Faction Scramble the Saberdarts! (Verge Flotilla)

[Council of Captains]

Hettitite System, Far Orbit
Tags: Miles Ayre , Drexel Volcata

It was supposed to have been a safe place to rest. That... hadn't worked out.

Millennia ago, a near-human species had called the planet Hettitite home... until the system's star had begun to go supernova, forcing them to evacuate their homeworld and flee to the safety of nearby Sernpidal, where they eventually became known as Sernpidalians. Behind them, they left a ruined system and a hyper-dense neutron star, bathing everything around it in lethal radiation. The very edges of the system, however, were beyond the star's deadly reach. Since no one had any reason to come to this desolate place, the Council of Captains had assumed it would be safe for the Flotilla to stop there for rest and repairs on the way to Altora.

Unfortunately, the crews of the Flotilla had quickly discovered that they weren't the only nomads passing through the region. Only a few hours into their temporary respite, their sensors had lit up like a Life Day firework show, tracking dozens of incoming contacts. The tiny blips were starfighters, and they had immediately opened fire on the ships of the fleet, ripping apart a few of the smaller transports before anyone could react. Behind them, drifting ominously forward, were a cruiser and two frigates. From a distance, their hulls seemed to be covered by crystal orbs filled with swirling colors. Only a closer look revealed the horrifying truth.

The warships were covered in transparent holding pens, each filled with terrified slaves. Firing on the ships would kill the prisoners.

It was a common tactic of the Vagaari, vicious wanderers from the Unknown Regions who survived through raiding and piracy. No doubt they had picked out the Flotilla as an easy target, certain that the ragtag fleet of outdated ships would put up little fight - and provide a bounty of scrap and victims. What they hadn't counted on, however, was that the Council of Captains had anticipated something like this would happen sooner or later. They had made their preparations to fight off raiders, and the most important one was the creation of an elite group of pilots, the best and brightest the Flotilla had to offer: Saberdart Squadron.

The Vagaari ships had projected an interdiction field, trapping the fleet in the barren system, and were moving into firing range as their starfighters caused havoc. The Flotilla needed defenders, pilots who could shoot down the attacking craft in order to protect the smaller vessels. And they also needed deliverance; although they had big ships, none of them were equipped with the kind of heavy, military-grade weaponry needed to take on the Vagaari cruiser. Even if they had, they could never have disabled the interdiction domes without killing the helpless prisoners on the hull. Only the elite pilots of Saberdart Squadron could save the fleet now.

And so, for the first time, the call went out over the fleet intercom. "Battle stations! Scramble the Saberdarts!"

 

[Hiro Statura]

Location // The Holdo's Legacy //
Objective // Protect Civilians //
Tags // Rance Draysom Cillian Raxis | The Flotilla //

"Deploy fighters! Bring online the HVC's and Turbolasers. Swing us around!"

The bridge of the Holdo's Legacy was a hot mess with wires and other objects all over the place. Hiro himself was sitting in an impromptu Command Chair, coated in leather it stood out from the rest of the white clad bridge.

"Da hell you mean we don't have enough power? We have auxiliaries don't we?" The Chief was all types of pissed off, moving his hands in a fashion that shouldn't have been possible for a human.

"Get me the Saberdarts. Let's attempt to coordinate eh?"

 

[Miles Ayre]

Miles was lying on his bed, he was beginning to wonder if he'd made the right decision joining up with the Flotilla, he'd been sold on the idea of the Saberdarts, not only did it give him a purpose, something to live for other than himself, it also gave him somewhere he could call home, and he hadn't been able to call anywhere home in a long time. The only problem was, there wasn't anything to do, sure, he'd been on a couple of exploratory missions, ensuring the way ahead was clear, or that no-one was tailing them, but no action had come their way yet and Miles was bored.

As the Corellian played with the cuff of his flight suit the call flooded his room, "Battle stations! Scramble the Saberdarts!" Miles sat bolt upright, adrenaline pumped through his veins as he tensed up a little, "about fethin time" he growled before jumping to his feet, he quickly checked that he had everything he needed, although he knew he would, part of his training meant he was always ready to go, he pulled his flight suit up properly, fastening it up as he grabbed his helmet and sprinted for his X-wing.

As he entered the Hangar his ship was ready to go, the Flotilla may be a group of refugees and drifters but in their numbers they had some incredibly skilled workers, Miles smacked a couple of them on the back and shoulders as he ran past them, calling out a few words of praise as he launched himself onto the X-wing and began to strap himself in, the hiss of the cockpit sealing itself seemed to focus Miles instantaneously, he performed his pre-flight checks in a blur of button presses and visual confirmation before checking in on comms whilst the ship was moved into position to fire away.

"This is SD-2, checking in, ready to launch, info on targets?"

As he punched the buttons that would pass him through the magnetic shield the transmission came in from the Holdo's Legacy, "SD-2 this is the bridge of the Holdo's Legacy, patching you through now to Hiro Satura" Miles shot out into open space, all sensors on line, he felt at ease momentarily before his radar filled up with multiple targets, he banked to the left, rolling hard as he opened up comms with the Holdo's Legacy, "This is SD-2, transmitting to Holdo's Legacy, what can I do for you sir?" his calm and confident reply was one that didn't match the situation, this though was what he lived for.

Hiro Statura @Anyone else joining in

 

[Drexel Volcata]

Drexel Volcata was in the shower when the order to scramble the Saberdarts came. He immediately rinsed off, shut off the water, and toweled down vigorously before pulling on his underwear and his flight suit. Boots under his arms, he raced along the corridors of the ship to the hangar. Despite being caught with his pants down -- quite literally -- he arrived at the hangar only a few moments after Miles Ayre . He paused at the foot of the ladder, hopping into his boots one at a time.

He gave a friendly nod to Miles before mounting the ladder to his craft, SD-3. and dropped into the cockpit. Quickly he performed his pre-flight checklist, then obtained permission from the flight control to launch with SD-2. He patched his helmet coms into the channel. "This is SD-3, standing by," he said into the channel as he tuned his sensor array settings.

"What the hell is that?" he asked, momentarily forgetting communications discipline -- well, this was the Verge Flotilla, anyway -- as he zoomed his optical scanners in on the hostage ship.

Miles Ayre | Hiro Statura | Council of Captains​

 

[R7-4A "Foray"]

"Diiiit beep da bo ba bweeee," R7-4A trilled, his domed head spinning in a happy circle as he was lowered into a starfighter's astromech compartment for the first time in eight hundred years. He'd been assigned to SD-2, flown by Miles Ayre , and this would be their first mission together. As great as it felt to be out in a dogfight, where he belonged, being in an X-Wing was... strange. The R7 line had been designed specifically to fit into the New Republic's E-Wings, cutting edge back then, to compliment them.

The mechanics of the Flotilla had been forced to modify Foray pretty heavily in order to get him to fit other craft.

Still, the little droid felt joy surging through his circuits as SD-2 soared out from the hangar bay and into open space. Immediately he began feeding data into the ship's onboard computer, using his finely-tuned sensors to calculate hundreds of trajectories, speeds, and firing solutions every second. Foray had never encountered the Vagaari before, but as far as he could tell, they weren't so different from the Yuuzhan Vong that he'd faced back when he'd last seen combat. They were attacking the innocent, and that made them evil.

Registering Drexel's exclamation, Foray zoomed his sensors in on the Vagaari cruiser. The little droid trilled in alarm and rage. "Do bwa REEEET!" Immediately he began scanning the ship, trying to find weak points between the blisters containing the Vagaari's prisoners. He knew he could find a way to shoot around them and still disable the interdiction field... but he couldn't think of a way to rescue them, not without disabling the ship completely so that the Verge Irregulars could board it and clear it hallway by hallway.

Even for the elite Saberdarts, taking down a cruiser without rupturing its hull was a tall order...

 

[Council of Captains]

He was getting too old for this druk, but what choice did any of them have?

It wasn't as easy as it'd used to be to swing himself into the cockpit, but Dagidor Grist managed to wedge himself inside. His craft was an old R46 Valiant-class, the very starfighter he'd flown for the Republic many years before in dozens of missions against the onrushing Sith. The worn seat and notched controls felt familiar to the touch, thrumming beneath him like a living thing. "Hey, old girl," the aging Givin whispered, patting the instrument panel as he hurried through his pre-flight checks. "Here we go again."

Givin pilots and navigators were in high demand the galaxy over, and Grist was happy to help prove why. As SD-1, Saberdart Leader, he kept his people safe with his math-tuned mind, performing nearly as many quick calculations as any astromech in order to figure out his squadron's tactics. Now, in the Saberdarts' first outing against a real enemy, his talents would be put to the test. They were launching straight into a swarm of Vagaari bombers and interceptors, two of the smaller fighter craft trailing each missile-toting bomber.

If they weren't stopped, they would tear the Flotilla apart before the cruiser and frigates even got into range.

"Ok, people, focus," Grist said, his gravelly voice cutting across the horrified chatter as his pilots noticed the Vagaari's prisoner "armor". "We've got to thin the pack before we worry about the big ships. Take out those bombers. Go in pairs and cover each other, those interceptors are on escort duty and they won't play around." He glanced down at the sensor display, then back out at the battle erupting around him, making quick visual calculations. "Four bombers and escorts headed for the Tears. Two, Three, take 'em down."

There were 300,000 people crammed into the Tears of Taloraan. Even a single bombing run could kill thousands.

Miles Ayre | Drexel Volcata | Hiro Statura​