Jamie pulls his fighter into a sharp reverse, trying to outmaneuver his attacker.  However, despite the success of the move, the R-41 held tight to his tail, matching him move for move, though he was unable to score a hit.

Flash, throwing all discretionary power to engines, had finally moved into weapons range of Jamie's attacker and was ready to show his fellow Talon how to fly a Cloakshape properly.

Devon meanwhile, grew overconfident and fell for a scissors maneuver that saw the shipjacker overshooting his opponent who immediately opened fire.  Jinking sharply, Devon engaged his own scissors maneuver, managing to slip behind his opponent once more.



OOC:  Flash is in weapons range next round.  Jamie's reversal failed and is still being pursued.  Devon's opponent outmanuevered him for a round but Devon managed to regain the advantage.

Watching the console light up and turn off again, Rann began to panic “oh now baby, dont do this to me pleaseplease_pleaseplease”.

Muttering at himself for nearly giving his opponent an easy kill shot, Devon resolved to be more careful as he continued his pursuit.  Alert for further tricks from his target; Devon closed in again, hunting for a kill shot of his own.

Rann, having finally regained power to his systems, streaked back towards the fight, all discretionary power to engines.

Jaime continued to bank and weave heavily, but the skilled pilot of the Starchaser hung to him like glue.  Flash, having caught up, dropped in neatly behind the pirate, send a blast of laser energy into the aft of the craft.  The shot wasn't enough to destroy the vessel, but it severely damaged it with one engine sheering off, the other glowing hotly.  The ship waggled it's wings slightly, slowed significantly and ceased pursuing Jaime.

"Attention pursuers, we surrender, Mynock 4 stand down."

The other ship also stopped maneuvering.



OOC:  The remaining R-41's have surrendered and stopped maneuvering.  Both have powered down their weapon systems.  Their shields systems are still powered but neither has any real shield power at the moment.

With their lack of maneuvering, anyone could easily drop in behind them and essentially get a free hit (any attack would get a +10 bonus due to changes in speed, distance, maneuvering etc).

Rann is under power and is regrouping.

Now you're all hundreds of thousands of km from the convoy and they're waaaay out of scanner range.  It will take you several hours to regroup with them.  You should be able to get them on long range comms.




<Ships>
Jamie: 140/140 HP
Flash: 140/140 HP
Devon: 25/30 SP, 116/120 HP (Missiles: 0)
Rann:  88/120 HP - All systems offline
Tanker 1-3: No Damage

R-41s (3): No shields, Critical Hull Damage
R-41s (6): Critical Shield Damage, Severe Hull Damage
Lambda Shuttle: Full Shields, No Damage

R-41s (1): Destroyed
R-41s (2): Destroyed
R-41s (4): Destroyed
R-41s (5): Destroyed
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:15, Thu 20 Jan 2011.

"Excellent.  Talon fighters, regroup in very loose formation."  To the surrendering craft, Jamie said, "You have made a wise decision.  Leave your weapon systems powered down and standby for further instructions.  If you cooperate, your lives will be spared."

The Starchasers both powered down and hung motionless in space.  The ship Flash had hit continued to spark occasionally from it's remaining engine.  It was clear that even if the pirate had wanted to continue the fight his speed and maneuverability would be almost zero.

“Talon 6 here to Talon fighters, I managed to get my ship back online.   Everything okay at your end?” asked Rann on long range comms, as he headed back to regroup with the others “ Okay guys, what's the situation?”

Devon manouvered his fighter in behind the two enemy ships and lined up a kill shot, but didnt fire.  Like Jamie said - co-operate and they would live and if they didnt... well, Devon was ready to blast them.

'Seven here.  Five, what now?  we need to get back to the convoy, decide what to do with these jokers and go find Six...'

Flash slid his ship in beside Devon, keeping his sights lined up on the R-41.  His twitchy finger was on the trigger, and the pilot was lucky this ship wasn't rigged with a hair-trigger.  For that matter, Flash was lucky to still be in one piece, but perhaps skill had more to do with it than luck.

While they tried to formulate a plan, the Talon starfighters flew on an intercept course with the freighters, the Starchasers in their sights before them.  Going was slow as one of the Starchasers could only manage about half of maximum thrust.  It would take hours to regroup at this rate.

Long range sensors also painted a strange picture.  Two of the freighters were on an intercept course at full thrust.  The third was hanging in space, not moving.

“Okay, that doesn't look good. Two, Five:  why don't you stay here with the prisoners?  Me and Seven will check it out” said Rann as he got in position to fly top speed back to the freighters.

"Sure, leave me behind to do the dull work..." Flash muttered to himself, but not over the comm.  He keyed it after a moment.  "You're pretty beat up right now.  You sure?"

“Not really” said Rann “But me and Seven are in the fastest fighters we have. What choose do we have?  we need to know what's going on over there”

'He's got a point...' said Devon. 'But Six, whatever we do, I recommend you at least get your shields back online, ok?'

"They'll have plenty of time for that Seven.  Go.  Keep trying to make contact."

It was true, for even at full thrust it would take more then ninety minutes for the Headhunters to regroup with the two freighters.  The third freighter which was stationary would take even longer to reach.  But the time would be reduced without the slower Cloakshapes holding them back.  The Starchasers were hampering them further with Jamie's Cloakshape only needing 30% power to keep up with the damaged fighter.


**NPC'd by GM**

Jamie and Flash continued to crawl along while Devon and Rann diverted all power to engines as they rushed to regroup.  Even at top speed the two Headhunters were still more than ninety minutes away.  As they flew, they continued to try and make contact with the freighters.  Finally one answered.

"Uhhh roger that Talon Six and Seven, this is. . .Talon One.  We're taking two of the freighters and leaving the last one and the crews for the pirates.  Come protect us in case they get greedy, over."

All four starfighter pilots were too surprised to speak.  Clearly the speaker wasn't Mark as it sounded nothing like him and Mark was not even in the sector as he was holed up on Nightshrike waiting until he was needed.  Added to which the transmitter was suggesting that Xil's team had abandoned the civilian crew to the pirates in order to save themselves, something they knew he would never do.



OOC:  Sorry it's been so long.  As you can see, the other thread is taking some time.  But I need to get you back in the game.  All four of you can hear the radio transmission (which means the damaged pirate ships can likely hear it too as they have comms still.

On a side note, your encrypted commlinks have enough range for each pair to talk to each other (i.e. Jamie and Flash can talk and Devon and Rann can talk) but not enough so the seperate groups can talk to each other (i.e. so the Headhunters can't talk to the Cloakshapes)
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:28, Sun 13 Mar 2011.

Devons lips moved silently as he repeated the message to himself in puzzlement.
'Say again freighter, your signal is weak - is your comms array damaged?' said Devon, stalling for time.  Whilst the person on the freighter repeated themself loudly and slowly, Devon switched to encrypted comms and signalled Rann.

'What in the name of the force is going on?' he snarled.  'If that's One, I'll buy all your beer next time we get shore leave.'  Devon paused for a moment, in thought.  'I'm going to keep this guy talking, listen in and keep an open mind, OK?  Until we know otherwise, assume they're a potential hostile - shields up and watch yourself - but dont shoot first.'  He thought for a moment more 'And see if you can get a scan of the third freighter - or even someone over there on a Talons comm.'

Hailing the freighter and 'One' again, Devon decided to sow some more confusion to buy time.  Speaking loudly and slowly himself, he said:
'Received that partially: Last freighter had pirate crew?  Your signal is very weak - Do you have an alternate comm you can switch to?'
Devon hoped like hell someone on one of those freighters had an 'alternate' comm - a Talons comm - and was listening in...
This message was last edited by the player at 22:33, Sun 13 Mar 2011.

"Negative starfighters." came 'Ones' reply.  "We are too far out for any other frequencies to work, it's probably why you're having trouble recieving.  I repeat, we have taken these two freighters for ourselves and abandoned the crew on the final freighter, the one that the pirates have boarded.  We get away and we get paid for our trouble.  The pirates busy themselves with the last freighter and we don't have to worry about the freighter crews telling the authorities.  We need you to escort us out."

“Let's play along for now, until we know what's going on” Rann told Six, via the talon comm. Then he set changed over to the frequency the freighter was using.  “ understood One, will be with you soon.  Also if Two is on the other freighter, tell her she owes me a beer.” he said, hoping the misdirection would reveal who was sending the message.

There is a long pause after this.  After about thirty seconds 'One' comes on again.

"Uh, isn't Two with you.  HE's meant to be in one of the fighters.  Have you been drinking?"

Devon grinned at Rann's ruse - if he was honest with himself, he'd been rapidly running out of ideas.

Using his Talons comm, he told Rann.  'This is your play for now - I'll follow your lead.  What do you make of that delay before he responded?  Puzzled pause or interrogating crew?'

In the distance, a large flash could be seen from one side of the furthest tanker, the one apparently with the pirates and civilian crew aboard.  To be seen at this distance the explosion had to of been large.  Sensors confirmed a large energy spike from the freighter consistant with an explosion.  There was little else the fighters could determine at this range.

'what the - ?' yelled Devon in suprise, then hurridly go to work with his sensors.
 'I doubt either freighter or the shuttle were armed with anything capable of doing that... It must have come from inside.' he said over open comms so that both Rann and 'One' could hear him. 'and if it came from inside one of the ships, then it's got to have breached the hull - which means it was probably even bigger than we think.

He paused for a few moments, thinking. 'We've got to go check it out.'
'So One,' he said cuttingly, 'before I go over there, is there anything you think you should tell me?'
This message was last edited by the player at 23:49, Wed 06 Apr 2011.

Whilst listening to Devon talking Rann was trying to remember where he had heard the voice of 'One' before when he suddenly remembered it was one of the navigators from the freighters. Using his Talons comm he signalled Devon, “I just worked out who 'One' is, its one of the freighter crew,  that makes things easier – we can probably trust them... ”

'Right, right; good to know.'  muttered Devon in response to Ranns comment as he waited for One to answer his question.  Then the nagging what have I missed? feeling he'd been getting for the last few minutes finally crystalized and he grinned a grin loaded with avarice.

'Hey Six, theres an opportunity here for the Talons to make out like bandits and get some new hardware on top of being paid for our work.  I'm gonna keep talking to One - if he ever answers - Get on the comms and see how those Starchaser pilots feel about surrendering their ships to us as opposed to, say, the Imperials.  I'm willing to bet we can offer better terms.'