CDR Gideon Pith - Scenario 00001

[Xyrael]

Scenario rules defined here. NPC Player is Samara.


Commander Gideon Pith knew that the holograms around him were little more than a simulation designed to test him. His raised eyebrow covered an eye that peered at every detail - the impeccable and ornately designed holograms seemed lifelike. He had considered the scenario before, reviewing the pamphlet tirelessly over the past two nights. It was a surprise to him that his command would be tested, and by such a seemingly difficult scenario. He judged this to be the idea of some young officer who challenged his intelligence. He took time to consider the strategies necessary to overcome the Imperial foe as he strolled along the holographic deck. He had at his command a single Nebulon-B Frigate, designed more for anti-fighter work than anti-capital. His biggest weakness would be overcoming the Victory Star Destroyer. He had would have a few minutes to capitalize upon the surprise attack before the vessels weaker engines brought it into threatening range. He would need to make the most of that.

Escorting his frigate, a single squadron of X-Wings. It had been his prerogative to choose the type of fighter cover he had, and he had selected X-Wings for their dynamic versatility, though he had taken a moment to consider utilizing bombers instead - they would have perhaps threatened the Victory destroyer and annihilated the freighters and station. But, he realized, he still had the TIE's to consider.

He had chosen to deploy the fighters prior to entering hyperspace, increasing the ability to retard the deployment of TIE's from the starbase itself. He hoped to catch them with their pants down. "Prepare to engage hyperdrive," he remarked calmly, pausing for a moment as the AI processed the command, simulating human delay. "Go."

The ship, and it's escorts, slammed into a wall of light as they entered what seemed like a new realm. With decades of experience behind him, he hardly found anything left to be fascinating about the stars, so he ignored it and instead waiting to see what appeared.

The ship exited hyperspace ridiculously close to the station, the fighters following it close by. Commander Pith grinned as he looked at the display before him, revealing his quarry before him. A plethora of unarmed transports, and a station. He knew the TIE's would begin swarming him soon enough.

"All batteries, fire at will. Increase power to forward deflectors. Engines to half ahead, bring us within range of that station! Electronics suite, use a multispectral jam on enemy communications, I don't want those TIE's coordinating with each other!" he grumbled. "Fighters are free to engage hostile contacts, prioritize enemy fighters undocking from the station and coordinate targets with fire control!"

"What of the freighters, sir?!" an Ensign was programmed to ask.

"God damnit, son," he muttered, refraining himself further. He knew he was being reviewed, and worse, being vulgar to a hologram was just bad form, "just concentrate the turbolasers on knocking out their engines when possible. I'm not here for them, though. This station is my target."

He grumbled, he knew he only had a few minutes to make this work. But, it was the first truly exciting thing he had done in decades. A grin crossed his face as the holographic bridge screen displayed beautiful red blasters sizzling through space.

 

[Samara]

The Victory I-class Star Destroyer was caught by surprise as the frigate came out of hyperspace and immediatly opened fire, it was a rash and unpredictable move, with a further delayed response by the fact that the ship commander was not in the command deck at the time of the attack. The station's shielding wouldn't last very long against concentrated fire, so the computer generated oponent for Gideon decided to put his ship between the enemy frigate and the refueling station, in order to partially shield it from further harm.

As soon as it started to move, its weapons; 40 Double turbolasers batteries and 10 Quad turbolasers batteries, opened fire on the frigate completely ignoring enemy X-wings. Ten concussion missiles were fired against the frigate, each one of them separated by a small time window of time, of around ten seconds. If the X-wings were to stray too near to the Victory Star Destroyer they would be helpessly pulled towards their doom. As of yet, there were no signs of any TIE-fighters, the only small ships were the transports, who attempted to get out of the line of enemy fire in a rather clumsy way.

 

[Xyrael]

Commander Gideon's attitude was not becoming an officer. Aside from the proficiency with vulgarity he expressed, he had managed to throw his manual and officer's cap aside. The scenario had glitched, and he was furious at whatever young brat officer had thought this would be funny.

"Nothin' ever goes as planned anyway," he muttered to himself. "The shit's just hit the frakkin' fan."

He composed himself quickly, noticing that the Victory I-class Star Destroyer was not deploying fighters, and was moving on an intercept course, from right to left, to block his path.

"Recycle stern and starboard shields, intensify port and bow deflectors!! Increase speed to starboard, bring us behind that Star Destroyer!" he barked. "X-Wings, commence attack runs on the Supply Depot, stay opposite the station and out of the Star Destroyer's engagement zone. Ignore the frakking TIE's, hit the station with everything you frakkin' have! Target the shield generators!!" He breathed deep. His ship was faster, and more capable of maneuvering than the slower Star Destroyer. He knew he had to stay out of it's forward dorsal firing arc. His chances for survival had dropped significantly - he estimated he had maybe 2 minutes - but the mission was risky regardless. "All batteries, concentrate firepower on the Star Destroyers' shield generator towers!"

The holographic bridge began to shake as the Star Destroyers superior firepower withered away the shields. He knew his ship would not last long under the barrage, he could only hope to get behind the Star Destroyer, where it's turbolaser batteries were significantly inferior. If he could disable the shields, he'd have a chance.

 

[Samara]

The X-wings were ignored, and now even the frieghters were out of their way, in no time they would make it past the Star Destroyer and the station. The problem would be the way back, and if there would be any ship left to return to.

All batteries of the Star Destroyer slowly began to focus fire on the communication arrays of the frigate ignoring the smaller fighters. Partially shielding the station with its own mass, the biggest, slowest Victory Star Destroyer began to move, trying to catch up with the Nebulon going above him. In a strange move, it was turning 180º from its "vertical" angle, trying to have the frigate right in front of his firing arc at all times. Once the spin was finished the ship would be in the same position as before, just that facing backwards and upside down compared to before, as it was trying to follow the frigate's movement, but in a more sluggish manner.

One by one, TIE-fighters started to appear from the station, ignoring the X-wings as well and going straight for the Nebulon frigate who was every time further away from the Victory's frontal targeting zone. Eventually the Star Destroyer would catch up, it was only a matter of time for the Nebulon to be destroyed. The TIE-fighters, on the other hand, had more maneuverability, and four of them started to swarm the ship, firing from afar as they got closer and closer.

The station was left defenseless in an all-out-offensive that was expecting to destroy the Nebulon before the fighters could disable the refueling station, it was a risky bet, for both of them.

 

[Xyrael]

The shields began to weaken, but Gideon's flanking had begun to pay off. The Star Destroyer was more concerned with flipping his ship front over end to keep his Frigate in its' firing arc than defend the station. What was better, it's course would not intercept his current trajectory, it was moving to engage, but it was not moving to follow. "Divert power from forward and starboard deflectors to the stern shields!" he shouted, not wanting to stand and fight the Star Destroyer, it's triangular mass ominous even in a holoprojector. "Increase engines to full ahead, angle us to make a close pass on the objective! All weapons fire on that station! Maximum firepower!" he demanded, watching as explosions, which he surmised were being caused by the X-Wings proton torpedoes, significantly weakened the depots shields. "We'll only have one pass, make it count." He knew the command to overload the forward batteries would likely result in decreased weapons power, but he did not plan to use the forward turbolasers again. It didn't matter if the weapons melted, as long as the station was destroyed.

A shuddering jar shook the holobridge, Gideon half expecting to lose balance and be thrown. It was only a simulator, though. "Damage report..." he grumbled, not wanting to hear the bad news.

"Shields at 40%, Commander, the TIE's and Star Destroyer are focusing their firepower on our Communications array."

He grunted. Losing the communications array would make him unable to coordinate with his fighters, but it was an acceptable loss. He knew once his ship had disengaged from the Star Destroyer that it would be more than capable of handling a few unshielded fighters; the Nebulon-B, afterall, was an anti-fighter ship first and foremost. The only negative impact it would immediately have is that the TIE's would then be able to once again coordinate with the jam lost.