridge talker, right?” Came the voice of Lieutenant Tanon, the XO of the Lord Ponyx. He was running the auxiliary conn deep in the ship’s space frame.

“Yyy-yessir!” He stammered.

“Karking hell, pay attention, man. We picked up a signal. From the probe droid we launched 7 minutes ago.”

“That’s weird,” Silverstrike commented, “it wasn’t supposed to transmit for another 7 minutes. Did the engineers make a mistake?”

“Well, we may have had too many cooks in the kitchen when they were getting the droid ready, but it certainly wasn’t a mistake. We detected two small transmission bursts. The first one seemed to be some sort of handshake code… encrypted. We can’t crack it”

Silverstrike caught his breath. An encrypted code that wasn’t on First Order records meant only one thing; a spy, “what was the second signal?” He asked.

“The second signal was another packet burst, but contained a lot more data. And we think it’s the same encryption. Wouldn’t make sense to use a different one. I already got the eggheads in the EMC suite running decryptions on it, but no one here is holding their breath. Still, it’s a safe bet that the star destroyer now knows our force composition, the fact that we’ve sent for reinforcements via our other probe droids, and the fact that we sent our fighters to take out their relay. Better make sure the skipper knows.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Lieutenant Tanon out.”

****

Once the turbolazer fire had fully passed them, Burtch got up from the helm console and his helmsman took the seat back. Burtch noted that the man was shaking and a little weak kneed from what they just experienced, “keep it together for me, Lieutenant. I need you still, ok?”

The Lieutenant blinked and snapped back into focus, “Aye sir!” He clenched and unclenched his white knuckles and got back to work.

“Shields back online, sir!” Called out the ensign at the tech console. Burtch nodded back to him.

Ensign Silverstrike then recited his report regarding the probe droid transmissions. When he was complete, Burtch paused to contemplate the situation. He noticed Lieutenant Treyfa staring at him and he sensed that she wanted to talk.

He walked over to her so that she could whisper and he discreetly nodded to tell her to proceed.

“At least they violated the contact protocol for us. We don’t have to hail them anymore. We can shoot any time we want now” she smirked. The look in her eyes said she wasn’t keen on slugging it out with a destroyer however. What she wasn’t saying, Burtch could tell, was that she knew that they would have to now. Burtch caught what wasn’t said.

“We don’t have a choice,” he answered her unspoken question in a soft whisper, “they can’t know our exact location because the probe droid could’ve only sent a prerecorded message that was composed 7 minutes ago. We can still get the jump on them, but if we don’t do it now, they can send interceptors to take out our fighters before they take out the relay. We need their full attention back on us.” A ship that size most likely has some kind of intercepted squadron, right? Best to be safe. All he had was his ship to protect his fighters, so this was his only chance.

“How long until we reach the edge of the nebula, sir?” Fear was in her voice, but steadfast courage was the dominant tone.

“We are already on a course to ambush the destroyer’s best estimated position now. If we are lucky, then we will practically be right on top of them, I hope. I want you to poke them in the eye as kriffing hard as you can. Hit whatever looks softest on that warship and then I’ll have the helm pull us back into the nebula as quickly as possible. Hopefully the jump-scare will be enough to throw off their gunnery long enough for us to lose their tracking. Are you up for that?”

She didn’t stand up, but she saluted, “I have a couple ideas sir. My gun crews will be ready.”

He returned the salute and went back to the holoprojector.​

Elysium Eternal ​

 

[Elysium Eternal]

"Did we hit anything?" Cosuins called out, his voice returning to a more normal tone.

"No sir."

How was it possible? There had to be something out there. But if they had hit nothing...Cousins was confused in every way possible. He didn't know how they had missed, he didn't know what and now if anything was out there, and he didn't know where the fighters were. He was clueless.

He had options now...continue on as if nothing was out there, fire another barrage, enter the Nebula, or retreat. Each option had consequences.

If they were to continue on, they were abandoning the fighters. They would also expose themselves to any foe that could be in The Nebula. However it would allow them to leave the whole thing behind and finish their mission. Cousins decided against this...his gut feeling was just too strong.

If they fired another barrage they could hit something, but the guns would be hot and make any conflict difficult. Plus, if they hit nothing, his pride would take a huge hit.

To enter the Nebula with a damaged ship and an invisible enemy was reckless, but it would ensure that they knew what they were up against, if anytthing. He could have a predetermined escape plan, maybe a jump to hyperspace. But it was too risky. Cousins dismissed the idea.

Finally to retreat. It would mean failing his mission, and exposing the ship's rear to any foes. However it may save the lives of the crew and allow them to fight another day. This was Cousins' preferred option.

The words were forming, and his lips opened to give the order when a crewmember called out "Sir! We are receiving a signal from...a probe droid? It appears to be a First Order droid."

Cousins' heart sank like a boulder in water. They were out there, and they knew about the patrol.

"Play it..."​

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

ON THE BRIDGE OF THE ELYSIUM DESTROYER
There is no video in the recording as it plays only an audio file. The voice that comes through is out of breath and just barely above a whisper, “to the commanding officer of the Elysium Empire destroyer just outside the Red Nebula. This is special agent Codename ‘spam-slinger’ of the Elysium Empire Intelligence Espionage division. My authentication code is zesh dash thirty three lambda, code phrase; palpatine in the orchard, I repeat, code phrase; palpatine in the orchard.

“The exact nature of my mission is confidential, but your database will tell you that I have the authorization to keep you from destroying the ship that I am on, and so I’m giving you a direct order on behalf of the Elysium Empire Intelligence Agency to cease fire on this ship if you have begun already. The force that has been stalking you this whole time is composed of a sole Guardian Patrol Corvette. Its fighters were deployed almost forty five ago to destroy the Elysium Empire strategic comm relay in this area. It’s unlikely that you will be able to stop them unless you are equipped with interceptors.

“I have clandestinely poisoned the crew of this ship with Vienstien Labs 1032 knockout toxin. The toxin is activated by a hyperwave frequency pulse, which I have attached that data in this message. As soon as they are clear of this nebula you should be able to use the frequency to disable the corvette’s crew and take it as a prize, and the crew as prisoners. I recommend waiting until the ship leaves the nebula to avoid the storm destroying it

“also important is the fact that this ship has deployed 2 probe droids to report your location to the First Order. I recommend that you endeavour to destroy those droids once you have secured the corvette. They will take a couple days to get within transmission range of their nearest relay so you have time to find them. There is another probe droid that was left behind. If you check the ships nav data, you should be able to find it.

“The fighters that came from this corvette do not contain a hyperdrive and are several days from any reinforcements or help. Convincing them to surrender will be possible.

“there is a person of interest to the Elysium Empire Command on board this ship. The recovery of this individual will bode well for your career if you listen to my instructions.

“Spam-slinger out”

 

[Elysium Eternal]

Admiral Cousins and the crew listened to the recording in silence from start to finish. Then there was nothing but the hum of The Ship's engines and computers. The silence remained as Cousins thought about the message. "Play it again."

The recording played again, and Cousins was sure that he had heard everything correctly. There was a lot of information to take in.

First there was the information that there was just a single corvette in The Nebula. This was surprising but it explained how they had missed so many shots. Cousins would accept this information but take it with a grain of salt. This could just be a ploy by The First Order to lure him in.

The fighters had been deployed to destroy The Elysium Communication Relay. There wasn't one.

​

The "agent" claimed to be from The Elysium Empire Intelligence Espionage Division. It didn't exist.

​

He had poisoned the crew with some kind of toxin. He had never heard of the toxin in his life.

​

This whole thing sounded off to Cousins. Sure enough a crew member stood up.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"There is no Intelligence Espionage Division."

"Correct."

"We don't have a relay anywhere near here."

"I know."

"Sir, this is a trap."

"Correct. Well done."​

The question was, what harm could come from trying the frequency? If the man was lying, the First Order already knew where The Destroyer was. A frequency could maybe pinpoint them but what difference would it make? Either they died on a gamble, or the gamble would play off and make this an easy victory. Cousins took a deep breath, then gave the order.

"Play the frequency."​

​

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

For several minutes, nothing happened. Then, suddenly the Lord Phonyx plowed out of the nebula with engines running at full power somewhat close to the destroyer’s location. The weapons were unfiring and the ship was simply flying in a straight line. Scorch marks almost completely cover the ship and light trails of smoke followed the ship from previous lightning strikes. It would appear as though the crew was unable to monitor buffers and shield systems for the past several minutes and resulted in some damage.

The Lord Phonyx roared right past the destroyer, missing it by a couple kilometres and continued to fly on into the void behind. There is nothing to run into or find for several light years…

****

Memory logs from LX-44

1505 - memory wipe sequence complete. Activating. This unit appears to have activated next to an ejected escape pod hatch. Must return to the kitchen.

1510 - all crew on the way to the kitchen appear to be deactivated and not in their bunks.

1515 - Checking schedule with the main computer. Main computer is preoccupied with ship’s maintenance errors and does not have “the time” to assist this unit right now.

1520 - arrived at kitchen. Checking the schedule with the kitchen computer. Cafe delivery appears to be behind schedule. Kitchen staff is also deactivated. Kitchen staff chief is no where to be found.

1530 - this until arrives at the main turbo lift to the bridge. Door appears to be damaged. Lieutenant Dobson is active and is attempting to open the door. Lieutenant Dobson looks at this unit, rolls her eyes and scoffs. She then continues her task of opening the door. Must use hand element to keep the cafe at optimal temperature while waiting.

1550 - lieutenant Dobson successfully opens the door. She thanks this unit for all its help, but appears upset. This unit is confused. This unit did not offer assistance with the door. This unit and lieutenant Dobson proceed to the bridge.

1555 - bridge crew appears to also be deactivated. This unit attempts to leave, but the turbo lift door will not reopen. This unit asks lieutenant Dobson for assistance. Dobson tells this unit to “respectfully kark off, Laxxy”.

1625 - lieutenant Dobson has been attempting to perform some kind of task on the navigation console. Then the comm console. Now she is slumped on the floor and leaking fluids from her eyes, muttering about her lot in life and how incompetent she is. This unit offers her a hot cup of cafe. She only stares at this unit with an expression that this unit cannot decipher.

Elysium Eternal ​

 

[Elysium Eternal]

Cousins had ordered evasive maneuvers as the enemy ship soared past them. At first he had anticipated a ramming attack...but the ship had been off by several kilometers. A ramming attack would have been much closer, especially at the speed the ship had been travelling.

His second guess was a blockade-runner tactic, simply trying to soar past as fast as possible. However the ship had picked a bad angle, it could still be shot. Furthermore there were no evasive maneuvers from the ship.

It was going too fast for him to pick up on the damage it had sustained, but now, with the ship behind them, Cousins saw the scorch marks. This ship's shields had been downed for some time now. The frequency had, apparently, worked. However, the ship was moving far too fast to catch, and it was quickly moving out of range.


"Turn us around, quickly! Fire on their engines. Lower the shields and give power to the guns. We need range!"

One of two things would happen. They would damage the engines enough to board the ship, or the ship would exit the frequency range and the crew would wake up. Cousins needed the former to happen, and he needed it quickly. ​

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

Chief Quartermaster, Lieutenant Dorthea Dobson spent several minutes crying uncontrollably. She was sitting up against the port side bulkhead in the bridge and she was crying into her knees. That was of course until the whole ship shook from multiple impacts.

At that moment she believed that she was truly going to die. But she didn’t and the shaking stopped. She couldn’t think straight, so she tried to take stock of her current situation. Her head hurt and was now bleeding. She was floating in the air, which told her that gravity was no longer working. She felt sick, but she couldn’t tell if that was from a concussion, or if was from the zero gees playing with her stomach. Her left arm hurt a lot and it couldn’t move. Her nose hurt and tendrils of blood were forming in front of her face, so her nose was broken.

She looked around. The bridge crew was in various states of floating tangledness, but still unconscious. Possibly dead? It was hard to tell. She couldn’t make sense of all the consoles and their screeching alarms, which helped her confirm a concussion. She decided to get a look out the bridge viewport to see what hit them.

Laxxy was bouncing around the bridge at awkward angles trying to clean up random floating coffee drops in vain. When he came close, she set her feet against him and kicked. Laxxy went flying towards the bridge entrance and Dobson went for the forward viewport. She grabbed at the handrail there and when she got a firm grip, she struggled to stop herself from bouncing around it with only one good arm. She eventually succeeded with her legs, but received new bruises in the process. It took all of her concentration to hang on and to not break down mentally from the pain of jostling around her already broken body.

It took her a moment to even open her teary eyes. When she finally did, she saw that the stars were slowly spinning around the lazily drifting corvette. Obviously, the engines were out. The spin wasn’t enough to cause gees in the bridge area… maybe it was just her?

Out in the distance, one of the stars was bigger than the rest, unshimmering. The ship slowly spun around until the object was out of view, confirming that the spinning wasn’t in her head. She waited until it came back into view while Laxxy labored behind her to achieve formal cleanliness of the bridge. Eventually the object came back into view and was much bigger and more angular. Definitely a star destroyer.

The object slowly moved across the viewport field of vision and steadily got bigger over time. Just before it it went out of sight again, Dobson noticed that there was a small purple blotch on the bow of the vessel. She waited while the corvette continued its next rotation. Annoyed and bored, she plucked a piece of broken ceramic cafe cup out of the air next to her head and chucked it at the damn droid. The action nearly sent her spinning and she had to use her 3 remaining working limbs to slow herself down. Getting a hold of the handrail again, she cursed to herself and looked back out the viewport. Finally, the star destroyer was close enough to make out small details.

She cursed loudly, and profusely. There, looking right at her, was the purple lion of the Elysium Empire. The very empire that her family supported with their wealth and status. And she hated her family...

 

[Elysium Eternal]

The engines had been destroyed and the star destroyer was now within boarding range. The Elysium Empire had a very weak command structure and no marines, which meant a section of the crew would need to leave their stations and board the enemy craft. Hopefully the enemy was still disoriented enough to not put up much of a fight.

"Send a boarding party."

"Yes sir!"

The crew took a while to form, finally gathering enough men to board the enemy ship. If everything went according to plan, they would sweep the enemy ship, grabbing the enemy crew as fast as they could. Then they would go slower, grabbing anything of value and any data. Finally they would try to man the ship and take it home with them. This would be difficult because it was severely damaged. Even if it was repaired, it would be a slow ride home....​

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

Major Slim was furious. They had destroyed something in the nebula, but it was probably not a relay. His inexperienced squad mates had opened fire before confirming the target. When they had begun their strafing runs, there had been no distress signals released which ruled out any kind of strategic military system or communications device.

After reaming out his squadron, he had ordered them all to form back up and head back to reinforce the Lord Phonyx. The only problem was that the capitals ships were gone.

Risking detection, he ordered his squadron to perform scans to find the ships. After several minutes of looking in the wrong direction, one of his “Bantha Boys” got smart and scanned away from the nebula. Once they found the two ships moored to each other, Slim plotted a course to intersect with the capital ships.

While enroute, he tried to think about the best attack formation to hit the enemy destroyer and stopped himself. There was no way his boys were ready for a firefight with a ship that size. It was an unknown destroyer class and was likely carrying a full wing of fighters like most do. They would get chewed up and spat out like a cheap dinner.

And it wasn’t like he was keen on dying for the dignity of the First Order. The way they neglected the pilots in his squadron had disillusioned him to the integrity of First Order command. And on top of that, their corvette was clearly an effective hostage in this situation. Even more, they were several days from a rescue or comm relay.

He made a decision. He keyed his comms to the squadron channel, “kill thrusters to zero and kill power to weapons systems. Be prepared to receive instructions from that destroyer,” when the whole squadron clicked affirmative, he switched his comm frequency to the galactic hailing channel that was most commonly recognized, “To the unidentified star destroyer that has taken control of the First Order Corvette Lord Phonyx. This is Major Chen Ledvue of the 163rd First Order TIE fighters squadron. We hereby surrender unconditionally and are awaiting instructions. I repeat, to the unidenified star destroyer...”

 

[Grand Shepherd Burtch]

Story is continued in Jack In The Box Part 2