Sting or Tails (The Directorate, House Solus)

[Vaux Gred]

Location: Taanab, aboard Artemis Mobile Shipyard

Vaux sat in the cockpit of something new to her. A GF-4 Stinger, the replacement to the fighter she'd been flying for so long now, the GF-2B Super TwinTail. The Mandalorian wasn't sure how she liked this yet. Lighter, smaller and no onboard astromech, but with the same speed, agility and firepower. Its lines were clearly taken from the Viper-series of interceptors, but instead of the tri-wing the Stinger mounted to pylons that housed the engines and particle cannons. Meanwhile, out on the other end of the Artemis, one of her squadmates was flying a TwinTail with the red markings of their squadron, a similar pattern adorning her own craft's spaceframe.

"What's this supposed to prove again Aries? I thought you already tested these things."

"To ease your own stubborn mind, CT. Really just to prove it can go toe to toe with the Supers. Now, are you ready to start. I'm hoping to not have to keep jamming an entire region of space just for a test."

"Standing by and ready."

"This is Aklay, ready when you are Aries."

"Right. Disengaging jamming field now. Good luck."

(OOC: More just a fun thread to play out an actual flyoff between an older craft and its replacement for fleet ops.)

 

[Gir Quee]

Verne-class Armored Cruiser Descended Thought, near Taanab

"How do you feel?" asked Ariela, crossing her arms.

Gir looked around the bridge. Not a single person looked up at him, but that's because there weren't any. Instead, every console was manned by one of the Directorate's more experienced L1 Marinus series battle droids, just like the rest of the ship - itself designed to be highly automated to begin with. All of the onboard troops were synthetic soldiers. All on the onboard starfighters were Zephyr-class Droid Fighters. He was the sole organic being for several kilometers away.

"Not bad, not good."

The replica droid offered a knowingly smile, "We could have brought Sariya, you know."

"That would defeat the whole purpose of the experiment - of a fully automated force," smirked the man, "at least more so than my presence knowing her lack of restraint."

"I think she would have probably done fine."

"Probably," repeated the man.

The most experienced Marinus droid approached him and offered a stiff salute, "All systems are fully operational sir."

The admiral nodded, "Thank you captain. Now we just wait for the signal to start the exercise."

Vaux Gred

 

[Vaux Gred]

Vaux took a breath as all of a sudden her Stinger could pickup sensor data again. The jammers from Artemis were off and the flight was on. She gunned it, quickly focusing her scanners and using the ol' mark 1 eyeball to hunt for the TwinTail. The thing she didn't like was not having an astromech, but there were worse things. She couldn't spot anything yet, but soon, she got a blip.

"Got you know. Let's see what this bird can do."

Meanwhile, further out, a lone Acklay-class Cruiser with three CST Toscan 8-R squadrons preparing for their exercise. The ship's captain, an old looking Twi'lek looked over at a crewmate.

"Well let's see if they're ready, and sure everything's in training mode!" He would then hit the comms to open a channel to the Directorate vessel. "This is Nexu, you ready to test this fully automated concept of yours?"

Gir Quee

 

[Gir Quee]

Verne-class Armored Cruiser Descended Thought, near Taanab

"We are," replied the admiral through headset comlink, "We are activating now."

Ariela turned her head to face the floating holo of the Dryas AI, "You are in command now."

The visage silently nodded in reply before disappearing from view. No cacaphony of voices or requests for clarification of orders. No verbal acknowledgements. No new reports being shouted across the deck. The bridge was simply silent. The lack of chaos made the man wonder for a brief moment if there was some sort of glitch that had prevented the AI from fully starting to enact. But a quick look at the tactical screen showed that not to be the case. The Descended Thought had flawlessly launched all of its Zephyr Drones, with the starfighters forming cohesive formations in near record time. Dryas had largely split the droid fighters into pairs which had coalesced as a whole to make a sparsely populated sphere in front of the armored cruiser. He frowned. Curious choice. A sextet of practice Tidefall Brilliant Torpedoes leapt out of the ship's bow before surging towards the Acklay Cruiser, with the drone fighters quickly surging forward behind the warhead salvo, even as the armored cruiser's sublight engines sputtered on, propelling the craft forward at a sluggish pace. But even as the ship's sublight engines started to push the old cruiser forward, the ship's navigation AI, Drake, had started to plot a new course and had started to spool up the ship's hyperdrive in preparation for a micro-jump.

Vaux Gred

 

[Vaux Gred]

Vaux gripped the controls as she pulled the Stinger around, aiming to try and sneak up on her squadmate. As she got closer she'd swap the sensors to standard mode. She could see him now, but the TwinTail quickly turned to meet her.

"Oh kark....."

"Hey! This is being recorded."

"I'm sorry, Aries.... Oh karking osik." It was then the pail blue of the particle cannons practice bolts flew by her cockpit. "Thought you were trained better than to shoot early Aklay. Maybe you need to run through training again." She had to admit, even if the Stinger was just as fast and agile, you really could feel the lower weight in flight. Hopefully she take advantage of being a bit smaller in this thing.

Meanwhile, further out, the Nexu was pushing forward as he Toscans pushed ahead.

"So it's all droids? Are we talking drones, or something like Ash?"

"I don't know Wreaker. Cut the chatter and just enjoy something that's more exciting than a patrol." The fighters would then push forward, seeing the automated ships. "Ok vod, go time."

Gir Quee

 

[Gir Quee]

Verne-class Armored Cruiser Descended Thought, near Taanab

The Descended Thought leapt into hyperspace before the AI almost as quickly reverted it. Its armored prow lurched into realspace once more, almost running parallel to the Acklay Cruiser and moving to engage in a classic broadside battle. The Dryas AI had sought to distract the enemy by the initial warhead launch even as the micro-jump itself to offset the Thought's poor sublight speed. Now almost within spitting distance, the Thought's turbolasers and mass driver cannons began to spew out rounds to batter away at the Acklay's port side even as the Thought's tractor beams sought to grab ahold of the other cruiser.

The Zephyrs, being classic swarm fighters with no shields at all, quickly spammed all of their practice Starbolt-class Missiles at the Toscans as they moved to quickly close ranks with their opposition. Hopefully the missile barrage would even out the numbers and keep the Toscans occupied while the drones closed the distance to close quarters. Dryas would being to closely coordinate each drone fighter's action, moving them in a wide variety of vectors that almost always ensured that another Zephyr could quickly cover one of their squadron mate's rear if needed. The droid fighters would make quick, darting attacks before abruptly engaging, avoiding the traditional dogfight and hoping to eliminate their opponents in a more "death by a thousand cuts" sort of tactics.

Vaux Gred

 

[Vaux Gred]

The Stinger ran close to the Artemis as he rolled, trying to keep the TwinTail from catching her. The fighter really did have some edges she could exploit, quickly darting through some truss work that she figured the larger fighter could follow her through. Of course Aries was yelling at her for the maneuver, but Vaux didn't really care what he thought though.

Meanwhile the Nexu was in for a shock as the Decended Thought appeared right next to them.

"What the frak!"

"Can those things usually microjump?"

"Just get the guns around. And kark it, get the flak batteries on the dang missiles." As the turrets turned, the blue training bolts would fire off from the particle cannons, but the larger cruiser would begin to leerch too as it was pulling by the tractor beam. At the same time, the Toscans were having their own "fun." Multiple pilots would soon call out as "hit" and quickly pull out of the fray, while others would turn and use the fighters higher speed to run perpendicular to the missiles and hopefully out pace their tracking systems.

"I hate fighting swarm fighters."

Gir Quee