"I'm listening?"

She can take suggestions,

"To get them to chase the ship we want them to chase, we have to convince them that it´s valuable and easy to take. If we let slip something during radio chatter, perhaps forgetting to encrypt a few messages, then they might attack the ship full of security and mercenaries, thinking it´s civilians with a cargohold full of money. We could dock together and transfer people around, while we make it sound like" *nervous laugh* "You Talons abandoned all the civilians in one ship while running away with the other two. What do you think?"

Sheila thinks a moment.  "WEll, they don't know how many of us there are. But it takes more than one of us to crew a ship. And they probably have a decent idea of the number of people on the ships.  Numbers wise, we're either going to have to have the two ships escape with an absolute  skeleton crew, or convince them that some of the 'civilians' have turned and are coming with us.

"Well, perhaps you took some of us with you to help fly the ship, but not many enough to be a danger." He was painfully aware that he was advicing the Talons on how to best escape by leaving the crew to die, but if the Talons didn´t think it would have been a good plan, then the pirates wouldn´t either.

<OOC: Sorry for my absence guys...i've had 2 weeks now of internet troubles..kinda a bummer.  Sorry for my lack of posts.  i will try to post as often as i can, but until my internet is back up online, that is an unknown>



Aryan, looking out the windows at the battle, remains still.  Snapped from his thought by shelia, he grabs his comm. "The plan he has is sound..pulling itsa off may be risky, but it's a chance we may have to take.

Aryan absently scratches his ear. "Isa will need some good soldiers...some that knows the ships and can fight.  with a small group, isa may be able to hold groups of them iin the halls and give the others time.   whats you think?"

"So, shall we put the plan into action? It will take a little while to syncronize velocities and move people around, so we might as well get moving." The Navigator is leaning on Sheilas seat, itching to get back into his own place and sort things out.

You might need to explain the plan to me!  Xil was proposing having the lead freighter fake engine problems.  I think the plan was to then have the freighters link up in order to evacuate the freighter and 'abandon ship' (which explains why the ships linked up but then you need to ensure they can't detect anyone on board.  Also need to hope they choose a ship with damage - they still have to escape with it after all).

Now Merreck's plan seems to be going in a different direction, with the Talons abandoning a ship full of civilians to the mercy of the pirates.  Has possibility, (most pirates would abandon civilians, so why not mercs.  Would take a good bluff and some careful planning - pirates are gonna expect crew on board so will be wary for trouble).

Either plan has its stengths and weaknesses.  But you actually need a plan that's concrete and agreed upon before you initiate it (and Xil is still in charge so you need him to okay it).


Things I'd recommend you work out before you initiate any plan is:

* How you plan to transfer personnel around (i.e. who is going where)
* What each person on each freighter is supposed to do
* What deception are you trying to sell (i.e. engine trouble, abandoning the crew, etc)
* How you plan to sell the deception (all for naught if the shuttle targets another ship)
* How do you ensure the shuttle board the freighter and don't just blow it up? (you'll need to ensure the shuttle doesn't smell a trap and detach from the airlock)

The pirates clearly aren't stupid (this adjustment to tatics after their orginial ambush failed demonstrates that).  They're not just going to blindly go along with whatever you plan (the veteran Talons can attest to that)!

Better put those planning hats on.

"This is my plan. I´ll tell the other freighters that you Talons said to dock us together, we match speed and couple together the ships. We move people around, gathering anyone who can use a blaster on this ship, leaving the other ships with a skeleton crew. While they fly away, this last ship wait for a while, then start hailing them on the com, telling the Talons to come back and help, show how much credits we´ve managed to gather for them should they return, wail at them for not doing their work, plead to a supposed hostage to rethink helping the mercs. All in all this should make the pirates come to the conclusion that your mercenaries turned on the rest of the crew to save yourselves."

"Lost and abandoned, the ship full of "civilians" consider their chances, they are after all the easiest target. They come to the conclusion that perhaps surrender really is the best plan, and so slow down while sending a few messages to the pirates, trying to come to some agreement, very much desperate. Then it´s just a matter of waiting for the pirates to come onboard, which is when we do your thing, mercenary."

OOC:
Pilots, Commanders, Navigators and Engineers to the two running ships, at most 10, Security, Talons, the traitor pilot, and probably Merreck, perhaps a few engineers too, on the staying ship, at least 11.
Merreck at communication, Talons and security to set up the ambush.
Deception hinge on being convincing on the com, as well as being the easiest target, they could probably take it and catch up to the others later.
Not much guarantee that they won´t blow us up but a sack full of credits should help, they just need to get onboard and get it. An effective ambush that make it harder for the pirates to throw us out of the airlock is to lock everyone into the living spaces, secretly diverting control to us so we can get out if we want to. They have a clear ship, crew confined, ready to commandeer and fly away. If they require us to meet them out in the open then we hide weapons there in case they start shooting people.
Definetly not a perfect plan, so anyone with any other suggestions, please go ahead.

Tobias listened in at the navigator's plan.  When he was done he turned to Xil.

"Sounds like it could work.  Mercenaries are known to cut and run at the sign of danger.  However, I will not order my crew to serve on the ambush ship.  They're not soldiers after all.  I can put the call out for volunteers if you wish but not sure how many you'll get.  You'll have one of my navigators at least, though I'm certainly starting to wonder if he really is a navigator.  He talks and plans more like one of you."

"I volunteer to join the group on the ambush freighter.  If the convoy commander is on board the vessel it should lend strength to your deception."
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:15, Mon 20 Dec 2010.

"Well, the idea of leaving them behind means we don't have to hide the total of lifesigns on the ship, but we might have to hide where they are. Because the last thing we want them to do is get the wind up and detach the shuttle.  We would need to take that shuttle first, basically.  They could blow the airlock, and even if they just detached, they have weopons, we don't (IRC"


(ooc diverting control to the living spaces and keeping it diverted would be how hard?)

"Sorry Captain, it looks like I watch too many action holos, but those things sometimes come in usefull. I will use every little scarp of information we have if it helps us get away from those pirates. I´m not dying out here."

"You are correct Talon, we might have to look into jamming their sensors, at least during the counterattack, or lock ourselves in right at the airlock so we can get through to them quickly. We have plenty of time to do the modifications, right? What do we have in regards to weapons?"
This message was last edited by the player at 11:31, Mon 20 Dec 2010.

Not really.  The longer you take, the less distance the other two freighters can put between themselves and the shuttle.  The more time you take, the more likely the shuttle might still try to attack them.




Every security officer has a sidearm and a blaster rifle.  Other then that, the only weaponry you have is what the Talons (and Merreck) brought with them.

OOC: Many sorries for not posting promptly, RL has a way of taking over, especially at this time of year.

Have been reading and catching up. Merreck's plan on the balance of probabilities is more feasible and more accurately reflects what hired help would do, so lets go with that plan.

Xil turns to Captain Tobias "Send out your call for volunteers and thank you."

On the Talons secure comm he says "Three, Eight get your crews ready to dock the freighters together and transfer personnel, no time to waste. We will work out ambush plans once the transfer is done, it's not going to be easy to cover everywhere." He hands his secure comm over to Captain Tobias "Use this, we don't want eavesdroppers just yet."

Exilim moved off to the side slightly to begin the task of reviewing who was actually needed on what freighter to make this ruse appear as realistic as possible.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:01, Thu 23 Dec 2010.

A few things:

Tobias will either need a Talon commlink or to use the freighter comms to co-ordinate the merging of three ships.  The Talon comm lets him do it silently but that might make the pirates suspicious.  So you might want him to brief the crews via Talon comm and then do your 'fake message' over the freighter comms (which the shuttle will hear).

Also need you to work out who is going on what vessel so we can move on.

"Hey, Talon, could you explain the plan to the other captains over your comm? The pirates are definetly listening in on the ship-to-ship communication, so we can´t use that. Tell them we are docking to move civilians from this ship as a means to fight the pirates, we can take the rest later. Oh, and tell their engineers to get ready to help us over here. Now if you would, I have a three-ship docking procedure to plan." Merreck get Sheila to move from her seat and quickly identify a good rendezvouz-point that doesn´t loose them too many minutes.

"Okay, everyone, shut up, I´m using the open comm now, make a sound and the pirates will hear it too."

Merreck looks around until it´s quiet, then activates the open communication, sending a message to the other freighters, easily intercepted by the pirates that are pursuing them. "Hi guys, holding up? Listen, the Merc told me that we needed to dock the ships together, they needed to meet up for something. Waste of time if you ask me but whatever. Let´s just get it over quickly, okay? How´s these coordinates look like?" Merreck sends coordinates for a good place to dock the ships that is ahead of them all, noone has to divert much from their present course. "See you there in a few." He closes down the channel. The second freighter divert its course half a minute later, heading towards the rendezvous point.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:10, Thu 23 Dec 2010.

Sheila will vacate the place for the navigator and go get her stuff, so she can be prepared to do whatever is needed and round up the security men and their guns.

Merreck spend the next few minutes chattering over the comm with the other two ships, coordinating the docking with their pilots. It´s a complicated procedure, docking three ships at the same time.

He makes sure to dock his ship in the bottom of the 3-ship stack, it was supposed to be the ship that the Talons left the civilians in, it´s much easier to contain people in one of the ships on the edge than in the middle because that would leave 2 airlocks to guard, and with artificial gravity, the two ship on top would keep the height advantage.

A though occured to him. "Hey, Talon, what about sabotaging the airlock, or make it look that way? The pirates won´t think it beneath you to leave a detonite trap in our airlock after you disengage. That would force them to dock in the lower airlock, so it takes more time for them to move through the cargo holds to the bridge, but also longer for us if we are boarding the shuttle."

Tobias handed Xil back his commlink which he'd been using to drum up volunteers.

"Well the bad news is I only had one crewman volunteer.  The good news is that is was the engineer on the third vessel.  So you have a minimum crew at least.  I can fly the bird, you've got Merreck in the second chair and our volunteer to work engineering for you.  That frees you up to keep us all alive somehow."

Sheila will grin at Merrick.  "That would be great, you know how to set them or of any on your ship that does? Not my speciality. Or give me the little com back and I'll ask the boss."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:57, Fri 24 Dec 2010.

Merreck gets an embarassed look on his face. "Oh, I was hoping you guys would make the trap, but sure, I can probably throw something together, I´m handy. I just need a confirmation, before we dock the ships together, do we want to rigg the entrance over there," Merreck is pointing to the bridge docking station, "or the one at the cargo hold? Forcing them through the cargo hold will buy us a lot of time when they board, but it´s longer to move if we want to th the same to them."

OOC: Not 100% where the airlocks are, just assuming there is one on the top and bottom, apart from the main cargo lift. Read something about a way to move people without spacesuits using a kind of tractorbeam, does our ship have that? Could be a good way to attack them.

Sheila has the comm, Merreck asked her to forward messages, he didn´t take it from her.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:40, Sat 25 Dec 2010.

Xil gave Captain Tobias a small grin "Willing volunteers are usually hard to come by. At any rate, lets get these ships docked together."

Xil moves away from the Captain & crew. He gets on the Talons secure comm "Three, Eight we have just enough volunteer  crew to fly the ship without having to use one of us. We will have to look at encouraging more to be locked up out of harms way somewhere if we are to sell this deception."

The next ten minutes were a mad flurry of planning velocities, vectors and all the technicalities of linking three freighters together while travelling at speed.  It was a tricky maneuver which required Sheila and Merreck working hard together to crunch the numbers, some precision flying by the pilots and the direction of Captain Tobias, who led it all.  Merreck spent a lot of time on the comm, co-ordinating with the other navigators, throwing in choice comments every now and again about stupid mercenaries wanting to even do this in order to maintain the charafe.

At the end of the time, one minor collision and three failed attempts to dock, all three freighters were joined.

The transfers didn't take long.  The commander of the middle vessel took command of Tobias' vessel and the engineer swapped with the one from the third vessel.  The two security guards and one of the Cloakshape pilots also volunteered when they saw the others coming aboard.  Aryan and Xil also quickly came across.

Soon all of the 'decoy team' were standing on the bridge.  The pilot took the helm while Merreck assumed the navigator's chair again.  Captain Tobias took the commander's chair.

The room was fairly full with Xil, Aryan and Sheila standing near Tobias.  The two security guard stood huddled together talking and the engineer stood in a corner alone, face buried in a datapad.


OOC:  So the centre freighter (which you're all on) has Captain Tobias, Pilot, Engineer, Security Guards x 2, Sheila, Xil, Aryan and Merreck (currently acting as navigator).  The other two freighters are ready to break away when ordered.  Time to put whatever plan you have in motion.

The security guards have a blaster pistol and rifle each.  The captain and pilot both have a blaster pistol.  The Talons and Merreck have whatever weapons and equipment they brought with them.

Merreck turn away from his console, there is no need for messages for now. He takes out and checks his blaster pistol, still at full charge, naturally. "Okay, shall we put this plan into motion? We have a few things to do here after, plant the fake bombs and all that, plan ambushes, perhaps a way to jam lifeform sensors." Merreck hope this works out well, although he has his doubts, it´s definetly the weirdest stunt of his, so far.

OOC: The plan is that the other ships break away at maximum speed while the decoy wait a while before calling out, pretending perhaps that we were trapped, not getting out to reach the bridge until after a few minutes, also makes us the obvious target, being closest.

Xil looked around the people gathered in the room, he hoped that it would be enough to pull off yet another bluff on the Talons part.

"Everyone ready? If not too bad I'm afraid." He turns to Merreck "Instruct the other two freighters to break free and high tail it out of here."

He waits while the instructions are given and then speaks once again "For those that don't remember I'm Four, with me are Three and Eight. Thanks to Captain Tobias and all of you for coming along. To make this simple; we need to make all but one dock appear rigged with explosives of some sort. After ten or so minutes make it sound like we were left behind, plead or beg for the others to return and set up our ambush. Questions?"