Imperial Entanglements

[Rolth Wygraant]

The Flight Commander's news was...unfortunate.

"Cresh and Dorn squadrons are under attack! Major casualties!"

Wygraant wheeled around to view the holographic display of their deployed starfighters, and blanched. He was wrong. His "phantom" fighters were as real as anything, and his careless abdication of defending the bombing run now left the assault on the Action VI transport well and truly defeated. The YV-666 and shuttlecraft supporting the Rebels only served to underscore the catastrophe.

"Recall all squadrons onto our vector for defensive screen!"

The Decimator captain realized, much to his chagrin, that his ventral flank was opened up to the rapidly-approaching Venator destroyer.

"Helm, rescind last trajectory adju-..."

The ship shuddered again, pitching several crewers to the ground at the observation deck.

"Damage?"

The Flight Commander's sour expression seemed to worsen if that was possible.

"Impact inside our hangar bay! Heavy damage! Secondary explosions are causing multiple hull breaches!"

The situation they faced was becoming untenable. Wygraant's face looked grim.

"Right. Damage control to the main hangar bay at once. Bring our vector back to engage the pocket carrier in a starboard broadside."

He looked to the rapidly-approaching dagger shape of the Challenger

"Prepare port-side batteries. It seems we have a two-front engagement."

In the hangar bay...

Flames engulfed the hangar bay as fire teams rushed to put them out. The atmospheric shield now disabled, triggering sliding bulkhead covers to seal the atmosphere as best as possible, but not before numerous racks of equipment, and crewers were sucked into space. With the main hangar bay essentially put out of action, only the secondary bay would be available for any deployments.

[Carré Inirial]

Originally Posted by Aris V'larr

Aris and her three flightmates turned in a graceful arc away from the smoldering wreckage as the Imperials regrouped. "Angel to Rogue Squadron: in the interest of keeping a thorough account, that's two you owe to the Thunderbolts."

"Welcome to the party, Angel, this is Phoenix...glad y'all could join us." Carré grinned as she replied, her voice light even as the wheels in her mind clicked rapidly. The voice sounded startlingly familiar, and yet she couldn't quite place why it did so. Arching a brow, she shook her head after the brief thought and turned her attention back to the formation.

Thankfully, Joker had paid heed to what she'd said and their maneuver worked perfectly to split apart the remaning TIEs. While Joker and Flipper chased down their group, Carré and Sin took to eliminating their own, watching triumphantly as the panicked pilots broke protocols and patterns. Their orders must be changing constantly, she mused, no Imp pilot flies that erratically otherwise.

At least, not the good ones.

She spared a half second to spin her fighter around to check on the convoy, finally heaving a sigh of relief as she watched the ships disappear into hyperspace at last.

[Kylie Archer]

Another blast shook the shuttle, shaking the cockpit like a Rancor swatting at its prey.

"I think its time we get out of here." Kylie had already input the coordinates into the navi-computer before they left the hangar. That way they would know where they were going. She leveled out the shuttled and pulled back on the lever on the hyperdrive motivator.

"So we split the kills and I owe you 2 drinks?" she said to Tera, smiling. Right before the shuttle jumped to hyperspace, another torpedo slammed into the aft of the ship. The explosion took down the rest of the shields. Sparks flew from the consoles in the cockpit. Before Kylie or Tera could do anything, the shuttle left realspace and the battle.

[Vansen Tyree]

Since man had first begun to strap guns to ships, the broadside had been one of the staples of naval combat, whether atop the waves or amongst the stars. It seemed ridiculous when you thought of it: given the three dimensional nature of space, the concept of ignoring one of those dimensions completely to bring yourself parallel to an enemy, seemed incredibly odd. The designers of ships like the Venator or the Imperator designed their craft with exactly that eventuality in mind: the dagger-like wedge was as much a means of bringing as many guns to bear along those flanks as it was a means to intimidate.

Tyree considered his options. While the sixty-two turbolasers aboard the Challenger made for a formidable array, an Impstar like the Decimator had the hull space and reactor power to wield more, not to mention the dozens of ion cannons mixed in: even with her attention split between the three Rebel ships, the Decimator had more guns than they could handle, and even with her shields weakened, she'd likely last longer than the Challenger could in a fair fight.

But this didn't need to be a fair fight. It didn't need to be a victory. They just needed to last, and keep the Decimator occupied, until the last of the Jedi ships jumped away. That being the case -

His attention snapped towards the conning officer. "All engines, full reverse," he barked, instructions tumbling out in clipped orders. He ignored a confused glance from Adonis.

"All engines, full reverse," the conning officer echoed from the crew pit, repeating the order to the helmsmen as part of an archaic and outdated - but no less effective - protocol and tradition.

Eyes turned towards the Commodore from all across the bridge, but his own gaze remained focused on the looming form of the Decimator, dead ahead. He focused on the pinpoint spot on the distant command tower where he imagined his opponent Captain to be standing. Here's something your ship can't do...

"Weapons." His voice lacked the usual bitter growl, replaced instead with calm determination. "Forward batteries to fire at will on any and all targets of opportunity," he commanded. A pause followed. His eye narrowed. "And load torpedo tubes one through four."

[Cirrsseeto Raurrssatta]

"Arre you lookjing at what jI'm lookjing at??!"

Cirr, from the ventral gunnery station, paused a moment to catch a wonderous sight. Both Valiant and Challenger enaged Decimator in a titanic crossfire. Even from their cramped and smoky vantage, the momentum of the battle felt turned in their favor, and he let out a triumphant shout that echoed in his lower-deck domain, and could no-doubt be heard all the way up the ladder well to the cockpit.

The flight of TIEs seemed to have sensed the change too. Mauled by flights from Challenger, they were peeling back to form a defensive screen around the mother ship. Cresh and Dorn squadrons had been nearly annihilated. Aurek and Besh were weakened, as was Esk. From Cirr's targeting grid, it looked like they had lost their capacity for the offensive.

To make matters even better, the ships of the convoy began, one by one, to bolt for hyperspace. First, Knightfall, then...

"Sanjis, Whaladon's away!"

A sense of relief washed over him as the most important vessel in the convoy shot into the ether. Cirr left his gun station, returning to the chaos of the engine room just in time to hear Sanis's voice squawk on the voxxcomm.

"We're getting jump coordinates coming in now, Cirr. If you tell me we've still got a hyperdrive, I'll kiss you!"

Waving away a puff of smoke as a MARCUS module killed an electrical fire, Cirr ducked and weaved toward his diagnostic console. A few short keystrokes, and a slow toothy smile spread on his grime-smeared face.

"Well puckerr up then, butterrcup."

Layla the worst behind her, moved to Valiant's flank to give the rest of the Rogues and the flights from Challenger space to pursue. It would only be a matter of moments before their hyperdrive spooled for the jump.

[Kylie Archer]

"Whooo, that was close", said Kylie as she looked over at Tera. The shuttle had suffered a direct hit when they jumped to hyperspace, but they had made it out alive and mostly intact.

That couldn't be said for the plow pushers of Tie Fighter pilots that they went up against. By her records, they had accounted for at least 4 kills... IN A SHUTTLE. Kylie really thought it was her fabulous flying that helped Tera hit them.

"Dropping out of hyperspace in 5 seconds. Then I can collect on all those drinks you owe me." Kylie flashed a smirk at Tera and them pulled back on the hyperdrive lever.

Nothing happened.

Kylie pulled back on it again.

Again... nothing.

"Frackin' Sithspit. Something's wrong."

Kylie swore and slammed her fist down on the console. Nothing happened. The shuttle continued to barrel through hyperspace past the rendezvous point of the Wheel.

"We are in fracking huge trouble."

Kylie pushed herself out of her chair and made her way to the back of the ship. She had no idea how to fix a malfunctioning hyperdrive, but she figured that she might as well hit it with a huge hydrospanner. She pulled back and whacked the hyperdrive with it.

Still the shuttle continued down their hyperspace route.

Where it would lead would be anyone's guest.

[Rolth Wygraant]

Decimator poured turbolaser fire in all directions, striking out at both Valiant and the now-backpedalling Challenger. The Nebulon B Frigate Intrepid was closing quarters, putting another wedge between Decimator and the Wheel's remaining flank. They too shared in the Imperial warship's wrath, as turbolaser fire rained down on their shields.

"Captain, the Action VI has jumped to light speed. Sensors indicate several other vessels in the flotilla are also spooling their hyperdrives, including the pocket carrier."

Wygraant, scowling, watched the sleek shape of the Mon Calamari carrier slip past his ship's contours, hammered on all fronts by turbolaser fire. Even though they were pummelling the carrier's shields, he knew that they simply didn't have enough time to deliver a critical hit to the craft before it hypered away. Unlike the Imperials, the Rebels didn't have the incumberance of having to recall their fighters, as both mother ship and fighter could accelerate into hyperspace alike.

He had to come to terms with this fight. He'd lost.

"Divert batteries exclusively to the frigate and the Venator. All stations to defense."

He gave the command in a weary voice, adjusting his jacket as he at last turned his attention from Valiant and onto Intrepid, now the closest threat. Since the Rebels were keen to spirit their original flotilla away, Captain Wygraant surmised that this latest group of ships was essentially intended to bail out the smaller fleet and get it to safety. He doubted their resolve to continue the assault beyond their rescue, much less their capability.

[Jason Na'moda]

Jason followed the lead of the others, his astromech plotting the route the others had taken. He charged the hyperdrive core and rocketed outside the Impstar's sphere of influence and punched it. As the stars blurred into lines, he waved a not so fond farewell to the huge sign of Imperial power and shot to lightspeed.