Open Fortunes Favour

[Gentis Freem]

“I'm afraid you have the misfortune of facing Captain Gentis Freem!”

Yavin had been an excersie in futility. A backwards world with nobody living on it, the Moguls Fortune had found nothing there, bar scrappers with no credits to shake down. However, Gentis was determined not to let this mild frustration get him down.

He had been able to source a broad collection of cargo containers and jam them full of ion mines.

The crew had already expressed concerns about the expense and the requirement for such a cargo. So Gentis had shot one of them in the leg and enslaved the other three. It had been a busy journey through hyperspace from Yavin to Junction, and he was almost happy when they punched out of it.

"Launch the containers to the set coordinates." the Captain ordered as he stamped his way onto the bridge. He wore his usual clothes, with an oversized brown trenchcoat and a bandanna. Taking his seat in the Captain's chair, he watched as the cargo containers floated into the hyperspace lane before them, ready to spring his trap, as the Moguls Fortune kept out of sight in an asteroid field.

OOC - I cannot keep to 48 hour posting windows around work, so would ask people to join this thread if they are flexible with posting times.

 

[Levik Karn]

Meanwhile in orbit of the planet Taris, the Pugio-class Frigate baptised the Imperial Space Ship (ISS) Eriadu (named so after one of the first planets to voluntarily join the Sith Brotherhood and the only one that is still part of the Empire), sat idle waiting instructions from the Commander that just landed his own Peacekeeper gun-boat in its hangar.

Said Commander was, ofcourse, the chief peacekeeper of the planet. Levik Karn. The crew waited patiently, yet also a bit furiated, for the high-ranking Imperial to reach the bridge annex command center aboard the ISS Eriadu. When he did so, however, the cleanly pressed black uniform with the stripes of command on the collar and chest were enough to turn the anger into anxiety. Commander Karn already had a track record of relieving other high-ranking Imperials of their duties. First the Governor of Namadii was arrested on his orders, then the Fortress Commander of the Imperial Vault on Raxus and now he suddenly told the Captain of the Eriadu that he was enroute and to hold everything until he was there.

They had all heard how he had dressed down a lieutenant at a Raxus garrisson and a reputation like that usually preceded you. This time, however, he actually seemed in a good mood. "Ladies and gentlemen," he announced to the gathered officers, "Today we will be saving the hyperlanes around the planet Junction from disaster."

The Imperial Security Bureau had three departments. First there was the very overt Imperial Peacekeeper Corps. Law enforcement, basically. Former rangers and former planetary cops all dressed in the same uniform and upholding the Imperial principle across the Empire. Then there was the intelligence division busy with espionage and counterespionage. They were a highly secretive bunch and their agents and cipher agents barely -if ever- were known to the masses. Then there was the often forgotten part of the bureau: the Blackout Fleet. Compromising of smugglers, pirates and other spacetravelling folk that sold the Empire information or did some off-the-books work whenever the ISB needed them to.

Today, the ISB needed them to. The pirate captain Gentis Freem, also a known gangleader planetside, was going to disrupt hyperspace travel around Junction. All to have the Empire come and save the day. A brilliant, albeit expensive, plan.

 

[Gentis Freem]

Shuffling in his seat, Gentis leered out of the vast window of the Moguls Fortune bridge. So far, everything was proceeding to plan, with the cargo containers now duly nestled into position. "Deploy headhunters, ready the ship." he commanded, feeling remarkably imperious as his underlings hastened to implement his command. Quickly, the dorsal deployed fighters lept into the air. A clutch of cargo ships, mostly drone piloted, dropped out of hyperspace and crashed into the cargo containers - which detonated, the ion mines disabling the vessels as planned.

By his calculations, they had a finite amount of time to respond, snatch up the ill-gotten gains from the drone barges and escape, before the local response ships arrived.

"Move!"[/b] he bellowed as the Moguls Fortune moved from the asteroid field, cannons engaged and scanning the surrounding areas, the snub-fighters moving ahead, sporadic blasts coming from them as they took out the command bridges of the drone barges. They would easily cover the space, Ion blasts having done titanic damage to the now-crippled cargo container ships, leaving them ripe for the taking.

"Quickly now." the Captain ordered, desperate to get his own ship up alongside the largest drone barge, so they could load the stolen cargo.

 

[Levik Karn]

The communications panel monitoring chatter suddenly flared up red and the comms officer onboard the ISS Eriadu turned towards the Captain, her first officer and the Peacekeeper Commander who had just rather casually commandeered the ship. "Captain, we've got reports of pirate activity near Junction. Massive ion mine detonation." the Captain turned to Levik with a raised eyebrow, "Let me guess, the Imperial Security Bureau?"

As if it was the most ordinary thing in the world, Levik smiled and motioned for the captain to take her seat on the bridge. "Let's go save Junction, then-" he repeated his earlier statement. Sure enough the ISS Eriadu headed towards their most ideal location for a hyperspace jump towards Junction, but when it came to the question of whether or not they'd get their at the maximum possible speed or not, Levik walked over to the pilot's control panel and manually lowered the throttle of the warship. "We can't be too fast," he explained as the first officer was about to protest, "don't want it to look like we were standing by to come to the rescue." After all, that would make it seem like this entire thing was a plan orchestrated and paid for by the Imperial Security Bureau and that -albeit true- couldn't be allowed to be a thought that lingered in the heads of Junction's ruling council.

Eventually, after giving Gentis Freem finite time to board the cargo ships and steal their cargo, the ISS Eriadu made the jump to hyperspace.

[OOC: The ISS Eriadu will arrive next round]

@Nor'baal

 

[Gentis Freem]

"Get a move on!" Gentis shouted over the comms as his men moved into position and busied themselves with moving their ill-gotten gains over to the 'mothership'. Most of the cargo was in nondescript containers, with early reports from his men suggesting it was a combination of ship parts, droids and mining lasers - nothing overly interesting.

A few clicks came back in over the comms, signalling that a considerable amount of the cargo had been moved onto the main ship.

"Right, fighters move back to the main ship." he ordered his men, watching as the fighters moved into position and returned to their holding pattern over the Moguls Fortune. It was over reasonably swiftly, and Gentis had already worked out that they would barely make a profit thanks to the value of the stolen cargo - his real profits would be made later.

Focusing his attention back on the matter at hand, Gentis reeled off a few more orders "Bring the weapons and shields online. Begin calculations for the hyperspace jump, and fighters - keep a weather eye on the egress points." he instructed, ready for what he knew was fast approaching.

 

[Levik Karn]

The Pugio-class Frigate dropped out of hyperspace in full sight of the pirates. Immediately, as if it is standard protocol for spaceships of war, it engaged its shields and readied their battle-stations. "Ready to engage in three," the overzealous captain began her countdown, only to be stopped by a sudden handmotion from Commander Karn, "Wait a minute, comms broadcast this on an open channel," he gave the comms officer a signal and walked over to the central area of the bridge to ensure that he would even be visible to whoever monitored this channel's video feeds alongside the audio ones.

"Pirates at my bow, this is Imperial Ship of War, the Eriadu-" he began, announcing their arrival to basically the entire sector and the commercial ships travelling along the hyperspace routes that crossed here at Junction. "cease your actions immediately or be fired upon."

Junction was no longer part of the Empire, despite its weighted history in the Sith and during the expulsion, but it would be important to show its government that the Imperial anti-piracy ships were still instrumental in defending its borders. Most of galactic trade went passed Junction, including between the Coreworlds and Corporate Space, so overtly defending the hyperlanes against piracy was good PR regardless of Junction's allegiance.

Levik had negotiated a hefty sum with these pirates and he expected them to engage him into combat if only for the cinematic display. They would be able to fix there ship ten times over with what the Empire paid them. Gentis Freem would recognize both Levik's voice and face to confirm that this would be the show battle and that the pirates had not accidently encountered a real Imperial patrol.

@Nor'baal

 

[Gentis Freem]

"Damnit!" The Captain slammed his hand down on the arm of his chair in as overzealous a way as he could manage; after all - it was important to keep up appearances. "Bring us about -" he took a deep breath "MAN THE CANNONS! Gentis bellowed as the Moguls Fortune banked toward the incoming ship, its fighters breaking out ahead of the pack.

The headhunters darted forward in a V formation, seeking to engage any fighters that came alongside the Pugio ship. They would engage the main vessel if none appeared, starting its exposed weaponry.

However, the Moguls Fortune was to do the brunt of the attack. Opening fire with its four cannons, and its fourteen gunwales, it laid down a barrage of fire, both of energy weapons and missiles, blanketing toward the incoming ship, and seeking to offer its Captain a good show.

"Keep firing, and keep on with those jump calculations!" he instructed, keen to make their exit as soon as they could.

 

[Levik Karn]

The Pugio-class didn't have a hangar capacity, but it was designed to combat pirates and that was exactly what it was doing right now. It's heavy deflector screen went up just as the turbolaser turrets opened fire on the Moguls Fortune. As agreed, it wouldn't shoot at the starfighters for the chance of them hitting and thus killing Gentis' men was too big. It was never good to kill the people you employed, after all. At least, not if that wasn't what they were getting paid for. This band of pirates was being paid to put up a good show, nothing more, nothing less.

"Commander Karn, why don't we just shoot these starfighters? One less pirate doesn't hurt anyone," the captain of the ISS Eriadu complained, but it was to deaf ears. "No, fire the turrets to weaken the shields. Refrain from using missiles," he'd have a bigger problem on his hands if one of the missiles hit and the Mogul's Fortune was to go down. Naturally at least one of these pirates would survive and before the Levik could stop it the entire galaxy would know of the Empire's ruse.

Admittedly, it did seem like rather bad tactics on the Empire's side. Fortunately for them, the Pugio-class had an overwhelming firepower and excellent shields due to its lack of any hangar bays. If this was a real battle of attrition, the pirates wouldn't stand a chance.

@Nor'baal

 

[Gentis Freem]

Now it was time to complete the ruse and make things just a little more dramatic. Being a sensationally wise and intelligent man, Gentis had ensured that a clutch of the fighters had been rigged to blow at a flip of a switch, piloted not by his ‘valued’ men, but instead by astromech droids.

It was a stroke of genius.

As the Imperial ship began to return fire, Gentis slowly flipped the switches one by one, gradually showing a sporadic morass of a handful of his fighters ‘being taken out’ by the ‘fearless intervention’ of the Empire.

”Damnit! he shouted over the opne comm ”Get us out of here!” he yelped, his men joining in the state of panic, as gradually the fighters withdrew, his main ship placing distance between itself and the encroaching Imperial vessel.

Once the fighters returned, Gentis flipped his final switch, and would bolt into hyperspace.