Alas, Salvation

[Castor Chumeda Volante]

The ambush of the fighter squadron had gone well enough that Castor and his Alliance ally, the Wookie known as Greybok, were going to be facing down the next level, the next challenge. This time they would be fighting the pirate freighters that were the bulk of the pirate forces within the area.

Once they took them out, there would only be the ground headquarters to destroy and they would be ready to collect the bounty and get the damned shield and power core upgrades. It would have been easier had he the credits to just buy them outright but let it never be said that Castor was afraid of fighting for his dinner as it were.

But right now?

They were just waiting for the pirates to actual show up. They were due to emerge from hyperspace any minute now, as they always did, so it was nice to know that they were consistent since it would lead to their deaths. Castor let out a deep breath he wasn't aware he had been holding as he spoke to his ally over the coms.

He would like to say he was being professional...

"So you're Greybok... but you're not actually grey. Huh. Cool. You got a nickname?"

... yeah, he was not being professional. He was bored of waiting around for the pirates at this stage.

There was also someone called Crix but Castor didn't know them from Adam at this stage.

@Malon @Zay

 

[Greybok]

Smalltalk was tedious and Greybok hated it. As much time as he spent around them, he wasn't human and he never really understood their need to yammer whenever it got too quiet. They were all rather like droids in that respect. The Wookiee pilot checked all of the Starbird's instruments to ensure that they were prepared for the jump back into realspace. Only then did he reply and, without Twobee in the cockpit at the moment to translate for him, he hoped the man could understand Shyriiwook.

«Just call me Grey.» He loathed the nicknamed, but others seemed to favor it so he tolerated it well enough. Then he turned to the human and, momentarily, squinted his eyes at the other man. «W— Who are you again?»

So many people had been on and off the Starbird lately for this mission or that that he could honestly not keep track of them all. Plus, all humans seemed to look alike. Unless he spent along time around a particular human, faces and names seemed to blur together—also rather like droids. He was somewhat distracted from this line of thinking by a whistling from the navicomputer, followed by the white tunnel of hyperspace bursting into a hundred thousand pinpricks of light as the freighter returned to realspace.

They were here. @Nefieslab

 

[Crix Dolan (TL8)]

A sheen of perspiration clung to Crix as he threw his XS-100 into an evasive maneuver. His co-pilot let loose a sharp scream as the Corellian light freighter completed a complex assortment of acrobatics. Crix indignantly shot the piloting droid a hurt look.

"Really? Really!" he chided as he jerked his yokes to the right sending the ship into a barrel roll.

The droids response was immediate:

WEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAOOOOHHHHH!

After completing the roll the smuggler crowed, "I think you're being a little DRAMATIC!" He pulled back on the instrumentation in his hands, tipping the nose of his ship upward, a sudden claxon blared to life alerting him to incoming fire. He abandoned his current maneuver and dodged to the left, just bearly evading the incoming fire.

"Peetwo," Crix started with a melodic annoyance in his tone, "-- we need to get out of here!" he said as he threw the throttle forward and went into a wide arc, distancing himself from his current tail for just a moment.

The pirate's forces were starting to form up and the willy smuggler knew his time to hit the brick had come. He just hoped he'd gotten enough of the force to follow him. After all his job was to lead them into a surprise attack. So, there was probably a capital ship waiting for these idiots. That train of thought eased his mind momentarily and a successful chortle from Peetwo told him it was time to meet up with the calvary!

Crix opened his com channel and hailed all ships in his vicinity. The cannon fire ceased believing he was hailing to surrender he guessed. Crix placed his ship just out of range from the nearest ship and unleashed a stream of obscenities and jeers across multiple languages including, Huttese, Rodese, Shyriiwook, and Ryl. The explicit proclamation of defiance was in fact so severe that it garnered a moment of silence before a literal avalanche of rage.

The smuggler hit the fastest U-turn probably ever performed and punched it into hyperspace. As his ship coasted through the undulating miasma, a smug little smirk rested on his lips. As soon as he reached to coordinates he'd get to see his pursuers get blown into smithereens. The jump was a feint. Crix had purposefully allowed a tracker to be placed on his ship during the scuffle, Peetwo had notified him when it'd hit, and now the nervous little piloting droid gave him a sad warble.

Crix chucked and affectionately patted the top of its casing. "I know, bud. Sorry for scaring you."

The droid chirped a question and the smuggler stifled a laugh adding, "I promise, I won't tell Susan you screamed."

Crix smiled as the droid warbled happily. They traveled a few more minutes and then Peetwo's tritone alert told him they were closing in on their coordinates. The smuggler shifted in his seat bringing his hands back to the instrumentation and on his count, they exited hyperspace.

The blue miasma of hyperspace revealed the elongated starlines which collapsed into a nearly empty starscape.

Confused, Crix swung his light freighter around and set his sights on another light freighter that appeared to have been slapped together in someone's backyard. Panic twisted the smuggler's guts into a vice as his cavalry appeared to be non-existent.

Oh frak....

Crix immediately hailed the vessel in front of him, "WE'VE GOT INCOMING, I REPEAT, WE'VE GOT INCOMING!"

The last thing he did before the enemy arrived was throw his ship into an evasive maneuver. He hoped the other ship was prepared...

"Maybe I did my job a little too well?!" He groaned as Peetwo wailed in terror.

@Nefieslab
@Malon

 

[Castor Chumeda Volante]

Castor wasn't surprised that Greybok didn't remember him - he supposed to a xeno with that much fur it wasn't hard for the creature's fur to get in the way of it's eyes. Probably had trouble seeing anything with eyes covered by fur after all. He chuckled a little bit and shook his head. He moved from the cockpit towards one of the gunner positions instead, now that they were back in real space.

Crix had been sent on ahead to get the pirates to chase him, ensuring that they wouldn't be paying as much attention to them until it was too late. Settling in at the gun controls, he blinked a little bit as the sensors confirmed just how much of the squadron that Crix had managed to get to follow him.

All of them.

The man had managed to get the entire squadron of pirates to chase after him. He stared for a moment before simply shaking his head a little bit.

"That's some kind of luck..." he muttered to himself, "Not sure if it's bad or good at this point."

Once they were within weapons range, Castor would open fire from his gunner position, blasting two of the leading fighters apart in a burst of laser fire. Hopefully that would be enough to give Crix some breathing room before they got to the heavy-duty fighting.

@Malon @Zay

 

[Crix Dolan (TL8)]

"Hang on!" He shouted to Peetwo as Crix threw his ship into a dive. The pissed off pirates only had eyes for him as the majority of the force followed his lead.

"Wow, these guys can really hold a grudge..." Crix grumbled as sweat poured from his brow. A wry smile split his lips as the smuggler just bearly evaded the first volley of fire. He whipped his ship up and to the left attempting to whip a quick U-turn and catch them unawares, but he miscalculated the size of the group chasing him.

"EIGHT?!"* He blurted in amazed chagrin. He looked at Peetwo apologetically, and said with a weathered sigh, "...yeah," he swallowed, "buckle up." Peetwo warbled nervously in response.

The smuggler threw the throttle forward peeling off to the right away from the shifted hoard gunning for him. Captain and piloting droid wailed in unison as Crix desperately evaded a torrential outpouring of cannon fire. Part way through the run Crix's starboard side was nicked and the hit sent is trajectory just enough to catch a glancing blow across his shields.* As soon as it was clear he evaded back to the left attempting to shake at least one of the karking pirates!

@Malon
@Nefieslab

 

[Greybok]

Grey noticed that Crix was in-trouble and banked over behind the pirates who were chasing him. These pirates would be well-within Castor's range in his gunner seat—giving him a fair shot at any who tried to bail.

In the meantime, Greybok dropped his groundsweeper light cannon from the flap under which it was concealed along the ventral side of his ship. He then squeezed down on his triggers and opened fire, blowing one of the pirates to smithereens with a spray of red lasers and scattering the others on Crix's tail.

Proud of himself, Greybok roared loudly and victoriously over the comm-channel, then pulled out from behind Crix to give chase to the fleeing pirate ships.

OOC - Sorry for the wait, gents. I'm in too many threads right now lol @Nefieslab @Zay

 

[Castor Chumeda Volante]

Greybok was so kind.

The wookie pilot lined him up with three of the damned enemy fighters and who was Castor to turn that down? Laughing, he pulled the trigger, leading his shots to compensate for the speed of the Wookie's ship and for the speed of the fighters. There was probably more than a little bit of the Force being used in the shots he knew.

He knew of no other way to really fight after all.

And this time it paid off massively.

Keeping the fire on, he blasted apart two of them in quick succession. Just when he thought he was about to lose his chance at wrecking the final fighter in sight however, when Grey was moving them into a new position, his last shot flew true, slamming into the small cockpit and wrecking the fighter.

"I gotta get me one of these..."

@Malon @Zay

 

[Crix Dolan (TL8)]

Crix and Peetwo joined Greybok in his victorious war cry as they felt the focus fire abate.

"Woo, appreciate that!" He called over the com. Using the moment he'd been alotted by Greybok and Castor, Crix passed control of the ship over to Peetwo and jumped into his turret.

"Finally, it's time to show these pirates how to shoot! Let's go Peetwo!" Crix called to his piloting droid.

A wry grin spread across his face as he felt his ship come around and line up an enemy. The scoundrel squeezed the trigger and laser fire ripped the ship in his sights apart. The ship immediately listed to the left bringing another ship into view. This one was prepared and went into a swift dive, Peetwo adjusted and Crix ground his teeth as his ship angled to trap their enemy. The enemy ship bobbed and weaved just before him, Crix watched the ships movements, counted to three and pulled the trigger.

The enemy ship exploded into space dust and following Greybok's lead, Crix released his own battle cry! With those two down that left four pirates, and based on the way things were going Crix had a really good feeling about this.

"Peetwo, Let's return that favor and back up the Starbird!" The ships trajectory shifted placing Crix in a defensive position bringing up the Starbird's rear.

@Malon
@Nefieslab

 

[Castor Chumeda Volante]

There were only 4 remaining fighters and Castor was ready to reduce that number down to zero. He opened himself up to the Force even further and pushed his senses to their brink as he focused purely on the task at hand - purely on making the best possible shots that would do the most damage.

Reaching out into the void, Castor did not aim with his hand - he aimed with his eye. He did not shoot with his hand - he shot with his mind.

Pulling the triggers once, then twice and then a third and a fourth time, Castor didn't hear any explosions or even see them - instead he felt the lives of the four pilots wink out of existence in the Force. He felt everything there were, everything they could have been, end and it shook him.

Releasing the controls, Castor sat back in his seat and for the first time in a long time he just sat there and let the fact that he had killed people wash over him because he had. He had killed people and only by being so connected to the Force at the time did he realize, remember, just what it was that he was taking when he took a life.

He was taking everything someone was and everything they had the potential to ever be.

"We're done here." he reported over the com lines as he pulled off his headset, "... I need a drink."

/End Thread
@Malon @Zay