The Merchant Fleet

[Rekha Kaarde]

Team One


Rekha was moving about looking and listening, the conversations she heard were quite informative. then she heard the word, if you need a ride now was the time. She was not using her ship this time so she grabbed up her bag containing all the things that she felt she needed.

Walking up the ramp she nodded to [member="Kairon Rees"] and found her spot, she donned the outfit needed to make the jump. It had been sometime since she jumped. but it was one of those things you never forgot how to do, or how it made you feel.

She was so ready for this.

 

[Rusty]

Location: Hangar
Team Two
[member="Malia Afredane"]

Most of Rusty's gear was already on the ship, and Gertrude was slung across his back.

The Shard was standing on the edge of the ramp, holding onto the strut.

"Fire up the repulsors, Captain, and give me 45 seconds. If they're not on by then, they're walking."

It wasn't like he needed air, but the Captain had this funny thing about breathing. He'd lock the door behind him, but it never hurt to give stragglers a chance to catch up.

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Rawnie had indeed been sleeping. Could she be blamed? She'd been a busy mando. Work kept her out late at night, hunting down criminals, turning them in, sending the vast majority of the credits she earned to her can back home. But she did eventually wake up, dressed in just one of Loranes shirts. She blinked, realizing that she was in bed alone this time.

"...Lor?" She looked around sleepily, until her eyes caught sight of the time. "Oh sheb!"

She jumped up, running around the bed room, looking for her armor. No coffee today. No breakfast. She dressed quickly in her white armor and almost flew out to meet her partner.

"Lorane! You Di'kut! You didn't wake me!

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Team One.

Lor leapt down from his perch and walked on board the Bluebird as he heard Rawnie shout. And then she almost flattened him as she ran out and crashed into him. He quickly squeezed her, and then led her back aboard so they could get ready.​

​

"Better that you got to sleep, anyway. Just Rusty talking trash, mostly. We're going with another guy's freighter and blasting one of the targets to bits."​

​

First, though, coffee. The Chiss walked into the kitchen and set the machine going.​

​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Kairon Rees]

[member="Malia Afredane"] might not have noticed the subtle changes to the rear of the Quintessence as she left the hangar. Other than the new anodised surface, the only outward difference to the engine nacelles were some extra reinforcing struts. The reason the struts were there only apparent if someone opened up the engines.

As part of his “bonus” for suffering psychological trauma at the hands of the Techno Union, his ship had gone into their workshops with a series of other refits. Whilst Asmus and Jarrick had enthusiastically overseen them improving their firepower by an order of magnitude, he had gotten stuck into the engine and hyperdrive upgrades. The SpaceMaster was built with reliable and rugged engines that could accelerate a serious haul of cargo. However, whilst powerful, they weren’t turned for speed when the ship was unladen. That renowned reliability however, meant they were capable of being pushed beyond stock limits, particularly when certain components were replaced with more expensive alternatives.

First of all they’d ripped out the power couplings between the engines and the reactor and replaced them with high capacity links. Then they’d opened up the nacelles and got their hands dirty. The tibanna injection manifolds had been pulled out, and reworked in the workshop. They’d thrown the aging ion grids away and replaced them with aftermarket parts. The new grids could handle four times the voltage of the old, quadrupling the effective impulse when pushed hard. The propellant management system was re-coded by some Alliance tech-heads and returned. The net affect was that when unladed, the Quin could now burn as hard in a straight line as a TIE bomber. No small feat for a ship of her size.

It was noticeable to Kairon in that the engine’s had less of a nasal tone as they pulled away and more of a high pitched whine. All these new systems were going to take a toll on the power system and make each smuggling run more expensive for the crew. Their maximum range between refuelling had dropped by twenty percent with the new hyperdrive too. It was a risky move, but times were hard now and there were good credits available for any willing to run military border patrols.

“You’re really going to take a Spacemaster into battle? You’ve got balls,” came a call over the battlenet. Kairon looked at his situational awareness readout, and noted that the source was right off the bow. He looked through the viewport to see an X-wing holding position, the pilots head visible looking their ship up and down. The Quintessence was odd to behold without the modular cargo bays, the engines section separated from the saucer by what appeared a frail, slender section.

Kairon switched to the intercom. “Everyone hear that?” he asked. There was a general acknowledgement, with a few swear words thrown in. He reached over the controls past his co-pilot and turned several knobs. A small read-out showed that the power to the iron grids was near maximum. Now when they dropped out of hyperspace her could open the taps and hit hard burn. Show the X-wing’s his rear. A childish move given what they were headed into, but he was a smuggler, not a naval officer and was really didn’t appreciate rude comments about his ship.

"Twenty seconds til the first group jumps!"

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Damn. So she was late. Too bad. No. Not really. That was sarcasm. Rawnie didn't really want to meet these people anyway. Most of them would probably be dead by the end of it anyway. Who knew if even they would survive? She followed Lorane to the kitchen, waiting for coffee with him. When it had finished, she grabbed two cups, poured the steaming dark liquid into them, added cream and sugar, and handed one right to her lover.

"We should probably get ready," she said after taking a sip, "I don't think they'd like us being late just because we hadn't had our coffee yet."

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Now came the time for Kaia to really get her hands dirty. Her ship would be safe, she figured, sitting out here. It was under a direction to jump to a specific system using its automated controls if a few different parameters occurred. She was going with the second team, sadly. She wished she signed up for some fighter escort, but a Jedi with a lightsaber? Could be useful on the ship.

Or so she hoped.

And the writer wanted to hurt his character a little. Which meant having her not in a ship. She had her light armor, her rifle and her lightsaber, the rifle was going to be of zero use here, but she still brought it, could beat someone with it. “So, I guess I’m with you?” She looked to @Rusty. Flying only to get out of a ship to attack, well, someone had to.

She wished she was flying. What ship, now?

[member="Malia Afredane"]

Team 2!

 

[Rusty]

Location: Wicked Grace
Team 2

"Hop on!"

Rusty offered a gloved hand to [member="Kaia Starchaser"] to pull her onto the loading ramp.

"The Wicked Grace may not be the prettiest ship in the verse, but she'll get us there in one piece."

The Shard approved of the female's rifle. Might be a bit much for close quarters, but you never knew when you'd have to shoot an armored bantha in the head through its tail. The lightsaber meant Force user of some sort, probably a Jedi. He wasn't overly fond of Jedi, but he liked them a lot more than Sith, and most of them weren't too bad personally.

 

[Doctor Azure]

Team 1

Lor raised an eyebrow at his blonde-haired lover.

"Visahot, I'd trust myself more flying drunk than decaffinated, right now. They can wait for as much firepower as our dear Bluebird will bring in. Oh, that reminds me. Rusty says hi."

He took a huge gulp of coffee and reached over to squeeze her hand.

"You wanna be on the guns, this time?"​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

The blonde smirked, leaning in to give him a quick kiss.

"You know me so well. Guns are my favorite."

She drained her cup as quickly as she could, squeezing his hand. When she was finished, she set the cup down.

"So,what do you say, after this we start looking into that marriage thing?"

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

Team 2:
Location: Directly ahead of dark blade Dreadnoughts.

[member="Judah Dashiell"] [member="Malia Afredane"] [member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Doctor Azure"] [member="Rusty"] [member="Eliza Steele"] [member="Dirks Hutchinson"] [member="Rawnie Tal'verda"] [member="Rekha Kaarde"]

"Ten seconds!"

Kairon turned to the newcomer [member="Rekha Kaarde"]. "Take a seat here and help me fly or grab to ventral Turret, straight down the back and down the ladder," he said quickly, passing over a head set connected to the ship's intercom and the merchant fleet battle network.

There was a low thrum as the new hyperdrive wound up. Kairon's treacherous hands had already moved across the console and opened up a direct link to the Grace with consulting the rest of him. "Happy hunting guys, stay safe," he said quickly.

The whine raised in pitch and each white pin pricks stretched out to an infinite cerulean streak. With a quiet thump they crossed the divide into hyperspace. It wasn't long before they came out at the other end, a burst of cronau radiation heralding their arrival.

The sensors lit up as they were hit with more information than they could process. Kairon looked across the expanse of space between themselves and the Dreadnoughts. "Wow," he murmured to himself.

"[TIE fighters coming in!]" the sullustan alliance pilot jabbered in his native tongue. Kairon grinned as he slammed the thrust lever forwards. The inertial dampeners didn't prevent to full force of the acceleration from pressing him back into his seat.

He grinned as he saw the X-Wings fall behind on his scanner, and take several seconds to catch up. He slowly turned the Quin in an arc, aiming to pull the fighters aside to give the second team a clear run.

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lor grinned and took a moment to kiss Rawnie back before he took her hand and led her towards the cockpit.

"Definitely. We'll start by talking to Serenna, and she'll probably tell us what's a good idea to do for this."​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Hand in hand, Rawnie smiled at her lover. Alright. After this. ...She felt like she said that about a lot of things. 'After this we'll...' ' I'll make sure to do that after this...'

She meant it this time. At the very least, they could look into it.
Once they arrived at the cockpit, she took her place.

"Let's get this done soon then, Cyar'ika."

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Team 1

Lor grinned as he sat down in the pilot's chair. Bluebird hummed when the engines started, lifting her and turning the strike ship vertical for takeoff. She blazed out of the hangar, jumping to lightspeed as soon as they were clear. It wasn't a very long wait before they came out at the coordinates. The Chiss chuckled as he saw Kairon's comparitively unwieldy freighter shooting past him.

"Well, that's a lot of TIEs for one lonely old bastard. Let's crash this party, visahot."​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]

 

[Judah Dashiell]

Team One | [member="Dirks Hutchinson"] , @Alicia Frost


Chatter and bantered had died down between himself and the other X-Wing pilots. Everyone was preparing mentally to go into the bombing run. Silently saying goodbyes to their lovers across the 'verse. Praying to whatever higher power. While others were doing this, Judah was fighting the seat on [member="Thessa Kai"] 's X-Wing. The good part about borrowing the Missus' bird ; it smelt nice. The bad part? Everything had been designed for her. Not exactly accommodating to his bigger frame.


Logically he should have took his. Call him a little nostalgic lately.


That nostalgia may very well just end up killing him. X-Wing slid into the reaches of hyperspace, only to pop out and find a nice group of TIEs swarming on the mothballed ships. He wasn't surprised. Either that mothballed vessel was operational or it contained something very valuable.


"Looks like we'll have to take those goes out first before our run..."


Pulling the yoke back, the starfighter started to scream towards the assembled enemy targets.

 

[Amz]

Team 1 | [member="Dirks Hutchinson"], [member="Judah Dashiell"]

This was the life of a pilot. Flying patrol one day, flying into the teeth of an enemy formation the next.

At least she had something to do.

Jamie huffed a breath and tried to get comfortable in the padded ejection seat of her bird, keeping a loose hand on the stick in front of her as she and the other pilots came out of their jump, landing smack-dab into the middle of a fire show. Automatically, Jamie reached up and flipped the switch to lock her S-foils into attack position. "Chip, I need shields."

Letters flashed on her HUD display as her R2 unit announced his compliance.

With that, Jamie fell into pair formation, pulling the throttle and picking up speed toward the swarm.

"Let's give these squints a run."

 

[Malia Afredane]

"Come on up and help me fly!" She called to the newcomer. The Wicked Grace lifted off the decking and cleared the hanger out into the blackness of space. She flipping switches and preparing for the jump to hyperspace, yelling to Rusty over the comlink.

"One minute to jump Rusty. I hope you know what the feth you're doing."

She shook her head at her partner's plan but smiled at the young woman who joined them on the trip.

"I'm Mal, that metal bonehead is Rusty. This is the Wicked Grace. I assume we're all going to same dance here, blowing up the second ship?"

Mal caught the lightsaber on her hip and felt a little excited to see one of them up close.

"Rusty, we're a go in 3...2...1..."

[member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Rusty"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

[member="Rekha Kaarde"]
Team one
Pulling escorts away from cruisers.


The Sullustan co-pilot was rapidly moving has hands across the console. Whilst Kairon had the controls, the trained navy man was handling firing arcs and tracking fighters. The Quin pulled round to port, and Kairon carefully watched the TIEs encroaching on their range rings.

“X-Wings keep out of the arcs,” Kairon said into the comm. The arcs were plotted onto the battlenet and transmitted to their tactical computers. "Hold fire!" he said to his own crew.

Three TIEs broke from the main formation and beared down on their starboard side. Kairon eased the rotational axis controls to put all three quad turrets in line for their shots. Bright green bolts arced across space, emitting the distinctive sound as the TIEs fired. The Quin held steady, the shields flaring bright blue.

"Now!" laser fire spewed back out from the freighters with deadly accuracy at close range. Two were vaporised in brilliant explosions. The third was merely clipped and shot past them, delivering another strafing run that shook the freighter. Kairon had already hit the thrusters, he couldn't turn the keep up with the TIE, but he could angle them around to keep it from getting in behind them. "Rekha can you make the shot?" Kairon asked. The last TIE was spewing out smoke as it went, clearly struggling.

"TIE squadrons are all engaged, second team should be coming in any second. Once they're clear, form up and make your attacking runs!" came the voice of an alliance officer.

"Come on old girl," Kairon mumbled to his ship. "You keep her safe Rusty," he whispered to the luminiferous ether.

 

[Rusty]

Wicked Grace
Team 2

In some circles, clinging to the outside of a freighter as it burrowed through hyperspace towards a battle with nothing more than a couple of mag clamps, a pressure suit, a really, really big gun, and enough ammo to fight a war was considered insanity.

Actually, Rusty didn't know of any circles where that wasn't considered an act of lunacy, come to think of it.

"I need new circles," he muttered to himself.

The Captain had gone along with his plan only because they were expecting the fighter screen to be more than the Wicked Grace's somewhat sluggish turrets could handle. They were meant for blasting holes in uncooperative marks, not taking on military grade starfighters. Gertrude, on the other hand, was only 32 kilograms. In mircrogravity, and with a firm anchor, Rusty could swing her around like nobody's business, and while she wasn't much good against shields, TIEs weren't shielded. She could pop the things like tin cans, and the Shard never missed a chance to let the old girl sing.

That's why he was clamped to the hull, hoping desperately that another ship wouldn't drift too close. The mass shadow of another ship could rip him free, clamps and all. The wake of the ships exiting hyperspace would pull him along with them, but then he'd be hurtling towards the battle sans ship. Hyperspace was weird like that.

Which was why he started swearing profusely once he felt the first tug against his body, a sure sign of a nearing mass shadow.

"Oh, [bleep]."

The pull became harder. It wouldn't be enough to rip him off unless the other ship tried to pull away which, given the potential danger, it did.

"Oh [bleep]."

It was either kill the clamps or get ripped apart. Rusty chose to kill the clamps, and now found himself drifting about five meters away from the Wicked Grace.

Rusty began swearing furiously, but nothing was getting through the radio except for bleeps. However, anyone wanting to run them through a Morse code translator might find the beeps far more communicative than one might think.

--. / --- / -..-. / -.- / .- / .-. / -.- / -..-. / -.-- / --- / ..- / .-. / -..-. / -- / --- / - / .... / . / .-.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

The galaxy was full of surprises. The being in front of her, the one identified as [member="Rusty"] was something unique. Kaia was a Starchaser, so that meant she was part technomancer… sort of. She lived on a starship, not part of the Quarian Flotilla, or the Battlestar Galactica’s fleet of refugees but something that was not too far from either of those. That meant the Force worked in a bit of a different way for the family, and she was very partial to her technology.

“Pretty isn’t everything.” She smiled, taking a look out to her own Wandering Star that would find itself to a rendezvous point for her, probably near the home ship, or Sullust. Sure, she was a Jedi, but she was a New Jedi Order member, which made her infinitely more cool than the Republic Jedi, at least she thought so.

He wasn’t human, was he? Not even organic.

As she boarded, she heard the call from the other who she may find out to be [member="Malia Afredane"] and smiled. “Flying is always one of my specialities, won’t turn down learning a new ship.” She grinned. Looking between the two. “I’m Kaia. Formerly an independent freighter captain.” At 18-19, yes. Blame her father.

She was ready for the jump. But was she ready for what was on the other side? Maybe not so much.