Take Me Out - Relina Zhan vs Ashin Karrde

[Relina Zhan]

Location: Transitory Mists, the Knot Holes, near the Lorell System
Time: 1450 hours

Take Me Out (Franz Ferdinand)

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina and her Angels once again had their names drawn from the proverbial hat again for border patrol. Every Naval unit, including fighter pilots, had to do it at some point, much like jury duty for civilians and whose turn it was at a given time was determined much the same way. Lucky Lady Zhan...

"Alright, Ladies and gentlemen. This is just another routine patrol flight. Stay in space-sweep formation and remain within visual range of each other." Relina ordered her squadron moments after they launched into the void in their signature Terminus Starfighters.

"Yes My Lady!" the other Angel pilots replied as they followed their orders.

"R9, set sensor scanning for any unregistered transponders." she ordered her astromech.

"Sensor scanning online.. filtering IFF signatures."

Their carrier, Firedrake, also acted as their SWACS via it's CIC and sensor coverage. It was a Type N 909 Supernova-class battleship, a frigate sized warship with potent might, despite its average size for a ship of its class. they weren't alone, of course, but out here near the Knot Holes, pirate patrols tended to spread out to cover more territory. The twisted pillars of ionised gas, illuminated and irradiated by hot young stars nestled deep within the nebulosity also presented not only environmental hazards, but many hiding places for pirates and smugglers. This was arguably one of the most dangerous parts of the Hapes Cluster.

"I hate this sector of the nebula... It never fails to give me the creeps..." Relina grumbled.

"Agreed, My Lady. But, her Majesty is relying on us to do our part to keep her realm's borders secure. if not us, then someone else... and How many of our Squadrons can compete with us?" Angel 5, Aurora, replied with a mock-arrogance to her tone as she attempted to raise morale by ego-stroking.

"Right. Let's just get this over with, shall we?" Relina asked.

"We've got this patrol under control like every other one before. Worst case scenario, it'll be quiet and boring like most of them." Angel 3, Screech, chimed in.

"Truth!" Angel 6, Blackout, replied immediately with a chuckle.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Relina Zhan"]

A dense stellar nursery with mercurial attitude, the Knot Holes reminded Ashin of certain nasty locales in the Unknown Regions. She'd never have come here for fun. In the last days of the One Sith, however, more than just local pirates had gone to ground out here.

Whether the Sith who'd tortured her wife had ever been hiding here, though, they sure weren't here now. After two days poking around and meditating in her old TIE Exalt, Ashin knew that for certain. Irritated didn't cover the half of it.

That irritation, perhaps, was why she let herself get too close to the Hapan patrol. Close enough for visual contact, never mind sensor intercept.

 

[Relina Zhan]

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina had spaced out staring at the gorgeous lightshow displayed by the swirling columns of ionised hydrogen and trace elements. It was, in its own morbid way, a deadly beauty. Incidentally, her worst nightmare presently was the prospect of dying out here. had she not been firmly harnessed, she would have jumped out of her seat when her missile lock tone sounded and her Droid's artificial voice, a Hapan translation of its usual binary chirps, warned, "Bogey alert. Bogey alert."

"Swaxi'f!" she swore, looking directly at what her targeting computer had locked onto. It wasn't a friendly ship and she could make out its profile. It looked like a TIE model of some kind. She'd hail the ship with an ultimatum, next, per procedure. "Unidentified ship, you are violating sovereign space belonging to the Hapes Consortium. You will set your course to the one we provide for you and surrender. You have 5 minutes to comply."

The other Angels remained in their positions, still scanning, but likewise aware of the ship Relina was addressing. She also had the Firedrake on the comm as well, since the capture of the vessel would require a carrier to collect it and the personnel aboard to interrogate the occupants. Relina's weapons were safe for the moment, but her finger rested on the laser cannon trigger in case step two had to be enacted: a warning shot.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Relina Zhan"]

The Exalt could outpace most starfighters, but the Knot Holes presented unique challenges. The locals might well be able to catch up if she ran, even if their fighters turned out to be slower on a straightaway.

Still, there was a time and a place to tackle a fighter squadron solo, and this was not it. Ashin hissed and turned the Exalt to a heading that led deeper into the Knot Holes. If the Force was on her side, perhaps she could lose the Hapans.

"A five-minute head start?" she said evenly, right into the comm pickup. "That's downright sportsmanlike of you."

 

[Relina Zhan]

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina pulled the trigger to deliver the warning shot. "That isn't the direction we told you to go. If you insist upon testing our patience and resolve, then we can do the questioning after we save you from this irradiated vacuum."

As she spoke, Relina turned her ship smoothly to follow Ashin, keeping her within her fighter's sensor coverage. She'd proceed to give chase. "Angels, disperse and find the rest of her squadron. It certainly isn't wise to fly around in that sort of ship alone."

"Yes, My Lady!"

"Firedrake CIC, Angel Squadron, you may fire at will."

"This is your last chance. The safety is off." she warned her quarry.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Relina Zhan"]

Rear sensors showed the Hapan fighters splitting off, maybe to flank somehow, maybe to look for other TIEs. They wouldn't​ find any: she'd come alone. The goal, then, was to give enough time to let them fan out and search, while acting quickly and decisively since the lead fighter was alone. Move too soon or to late, and die: an ignominious end to a long career.

In the end, Ashin's gut didn't recommend turning and attacking now. The moment might be still to come.

"What use is this space to you?" she said, voice dry and amused, as the warning shot snapped past her cockpit. She flicked her own primary weapons online: two rapid-fire turbocharged laser cannons that hit like six. "There's not a habitable world or a worthwhile hyperlane for a billion kilometres. I've got no interest in being interrogated for your pride. And for that matter...what happened to five minutes?"

 

[Relina Zhan]

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina answered, "... The use of this space is classified. Suffice it to say, it is claimed territory." she said evenly.

Relina saw that the interloper wasn't going to surrender. Yes, her squad-mates were going to search the area, as instructed, leaving the two of them alone for the moment. "But, just as well. Angel One will prosecute. Setting s-foils to attack position, deflector screens online.... I have tone." she said, increasing to attack speed. "Angels, we are red and free.... Angel One. Fox three!"

Beneath the Terminus's fuselage, a cylinder dropped down slightly with a concussion missile loaded in the tube. Once the missile was launched, the cylinder would retract back into its housing to keep the profile of the fighter as low as possible, while rotating a fresh missile into place. At distance, it would be difficult to spot on scanning sensors, such as radar. The most obvious way to betray the fighters presence, incidentally, was the staccato roar of its twin pulse-detonation ion engines. but acoustic sound didn't travel through a virtual vacuum. Relina throttled up and gave chase. The type of concussion missile she fired, as indicated by the military brevity code she used, was guided by it's own scanning sensor suite.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

...a suite whose activation registered as a crimson missile lock warning around Ashin's TIE reticle. She threw the Exalt into a corkscrewing spin. The Exalt's decent shields and durable hull could likely take the impact, but she wasn't about to grant the other pilot the advantage or the satisfaction.

The nimble but low-yield concussion missile detonated closer than she'd like, dropping rear shields to fifty percent. She swapped deflector strength double-front with a flick of her thumb as she came out of the spin facing the Terminus.

The Exalt mounted two advanced, rapid-fire, turbocharged Santhe/Sienar laser cannons, each almost as punishing as the Terminus' entire cannon loadout. Similarly advanced targeting systems, guided by Ashin's instincts, pinpointed the Hapan fighter. Green cannon blasts ripped out across the intervening space.


[member="Relina Zhan"]

 

[Relina Zhan]

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina sw the explosive report of the missile with a slight grin. Her adrenaline was starting to flow as was that odd current she often felt during a heated combat situation. She turned to evade sharply as her prey turned to face her. The dogfight was on. "Shack on the target, but she remains." she said.

She was soon fired upon in return, green bolts of 'frak you' crossing her path. The was struck near the actuator of her port wing, although her shielding took the brunt of it. "Impact, port wing aileron. Shields holding at 66%." her droid's translated voice advised her.

"Sixty-six? What the hell sort of laser cannons are these, I wonder?" she asked. "No matter. We shall soon see which of us is the better pilot. Command, Angel One. Switching to 'sidewinders'. Moving in." She added, as she turned aggressively and sharply, rolling hard to starboard as she got into position. The selected missiles had a higher yield, but shorter range and passive Ion-efflux guidance.

Relina would let off a brief volley from her wingtip ion cannons, leading the target by intuition, rather than her targeting computers. She had learned this lesson some time before; she had learned not to fight the tingling current she felt inside. Was it this mystical Force the Jedi speak of? Was it divine inspiration? She didn't quite know for sure, but she was going to let it do what it would.

"Angel One, reference vector 1-2-0."

"This is SWACS, copy vector 1-2-0."

"This is Angel Five. The area seems clear. No sign of even day-old pirate activity..." Aurora reported.

"Roger, Angel Five. Angel Squadron, turn to reference vector 1-2-0. Engage on sight."

"This is Angel Two, roger. Angel Squadron will prosecute."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Relina Zhan"]

A minor adjustment kept them more or less nose-to-nose, as they'd been before. Hapan ion fire splashed over the Exalt's double-strength forward shields with solid accuracy: the pilot clearly had good instincts to make those shots after an evasive roll. For long years, though, Ashin had honed similar instincts, and she kept her own rapid-fire, high-yield guns centered on the oncoming Hapan ship, despite the visual interference from the ion impacts. Both vessels were quite quick: they'd be on each other in seconds, pass, and try to turn. The next few heartbeats came down to nerve and luck.

In the back of her mind, Ashin noted the converging sensor dots: the rest of the Hapan squadron was coming back, having found nothing. For the next few seconds or minutes, however, she and this particular ship were on their own.

 

[Relina Zhan]

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina had hit her with a sputter of ion fire, which would deal more shield damage than her laser cannons or concussion missiles would alone. The Hapan Navy had a bit of a reputation for their almost excessive use of ion weaponry, which had historically been their strong point in ranged energy-based weapon systems. Turbolaser technologies, incidentally, had to be imported, although the Navy had stubbornly remained self-sufficient by learning to compensate for slow turbolaser tech advancements. It was the reason why the Battle Dragon and its modern successor, the Wyvern, had such a unique and iconic shape and design. As for fighters, however, The Terminus was still considered bleeding edge; it was lightyears more superior to the old Miy'til.

Relina realised that it would be a while before her Squadron could link up with her and commence their attack in support. Further, there appeared to be no known reinforcements for this lone fighter. "Angel One to Squadron, keep your distance. You need only prevent her from escaping this space. If reinforcements arrive, engage on sight and shoot to kill."

"Yes, My Lady!"

Ashin seemed rather intent upon keeping Relina in front of her, using run-and-gun tactics in response to her own manouvres. To upset this trend, Relina would down-throttle, pitched upward slightly, and intentionally brake-thrust as if to stall her fighter... or what could equate to stalling in a near-vacuum environment such as space. This manouvre, in an atmosphere where the air-intakes would be in use, actually involved an intentional engine stall. In space, it involved a sudden down-throttle, choking off her forward thrust for a second as Ashin passed beneath her. There was a glancing impact on her starboard canard, missing the opaque canopy by less than a metre.

Once Ashin passed under her, Relina would hit the throttle, throwing it sharply forward while leveling out her pitch. She had an immediate, strong radar lock. "Angel One, Sweet lock. Good tone, Fox two!" she said, firing an SRAM 9x concussion missile. it was a fairly standard, moderate yield, efflux-guided missile... and one fired at relatively close range, as it was designed for. The 'Sidewinder' was released from one of the cylinders hidden inside of the ship's fuselage, the revolving launcher only revealing itself long enough to fire before rotating fresh ordinance in place as it disappeared back into its home. The Force was strong with this one, it seemed, but it was feral in her at best.

"She just did the Arabanth Viper!"

"Wicked! She totally nailed it!"

"She can't be Human..."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Relina Zhan"]

All things considered, the next few seconds were fairly straightforward. The Hapan ship continued to charge right into Ashin's rapid-fire turbocharged laser cannons, even revealing its belly as it blinked first and turned its nose up. Ashin kept right on hammering away as ion fire whittled her double-front shields down to something like single strength. That didn't bode terribly well, but she could adjust.

She caught a flash of triumph and exhilaration from the other pilot as the Exalt slipped beneath the Hapan ship. First order of business after any such game of chicken was to turn the tighter circle and get a bead before the other ship could. In that respect, the Exalt had the edge by a narrow margin. Ashin stomped the etheric rudder and slewed hard to port, all yaw, the kind of maneuver no atmospheric fighter could make. Her missile lock indicator blared when she came around, but only for a moment, and her shields flickered as a fireball blossomed to port. She snapped off a burst at the Hapan ship before its new vector carried it out of sight to her left. She stayed on it, continuing the sharp turn to port. The goal was to slip in behind it and put it down with just a couple more shots from the turbocharged cannons.

 

[Relina Zhan]

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina saw the sharp turn, her missile barely missing. How bothersome. Ashin was literally the first opposing fighter pilot she had encountered to survive, let alone evade an SRAM at that close range. Not even that one pilot she recalled a long duel with in the Roqoo system some months ago handled his ship quite like this... but then again it was a different model with different capabilities, which could make the difference. Of course, she wasn't able to pull off the Viper on him either. She would have to adjust her tactics.

She'd sharply yaw her ship tightly, down-throttling to compensate for her Terminus apparently not having a component this TIE model had. TIEs were notorious for their speed and relatively cheap cost, although this one appeared to be shielded, which wasn't a common trait from the TIE variants she was aware of. It was also alone, which was even more unusual; the strength of the TIE was in its low cost and small size, making it suitable for swarm tactics more expensive ships typically were not fielded for in the same way. The manouvures she now saw seemed to indicate that she was trying to get behind her, either to batter down her shielding and cripple her or she had some means to destroy her then and there. Relina wasn't having it. She managed to evade a few shots, but a lucky hit on the starboard canard penetrated the shielding,

"Warning! Starboard canard actuator frozen. Impact critical. Switching auxiliary power to starboard aileron."

When Ashin moved toward what usually was a blind spot to most pilots, Relina hit her SLAM afterburner system and yanked back the throttle in a high-G turn. Even her ship's inertial dampers strained under the Gs she was pulling. She would soon face her opponent directly again, speeding toward her, her sensors locked hard. "Angel One, Fox Two!" she said, releasing another concussion missile as she banked again, hard left this time. If Ashin couldn't move in time, she'd be skewered and probably dead. Relina's manouvreability was somewhat hindered at this point, but her astromech had switched power to the wingtip to compensate, allowing her to remain in the game. She'd cut her afterburners after banking 180 degrees, making a point to keep Ashin in her line of sight, her IFF tag selected at all times.

"Not this time, dear. Your ship is fast, but you are also predictable." she said. "And that flaw will cost you dearly.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Relina Zhan"]

There'd been a reason Ashin kept pouring in fire and going head-to-head. That reason now came into play as, half a heartbeat after launch, the Hapan's concussion missile ran into a turbocharged laser blast.

And turned into a point-blank fireball right outside the launcher.

The Exalt was a tough beast, an elite fighter clad in matrix armor. It could have weathered that hit, maybe. Probably. Fortunately, Ashin didn't have to find out the hard way. The number one lesson she'd picked up in her long-ago military small-craft career had been 'don't fire missiles when you're playing chicken.' The corollary went something like 'don't let yourself get baited into firing missiles while you're playing chicken.'

As Relina banked to Ashin's right, Ashin tracked her coolly, undisturbed due to Relina's lack of outgoing fire. As Relina talked to her, Ashin just plain kept shooting at the Hapan fighter's starboard flank.

She didn't bother to answer.

 

[Relina Zhan]

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina's sheilding took a hit from her own missile that was very luckily hit soon after launch. The odds were astronomical. Not even she could reliably do that and she was an eleven year combat veteran. Relina wouldn't do that again until she was behind Ashin with her crippled. At this point, capture was almost off the table. She now wanted this interloper dead. Tossing her into the Firedrake's brig and picking her brains would simply be unsuitable to get even with her. The damage was indirect, but it brought her shielding down to 32%... it was getting dangerous.

"Fine.... if this is how you wish to play..." she muttered, She'd turn to engage her again, firing her own laser cannons while stuttering her ion cannons in an evasive spin. The moment she passed Ashin, however, was when she would pull something rather unorthodox.

"Deploying chaff and flare." She said as she released a set of canisters from the rear section of her ship before banking sharply around again. Now these countermeasures involved ionised chaff, electromagnetic signal scramblers, and hot ion flares all deployed in a mess designed to confuse missiles and other tracking ballistic ordinance. However, it had proven to work off-label to neutralise things such as Buzz driods. At close range, it could also mess with ship sensors, shielding, and electronics, much like flying into a transient, temporary ion cloud, which was exactly how it was used as designed to protect from missiles. And, incidentally, much like fireworks, they were specially arranged to momentarily appear in the form of angel's wings before spreading out into the void.

it would seem her 'friend' here liked to dogfight the old fashioned way.. a method reminiscent of ancient times long, long ago before the days of blasters and space travel, when men flew only atmospheric jet aircraft and used ballistic slugs to shoot down other aircraft... before the days when aircraft mounted missiles changed the aerial battlefield forever. Relina could play that game. That mysterious current flowed through her. Despite her annoyance, her emotions flew sky-high.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Relina Zhan"]

The good part of flying in a hellhole like this was the sheer amount of background noise. The spread of flares and chaff added to the sensor-dazzling confusion - for both parties. As Ashin's shields flickered down to their last dregs, she took advantage of the noise and angled away into the torrential mess. Wary of a lucky shot, she put all her remaining shield strength aft - ten percent screens, but every little bit helped. Stray ion fire futzed with her warhead launchers, not that she'd needed them anyway. Pushing the Exalt's superior engines to the max, she vanished into the Knot Holes and adjourned. There was something to be said for choosing to lose rather than escalate, especially when only pride was at stake. She'd verified the Sith presence had moved on or never been here; she'd collected decent data on the physics of a stellar nursery; she'd gotten a handle on how Hapes played ball. Not a bad day's work.

 

[Relina Zhan]

[member="Ashin Karrde"]

Relina's senors were fritzy, for sure, and she had intention to use visual scanning until she cleared her own snowstorm. It was debatable whether the TIE's engines were superior at all, but nevertheless, they had been used to disengage. She couldn't tell the exact trajectory due to limited sensor information at the time, but once she cleared the affected area, she contacted her carrier.

"One to Firedrake. Target has bugged out. Trajectory unknown. Recommend registry flagging in case she bailed deeper into Consortium space."

"Roger, Angel One, Angel Squadron, return to carrier for debriefing."

Relina would remember that ship and would gladly fly against her again. Pride, perhaps, might be the reason for this burning desire, but nevertheless, it would seem there was a rival for her. Further, the tricks and tactics pulled by this rival would be long remembered. She expected her own would be to Ashin as well, which meant that when next they met, the battle might well take a completely different turn.

The Angel Squadron linked up with and landed back on their carrier to give their reports and cycle out for the next patrol to relieve them.