In the deep space on the Fringe, near the Agricolony of Toasaa the Havenspire Carrier Group patrols the darkness and stands between the Hegemony and the Dead Zone, a mostly uninhabitable swath of space filled only with rocks, ice and hidden corsair bases.

Attended by a handful of cruisers and a small swarm of frigates and support vessels, the old Dragon-class carrier is a relic of the Second Unification War, a time when the Houses of the Hegemony fought and maneuvered endlessly, before the rise of the Indaris Princes who brought peace with laser and sword. When the rebellious Houses bent knee to the First Prince, Havenspire was there in orbit, watching.

The carrier itself is a massive ship, dwarfing the cruisers that surround it. Named for the Palace arcology on Haven, Havenspire has long served as the Flagship of the combined Hegemonic fleets, directing even the dedicated House forces by right of conquest.

She is heavily armed and is home to over 1,300 souls, equipped with artificial biospheres, fuel bunkers, machine shops, refineries and thousands of tons of cargo space, Havenspire is as much city as she is ship, and is the secondary command center of the Hegemony High Command

Two full fighter squadrons operate out of the carrier at ten ships each, Skyserpent interceptors and Cobra attack bombers. These craft are nearly as aged as the great Dragon carriers, but they have a proven history against space, air and ground targets and are generally considered to be trusty military hardware. Given the relative peace of the past forty decades there has been little need to improve upon their design and they see limited but regular service against organized pirate forces on the Fringe.
This message was last updated by the GM at 19:58, Fri 08 Feb 2013.

0x736FB7---File---

Name: Jayne Agatha Grey II
HID#: 7831-37480-12
Astral Forces #: 2733-182440
Birthplace:Civilian Vessel "Harcourt" Registration Number CIH-4733
Date of Birth: 284 Heartstar 20
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Height: 1.65m
Weight: 50kg
House Allegiance: Liandra
Induction: 310 Evensky 5
Active Since: 311 Darkstorm 19
Separation: [blank]
Rank: Astra Prime
Specialty: Starcraft Pilot
Training: Grade 3 Astral; Grade 1 Infantry; Grade 1 Technical; Basic,
Qualifications: rated for Skyserpent Fighter, rated for Cobra Fighter-bomber, rated for Crane cargo shuttles, rated for Gunship Operation [see attached file], Marksman score 233, Technical score 240, Piloting Score 400 [see attached file]
Battles and Campaigns: Toassa, Razor's Edge
Decorations and Citations: Archangel Wings, Cross of Swords, Star of Victory
Previous Assignment: The Fang Shipyards - Test Pilot
Current Assignment: Havenspire Carrier Group - The 3rd Starfighter Squadron "Darksiders"
Callsign: Valkyrie
Status: Active

---File---0x8381D74
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:03, Mon 11 Feb 2013.

Jayne sat at her quarters, looking at the screen on her personal computer station. It had been some time again, since she had last written her sister, Annie. Too long, really. But it was all about the requirements of service. She had just been too busy with flying patrols and chasing off pirates. Yes, that was the excuse she wanted to give herself. Truth was, she just hadn't gotten aroundto writing Annie a lengthy letter for a while. Too much to do.

She lowered her slender fingers on to the keyboard. How would she begin?



No, that would not work.



Would that work? Jayne shook her head. Of course not. Maybe this was part of the reason, she had not written Annie in a while. She stood up, walked over to the water station in the head and drank. She'd need to comeup with something to write about.

Your cabin is spartan, as expected aboard a fleet ship. You're a fighter jock though, which means you at least have a cabin; most of the crew sleeps in a bunk room with anything from 30 bunks to 300. Given the fact that you have to spend most of your waking hours on Combat Astral Patrol they make sure you get sleep when you're supposed to be sleeping.

24 hour days are difficult for you to keep track of at times. The entire Hegemony defaults to Haven time per convention and all government or military installations operate one that schedule if they aren't physically on the surface of a planet with a different system. The ship is cold too, kept at about 5 Celsius, an ancient measurement that stretches back to time immemorial, but it's what the Indari like it at so you get used to it. It's probably why the Gareshi took to easily to the military life in the Hegemony; their planet is a ball of ice too so they find it comfortable. Maybe even a little warm. Smaller ships like the Harcourt, tend to get warmer easier. Maybe that's why you began a fighter pilot. The little interceptors heat up a lot more and you don't feel like you're freezing your metaphorical balls off when you're up in that cockpit.

It's near midnight on the ship and you know you've got a patrol in the morning at 0500 hours. They told you not to rely on stims in basic and in flight school too, but you and a lot of the other jocks take them all the time. There's a lot to be done, between flying 20 hour patrols, mandatory simulator time and the other responsibilities of being a fighter jock. A lot of them spend their time drinking, playing cards or other games and fucking. Live fast, die young. Fighter jocks unofficial fucking motto.

Yeah, it's hard to write to your sister. You don't even know if she's alive honestly. You haven't talked to her since mom died. Shit, you haven't even seen her since the funeral and you were only there via telepresence four hours before you launched another test run on the next-gen fighter candidates they've got set up on the Fangs. That was a hell of a day.

You never knew your father, some military type who mom hooked up with in port for a few years. He either ran off or he died early. Mom never wanted to talk about it. You and your sister had the same father, she'd been keen on asserting that, but not a whole lot else. When she finally passed on, it was hard not to feel like blaming Annie for not staying with her. Yeah, you knew it wouldn't have made a difference, but it's hard to shake your emotions. You rationalized it a couple ways maybe, but in the end, you knew you hadn't been fair to her and so here you were, writing a letter to her for... how long has it been? 2 years?

The door to your quarters buzz, indicating someone is outside requesting entrance.

[Private to Jayne Grey: OOC: This is either someone you have an intimate relationship with or a close friend. Your call. Male or female.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:42, Sun 07 June 2015.

Jayne walked to the door and pushed it open. "I'm not buying anything", she said with a grin, seeing her wingman standing behind the door. He was a handsome guy and Jayne had slept with him on a couple of occasions, but it was complicated and it had been quite a while since the last time. "This girl needs her beauty-sleep. Can't fly every patrol on stims." It was true. Though stims kept one awake, they also had adverse effects. Sme pilots had gone crazy, literally, others had become so addictwd to the stims, they could not get out of their bunks without having a shot.

Amon "Crown" Liandra pushed one of his arms into the room, blocking the door from closing with his body and gave you one of his charming grins. He wasn't overly tall, but he had the lithe build, light brown hair and wholesome charm of the Liandra family. He looked good in the uniform, and he was literally a poster boy for the Astral Forces.

He had the look of a farmer's son or a young athlete on the holosuite. An up and coming fighter pilot, doing his part for the Hegemony, handsome, well educated and a role model for billions across the stars.

You knew better. Certainly he was all those things, but he had a wild side too. Amon was a bad boy, made even more enticing by the fact that he was next in line for succession when Lord Liandra finally stepped down or died.

"Valk." He widens his grin. Anyone else you would have decked for shorting your callsign like that, but for some reason, you liked it when he did it. As long as it was in private. That reminded you of some memories with him in private...

"Can I come in?"
This message was last edited by the player at 08:43, Sun 07 June 2015.

"Just for a moment", she replied, "I really need the sleep." That was the truth - she was due for another patrol in the morning and wasn't willing to pop stims for that again. She sidestepped from the door to let him in and pulled it shut behind him. "What is it, Birdy", teasing him. It was an old joke between them, one born from a recruit, who was on comms duty, when they were returning an misspronounced his callsign as Crow, which eventually led to him becoming Birdy unofficially.

He smiled at her joke and looked down a little at her with his big brown eyes. Amon was a few centimeters taller than her, but not much.

"Yeah, you do. More than you know in fact." His smile vanished replaced by a more grave look.

"I heard from my sister about a half hour ago."
His eyes seemed to study her, gauging her response to his statement.

"Oh", she retorted."What did her ladyship want?" Her voice hinted a tease, whe knew would probably get Amon worked up eventually. It was so much fun to tease the guy, keep him on his toes and hoping for something intimate. It had worked before and there was no reason, why it should not work again. After all, she was one of the hottest pilots on the whole carrier, in more ways than one.

"You're such an Eve, Jayne." His charming smile came back. He was one of the best looking pilots in the fleet too, you remembered. He could dance this dance too, in more ways than one.

"I'm not even supposed to be telling you this, but I thought you deserved to know."
He swallowed hard and sat down on your bunk, looking up at you with a worried expression.

"She asked me to transfer back to the homefleet. Told me she could get it done overnight, bypass the paperwork and I'd be flying with the 1st Astral Guard on Chantius."

"So, coming for your last tumble in the linen with the blonde spacer girl, are you", she asked in a teasing tone. "Is that it?" She reminded herself, she'd be flying the earliest thing in the morning and she should have already been in bed rather than having the conversation with the casual fling, no matter who he was related to. But then again there was the fighter jockey maxim - sleep, drink, eat and fuck, for tomorrow you might be dead.

He looked frustrated at her response.

"No. That's not why I came... it's... you know that's not all I care about." He actually sounds hurt.

He shakes his head and continues before she has a chance to respond.

"We're getting off topic. I came to tell you because it means something is happening. She wants me away from here. Father wants me away from here, though he can't say it. Let him use the compassion of his daughter to arrange this." He scowls at that thought, clearly disgusted.

"If she wants me out of there, if the Family wants me home, that means something bad is going to happen. I just... I wanted you to look out okay? Maybe I can pull some strings and get you transfered out of here too and..." He trails off.

She stepped in closer and embraced him in a soothing manner."It's okay, babe", she whispered. "I'm a big girl and though touched by your concern, I can watch out for myself. Only thing I worry about is, who is going to fill the vacuum that has been left by you." The words were meant to sooth but also contained a load of innuendo. She knew, he was more than an occasional fuck - he was a friend and she knew how highly he regarded her, but it was a defense mechanism. Among the pilots she had to be tough and the only way to be as tough as the guys was to act like them. If she let herself be bothered by him going away, it would effect her standings she had worked hardly for and might also effect her flying, which would be catastrophical from more than one viewpoint.

He returned the embrace firmly and when she released him he held her face between his hands and looked her in the eyes.

"I know, I know. Just promise me you'll watch out. If they want me out it means they're expecting casualties in whatever's going to come."

Amon Liandra, ascendant to the throne, kissed Jayne warmly on the mouth once and turned to leave.

"You watch your own tail as well, Birdie", she said in a low tone. "Watch your own as well."

When the door closed, she finally shed her uniform and slipped in to her cot. For a moment she layed there, awake, and wondered, what the future was going to hold in store for her. Only time would tell, so she decided to wait and see. It was best done in the cockpit, second best in a cot under a warm blanket.

You drift into deep sleep. You dream of being a child again. Of playing on the Harcourt, of the first time you set foot on a planet when you were 8 years old. Of your mother and your sister, you dream too of your father, though you have never met him and your mind cannot decide what he should look like.

The dreams are neither good, nor bad. Simply dreams.

And you wake to the sound of your alerter.

Text appears above your bunk in the holodisplay on the ceiling.

"Report to the ready room in 15."

Jayne crawled inside her jumpsuit and combat boots, checking herself in the mirror to see, she was properly dressed and that her blonde hair was not pointing at every possible direction. Despite the short hair and the clothing making her look tomboyish, she knew she was considered sexy by most of the male crew.

She slipped in to the corridor and closed the door to her quarters behind her, just to make sure, nobody got in to pull a practtical joke on her. Pilots were known to do that and Jayne was one of the best and worst, when it came to cooking up new ways to blow things up on peoples faces in a gentle enough way to simply give them a fright and perhaps a little humiliation. She had to be careful, or otherwise her previous victims might indeed pull a fast one on her.

She made her way quickly in to the briefing room, saluting a few officers and fellow pilots on the way. It was time for business, once again.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:07, Tue 12 Feb 2013.

The ready room wasn't far away, though the ship was massive and required tramcars to quickly traverse it, in the interest of haste, pilot quarters, the ready room and the hanger and launch bays are all within close proximity in case as squadron needs to be scrambled to intercept bombers or assault shuttles.

By the time she arrives the room is full of pilots and she takes her place at the back of the room next to the bulkhead.

Master Immen Lor Coiaghen, fighter commander of the Havespire Carrier Group. He used to be a hotshot pilot fifteen years ago, but he was shot out of the sky during the 19th war of succession over Revack Prime. His burns and injuries were severe and now he is mostly artificial limbs, organs and skin. Too much nerve damage to ever be a good fighter pilot again. Never-the-less, he was considered to be one of the fore-most experts on single-person starcraft engagement strategy and tactics.

He surveyed the assembled pilots with his one remaining eye, the other side of his face adorned in a simple black eye-patch. Rumor has it that they'd repaired his body when he was in a coma, but when he woke up he refused to take a new eye out of pride.

"Ladies and Gentlemen." His voice was a deep basso rumble that always commanded attention and respect.

"I'm going to cut straight to business this morning." Everyone laughs and Lor Coiaghen lets a smile cross his lips, enjoying the joke. You get it too, Coiaghen never wasted time on briefings and always cut straight to business, but that didn't mean he didn't have a sense of humor at times.

"The Novarch has recieved word from High Command. As of now, we are in a state of high alert and the Havenspire and her escorts have been ordered into the Dead Zone. This is a sweep and destroy operation, we are to target any and all non-Hegemony ships or installations we come across out there."
A screen flickers and updates to show the general path the carrier will be taking through the Dead Zone.
"As you can see, this will be a length operation and we're operating on older intel, so we don't know what we'll find out there. We will be sending scout ships ahead and when we've got an idea of what's in the system, we'll be drilling the Havenspire in and you'll be launching, all wings, both squadrons."

"Now, for a lot of you, this will be your first extended campaign. Most of you have made one or two kills in your career and you've all seen combat before. You're not rookies, otherwise you wouldn't be flying with us." He grins wickedly and a scattered cheer goes up throughout the room.

"But let me remind you not to get cocky out there. The strength of the enemy resistance is unknown and we don't have the luxury of time. Remember that it's their turf out there, we're the Away team here and it's their stadium, so keep that in mind and stick together. You're not heroes, you're fighter pilots. Aff?"

"Aff!" Everyone in the room responds in kind and he smiles again, with a hint of pride.

"I'll answer some questions and your individual squadron leaders will take over for today's sortie."
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:46, Sun 07 June 2015.

So, this is what he warned me about, Jayne thought. Another war of succession, perhaps?

The whole thing worried her. She wasn't anxious because she might have to get in to battle - that she had done before. It was the order to fire on any ships, not part of the Hegemony fleet or registry. If they were armed and fired back, she had no qualms about it, but firing on unarmed civilian ships was something she wasn't really up to. Of course they might carry a bunch of terrorists, but two wrongs did not make a right.

The Wars of Succession were a relative common feature in the Hegemony and to date there had been 21 officially recorded Wars of Succession in which the proper heir could not be determined and it was decided that it should be fought to it's conclusion, with the victor deciding who took the throne. Mercenaries and other House-aligned forces were forbidden by Hegemonic law to join in a House's War of Succession, but any House-aligned warrior who was not currently on assignment could petition to return to the homeworld and join the House forces, no matter where they had been stationed in the Hegemony.

"What about unarmed ships, sir?" Someone spoke up from the front.

"Thank you, Henrik. Yes, so there is the question of unarmed ships." The Master strokes his beard as he seems to consider this for a brief moment.
"Corsairs and Reavers are known to arm frieghters or transport vessels, load them with explosives or even attempt to ram them into slower ships or stations. High Command has determined that we cannot take that risk. If a ship powers down and broadcasts a surrender, stay clear of them and do not attack, but barring that all vessels and installations are valid."

"Anyone else?"

"Are we to fire right away to kill, or can we fire warning shots across their bows to underline our orders to stand down?" Jayne wanted to know, if she was really supposed to fire at any ship that did not immediately stop. "Would probably save a few lives to try and target the engines first as well."

It was clear, she wasn't losing her nerve - it was certain everyone knew her by both skill and reputation. But in her view, firing on unarmed civilians without more warning than a single message through communications was getting awfully close to murder.

Lor Coiaghen considers you for a moment and responds:

"The official Word of the Gods from High Command is all ships are to be considered hostile." He grimaces and continues, "Analysists in VR sims who fancy themselves precogs, maybe." The big man snorts dismissively

"If you want my opinion, off the record, it's because of what happened at Stardrift 3137 last year. High Command was called into question by the Prince and the ruling aristocracy over that fakkup and they don't want a repeat performance or heads might roll."

Everyone laughs at his joke. Hegemonic Prince Vaynre Indaris was known as the "Executioner" in some circles because how swiftly he would ruin your career if you displayed incompetence. Of course, he didn't literally cut peoples heads off, but a lot of former dignitaries and now ex-military officers certainly felt decapitated by his wrath.

The event in question, Stardrift 3137, was a routine raid on an asteroid base in the Fringe, supposed to be light corsair resistance and mostly civilian population. They had taken a bulk frighter down and it was drifting without thrust, broadcasting surrender.

The carrier group Crow's Nest had moved in to pick up survivors for interrogation once the fighter escort had been dealt with.

Just as they were sending over the boarding party, the supposedly unarmed freighter launched two Swiftfish-class anti-carrier torpedos which struck home and crippled the Crow's Nest

The freighter then self-destructed, aided by several hundred tons of stolen warheads on board destroying two whole fighter squadrons and a boarding frigate.

It had been a political disaster for High Command who had believed the ship was carrying political refugees and valuable intel.

Jayne wasn't really worried about getting discharged from the service. She had earned her wings and was good enough fighter pilot to obtain work somewhere else, if the Hegemony would kick her out. And besides, shooting to kill at a ship that was unarmed was just as much grounds for getting kicked out of the service.

"Then, unofficially I suppose I'll be forced to miss the first shot, of course due to the stress of combat. If that won't help, I'll have to take a better aim at the ships engines then", Jayne said, grinning.

Master Shen Torugawa taps you on the shoulder from behind.

The squadron leader of the "Darksiders" and your commanding officer.

"Astra Prime Grey, a word in the hallway. Now." His normally soft-spoken lyrical voice has a hard edge to it, even in this whisper and he looks expectantly at you with his dark eyes.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:18, Tue 19 Feb 2013.

Jayne followed him in to the hallway, wondering if she was going to get chewed out for that or if there was something so important going on that he'd actually pull her out of the briefing.

"Sir?"

Practically dragging you out into the hallway he pulled you into an empty storage room a few doors down.

Shen Torugawa was a good guy, a very good leader and an even better pilot. He'd grown up on some no-name agricolony, a farmer's son and had turned into one of the Astral Force's top pilots and he was young, even for that. A lot of young pilots looked up him and he did his best to earn their admiration.

"What by Hel are you doing, Jayne? Do you know who that is in there? What the gak is wrong with you?" He was angry, more so than you'd seen before. "Are you gunning for a godsdamned court martial? Are you?"

He punched a bulkhead. Hard.

"None of us like the idea of firing on unarmed ships but you can't defy a superior Officer in front of everyone like that!" He stormed away from you a few steps and turned back to you stabbing an accusatory finger at your chest. "If you're going to disobey a direct order you do it in the cockpit, because your better judgement told you it was the right thing to do at the time. And if you DO go ahead and disobey a direct order and it gets someone killed, or gods forbid one of my boys and girls killed, I'm going to make sure you take the fall for it, all the way to bottom. Do I make myself clear, pilot?"

"Yes sir", she snapped in a military manner. He had a point, but using pilots like blunt instruments wasn't what the pilots were trained for. They were a weapon of finesse, best used in a surgical precission. "Will that be all, sir?"

Jayne was sure to make her replies according to the code, so nobody could say she had defied him. But the truth was, shooting pirates was one thing but shooting a civilian craft that could have a communications blackout was something else. She was offering no explanations on her conduct - by now Shen should have known her for what she was. She wasn't a troublemaker, but with the CO having said his unofficial opinion, Jayne was simply saying hers.

He rubs his fingers on the bridge of his nose.

"No, one more thing. You disobey me up there and put my squadron at risk just so you can stick it to the brass, I'll shoot you down myself. That will be all, pilot."

Shen pushes past her and storms back towards the ready room.

Jayne shrugged as her CO marched off. She had been chewed off before for making a comment, but this time it was different. There was something at foot, but there was little she could do about it right now. Perhaps it was a time to get back in to the briefing and see if there was something that would give her a clue.

She moved back in and took her seat, shrugging at a couple of his fellow pilots who looked at her with curiosity.

The rest of the briefing is standard fare, Master Shen takes over the portion of the briefing for the Darksiders and outlines the mission for the next week.

Scout ships will jump ahead, 'Snapshots' which leap into the system, make a quick sensor sweep and drill back to the fleet and report.

If they detect anything anomalous the fleet drills in and launches the fighter squadron and half the bombers. Picket ships set up a screening sphere around the main group and the Darksiders hunt down the 'tetras' and call in the Hel's Couriers if there are any frigates or station that need hitting.

They caution you that it's going to be a lot of false alerts, a lot of flying, minimal sleep and very little excitement. In other words, what you've all come to expect.

----Fifteen Days Later----

The Havenspire has been drilling from system to system based on scouting reports. So far, nothing. You've flown three sorties and logged about 50 hours of flight time in the past two weeks. It's been exhausting and boring and all you have to show for it is a sore neck and a growing headache.

All you've found is unihabited planets, asteroids and a handful of minor debris fields that could have been anything from anywhere.

Basically, fakknothing.

It's 0030 and you're up for a new combat sweep with your whole squadron as you walk into the hanger and head towards you launch bay with your fellow pilots.
Jackknife, Killswitch, Turkey, Brickyard, Hammer and the rest of them looking like you feel as they head to their ships.

Your bird is battered from so many successive flights and little time for maintanance. Micrometeorite scoring all over the armor panels, paint chipping, rust from ice forming around the bolts and seams. Her tail proudly proclaimed her as IHF-0109

Jayne did the pre-flight check on her battered bird with a tender hand and a loving eye. She had flown it for a long time and though it was just a lifeless piece of metal and components, she trusted it as much as she trusted herself. It was her steed and the Valkyrie was going to ride it again.

She had a few words with the crew chief and climbed in to the cockpit, placing her flight helmet on her head and ensuring the seal between it and the suit. She connected the umbilical to the fighter to keep her suit's reserve tank full for breathing and begun flipping switches in the start-up sequence. When the crew chief gave her the okay-signal, she released the brakes that held the fighter in place and let the carrier's transport system move them to the launch pad. A few more switches and she hit the ignite button that started the huge thrusters at the rear of her mount, shaking the fighter like a cat shakes itself just before bouncing on its prey.

With the CAG giving her an okay for launch, Jayne jammed the throttle full forward and the gravitational power glued her in to the back of her seat as the ship propelled towards the open space at increasing velocity. This was what she loved.

She jockeyed out into the void followed quickly by her brothers and sisters of the 3rd Starfighter Squadron with the notable lack of Amon Liandra, his seat filled by a back up pilot who's name you never bothered to learn but your targeting computer indicates is S. Macthan, callsign "Takedown".

Shen leads you all in what is being officially called "Combat Sweep A-07" and what would most likely being just as tiring and boring as the previous sorties.

You take turns on point, fighter wingmates, two at a time,  ranging out ahead at about 50,000 kilometers ahead of the squadron making paired scans for about an hour before switching back and letting another two fighters take over to avoid fatigue.

Shen comes through on the narrowbeam, you and Takedown are on point now. Jackknife and Turkey are coming back.

[Private to Jayne Grey: OOC: Computers check for sensor scan.]

Jayne was bored. These missions were eating away the fighting capability of the whole squadron. She looked at her sensors everyonce in a while, knowing it would most likely be futile.

22:42, Today: Secret Roll: Jayne Grey rolled 7 using 2d6-1. Computer (Sensors).

"Uh, Valkyrie? I got something... uh, I think I got something." Your wingmate's voice cuts through on the narrowbeam and she sounds nervous, if not borderline panicked.

"Easy, Takedown. Give me directions", she replied. She had not detected whatever her wingman had and needed feedback to figure it out.

"Y-you're not picking that up? Tune your sensors to Bar 927 point 12/4... It's out there.." She fires retro thrusters, pulling back as she begins to reverse direction and fall back towards the rest of the squadron.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:38, Wed 27 Feb 2013.

Jayne did what she was told and kept herself ready for a full 180 if it became necessary.

PING

The sensor sweep in this quadrant returns a large metallic signature, emitting black body radiation.

PUH-PING

Several more radiant metal objects appear, near the far side of the system, probably 8 light-hours away.

It could only be one thing: A fleet.

Da'amn, she thought. That's a whole lot of ships. She pulled a 180-degree turn and headed after her sniveling coward of a wingman. We need to warn the Havenspire and hope, they didn't just spot us.

It was probable they had already been spotted - the sensors, for an example, used electromagnetic radiation, which in turn was easily detectable if used with power high enough to carry the electromagnetic wave eight light-hours and bounce it back off the target.

Narrowbeam comm puts the Squadron leader's voice in your cockpit.

"Valkyrie, you're pulling back early. Do you have something?" He snaps at you like he's annoyed about something.

"You can ask the whole damn fleet that we just located", she replied. No need for that attitude, even if you are the squadron leader. She was going to haul her pretty behind back to the rest of them. "And I simply follow my wingman, who decided to turn tail and flee."

"You on stims again?" Shen sounds even more irritated. "You know it's standard procedure to regroup with the squadron on positive sensor contact..."

"Send me the data." His voice is more neutral now.

She fed him the data muttering curses under her breath. From all the squadron commanders, she had to end up with the asshole. There was no point telling him, she had not taken stims for ages.

"Son of the stars..."

He pulsed a transmission out over encrypted channels at relatively low output, intended for short range "all ships" bulletins.

"3rd Starfighter Squadron, return to Carrier immediately!"

PUH-PING

A display pops up on your HUD in your helmet.

SENSOR PULSE DETECTED: ESTIMATED RANGE 200,000 KILOMETERS BEARING 336.210

"Someone went sensors hot", Jayne reported through the comlink. "Estimated location there." She marked the sensor contact on the tactical link between the fighters.

"Enemy fighter-class incoming! Bearing 336.210!" She sounds panicked and indeed, on your sensors there are a handful of small metallic radiant signatures closing fast on your squadron. Can't make out anything about them just yet, but you estimate they'll be within firing range in about 2 minutes.

"Calm the fuck down", she growled in to her comlink. "Just kick in the afterburner and we'll get to the squadron before they reach us."

And she did just that. If she would have had the command of the squadron, he'd have ordered them to 'go dark' - to turn off any emissions and turn in to black spots between the stars.

"Squadron, pull into an attack formation, four prongs, wide spread. Phase into a higher shear, pick your targets and let 'em have it!"

Already you could see the signatures of the squadron align to meet his orders.


OOC: space combat works like this

1) Pick a spike phase to go into. You can be in 0 or up to your Spike Drive rating (in this case, 1) Pick a spike phase to fire into. (Again, 0 or 1 in your case)

2) Declare manuevers, firing to disable, ramming, retreating, etc.

3)make an attack. 1d20 + Attack Bonus + Combat\Gunnery + Dexerity + targets AC

Jayne shot through the space towards the rest of the squadron. She was calculating trajectories in her mind and making tactical plans for the encounter. She'd shot past the rest of the squadron and turn behind them while they scrambled to make contact with the enemy.

OOC: Okay, so Spike Phase works like initiative? Jayne's going to pick a suitable target and do her best to disable her target while keeping her own six clear.

The enemy fighter is fast, and you get a glimpse of them as they come into range, cruciform ships with the look of an interceptor, bulging spike drives taking up much of the space on the craft and they lack the aerodynamic foils of your Skyserpent, they are clearly not intended to manage in the atmosphere and are clearly vacuum only craft.

One of them peels off towards you, but this first wave numbers only about half your total squadron. Enough to take the two of you, but not enough to match the full force of the Darksiders.

You take a shot, edging it into a higher spike shear but hold off transitioning yourself and the pilot pulls a rook manuever and immediately jumps to the highest spike phase he can. Were it not for the manueverability of his ship and ECM systems you would have nailed him immediately.

You jam the spike phase through the redline and hold it there, humming at the edge of reality as you pour burst after burst of relativistic shards at your target, massive swarms of super-dense metal shards that would shred through a fighter hull like scattergun blast through a street thug.

His reponse is a pulse from his Spike drive and a torrent of charged particles issuing forth from the nose of the cross-shaped starfighter and zipping past you, the weapon is clumsy and he is clearly a rookie pilot with little or no combat experience, too eager to shoot and not patient enough to line it up.

Still, his craft is hard to nail down and you fail to land a hit.

-THUD THUD-

Your ship jolts and spins, the cockpit lights flickering and stuttering. Alarms begin going off and damage reports roll over the sides of your vision in your helmet, reporting power grid damage, systems rerouting, minor failures but integrity seems to be holding.

There is a brilliant flash of light and suddenly the enemy fighter is gone from your scope. You catch a glimpse of Takedown phasing past you towards another ship and your ship corrects itself, displays coming back on line ready to take you into combat once again.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:10, Fri 01 Mar 2013.

Jayne tracked the enemy even while her ship was tumbling. The kid had gotten lucky and she was going to give him just the same thing in return. She made her Skyserpent dance in a manner that left no question about her skill as a pilot, making deflection-shots against her foe.

17:14, Today: Jayne Grey rolled 10,13 using 4d4,4d4.
17:14, Today: Jayne Grey rolled 20,11,21,11 using d20+6,d20+6,d20+6,d20+6. Atk: 1d20+Dex+Gun+AC.

Your initial target contact is gone, your sensors don't have it and there's glowing debris spirally past you.

You acquire a new target, the same strange "X" shape and fire off a few volleys and those same sluggish particle burst, this time passing through your spike phase. You get two clean spreads hitting the cross section of the enemy fighter and ripping through it completely, causing it to break apart and disintegrate like a crystal goblet hurled against a stone wall.

And like that, it's all over.

The scope is clear for now and the local area of about 50k distance is a fresh debris field.

"Valkyrie, are you alright? I saw you take a hit..." Takedown has pulled back into formation with you and is back in narrowbeam comm.

You can see the rest of the squadron pulling back together. Looks like an even ten. No losses.

"I'm fine", she replied in a slightly vexed manner. "They didn't match any configuration nor envelope I've ever seen."

She cursed herself for letting some wet-behind-the-ears -pilot get a shot at her, but she estimated, the fighter would hold together for now, going through the internal diagnostics.

"Those weren't corsairs or seperatists..." Your wingwoman is breathing heavily in her cockpit, excited from the rush of combat.

"All fighters, return to Carrier Havenspire immediately. Repeat. All fighters, return to Carrier."

It was a short ranged pulse from your leader, encrypted channel, likely to be too weak to pick up from a distance.

"Acknowledged", Jayne said and spun her fighter around, heading back towards the carrier with the rest of the squadron.

You scrambled back to the carrier and made a series of combat landings on the flight deck. No sooner where you down on the deck than the flight crews were all over your ship, stripping out burned hardware and frayed wires, replacing scored armor panels and running a check on your weapons systems and spike drive.

The rest of the squadron is being rushed to a holoboard in the main hanger with a few collapsable chairs. There's a few items of food and Shen Torugawa is behind a small podium fiddling with some holoscreens and placing images on the main holoboard against the bulkhead.

Most of your squadron has already helped themself to food and are gathered losely around talking about the images on the display.

"...the fakk was that..."

"...did you see it pull that heisenner at 11g?"

"...never seen a spike drive like that before..."

"Almost had me there if..."

Jayne was going over her own flight data from the fight. She wanted to know, how the hell had that fighter gotten a shot at her with that kind of flying skills. Whatever those fighters were, she wanted one. Her standard issue Skyserpent was agile and packed a nice punch, but by the looks of it, it was only good training that had spared the Squadron from losing a few pilots and fighters.

She wasn't eating, not yet - she had things to figure out and she wanted to analyse the flight data to give her a better estimate of the envelope, the enemy fighter could fit in to, so she would be able to predict the movements better in the future.

Your wingmate taps you on the shoulder.

"Jayne, come on. Torugawa is going to go over the data we picked up in the fight. Command wants us back out there in only a few hours to escort the bomber jocks." She looks overly pleased "That's right! We have a target!"

"Yea, yea, I'm coming", she said a bit snappily. If she had had the choice, she would have preferred Amon on her wing, because him she could trust. The new wingman was far less reliable.

But regardless of her feelings towards her wingman, Jayne turned away from the display and headed over to the Squadron Leader to hear the briefing for the next mission. She wasn't really thrilled with the idea - they were being pushed too hard and with that kind of push, the pilots were forced to resort to taking uppers. That would make them skittish and unable to make decissions properly.

"You're welcome by the way - for vaping that hostile off your six." Salma Macthan looks at you with a smirk on her face as she seats herself in front of the ad hoc briefing room. Several other pilots clap her on the shoulder with jovial acclaimations of "Nice shot!" "How many kills is that now?" "Takedown scores again!"

The board flickers and shows a diagram of the previous engagement and Shen seems to want everyone's attention.

Jayne rolled her eyes. Yes, Macthan had shot the bandit off her six, but rubbing it in was just showing how much she wanted 'Crown' back on her side. She had far more kills than that idiot girl and she would not have even thought of rubbing in the kills, she had made off the tails of her wingmen.

"Everyone have a sit, get a bite to eat, drink. We're going right back out there as soon as we've gone over what we picked up from the new hostiles and break down our new mission."

He seems much calmer now and less irritable.

The holoscreen shows several 3dsnaps of the cruciform fighter craft from various angles and an analysis overlay shows likely thruster locations, weaponry, power output, drives, pilot location and estimated capabilities based on data. None of it is too amazing, but due to being designed for only space operation and not atmosphere like the Skyserpents, it has a bit of an manueverability advantage in the vacuum.

The primary weapon appears to be a slow "Reaper Battery" style particle projector that taps the spike drive for power. It's clumsy and better against anything bigger than a fighter or shuttle, but still powerful and could easily fry a fighter with two hits. It would be especially effective against something like a gunboat or a frieghter, big enough to hit easily but too small to shrug off the damage.

Next up, they show some hazy images and spectral scans of the sensor readings the Darksiders picked up. About a dozen ships between frigate and cruiser hull classes all of unknown configuration and origin. Spectral analysis reveals weaponry and military grade power grids.

"Right. Any questions before we get into our next op?"

Jayne noted Shen's more calm demeanor and made an educated guess of him having had his fix of uppers. She was more intrigued by the new opponent than anything else and brushed aside her thoughts about the annoying Squadron Commander in order to absorb as much information about the strange new fighter as she could. Everything would come in handy, if she had to fly against them again - and she would most probably have to.

The target for the bombers was another thing. It was a fleet and who could really tell, how many of those fighters would be there? Bigger ships meant anti-fighter batteries and that in turn meant the possibility of being fired upon. They had no knowledge about the capabilities of the enemy vessels and that made her worried. Were they going to go in blind? She might not have been the tactical genius, but even she knew, going in blind meant usually fewer craft limping back to the carrier than had left it.

"Right. Jocks, here's the next op. We're going up against a line ship, Cruiser-class. We've designated it XC-Belthezar, and it's located on the far side of this-" the display changes from the whole Apophis system and enlarges a section of the 4th planet until it fills the whole image "-planet. Apophis-u27. It's a rock, nothing but some iron and trace elements. Could be they're looking at mining it out, doesn't really matter. Point is we picked up a Cruiser-class hull here. The sensor return delay is about 4 hours and it's about 2 hours from the main fleet with a net response of 6 hours before they pick up our little battle and send word out to the XC-Belthezar, so we're cutting this pretty close. We're going to jump half the fleet to A-U27 and scramble both squadrons to make the attack run and get back before they can jump out."

He flicks to a couple of renders of what they think the target ship looks like based on scan impressions. No real details except the general shape, location of the engines and a guess as to where the weapon mounts are.

"This is all counting on them having roughly the same level as tech as we do, hopefully they can't pick out Spike Drill surges any better than we can, because that means they won't know if we left the system completely or moved elsewhere for about 4 hours. By the time they realize we split our fleet to force their hand, the target ship will be a burning wreck."

"Any questions?"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:37, Mon 11 Mar 2013.

"Any intel on the target composition and what we're up against here?" It was a legit question. "Or are we going in half-blind?" Then again, that was perhaps not as legit but a valid one. Jayne didn't like the way the whole thing felt - something felt amiss. It was a gut feeling, but she trusted her gut more than most people in the Squadron and even more than those higher up. Military intelligence was a contradiction in terms and she was well aware of that.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:11, Tue 12 Mar 2013.

"Half-blind, unfortunately. I know, I know. I don't like it any more than you do, but we're up against the chronometer here." He continued "Knocking out their recon squadron bought us some time, but only about 4 hours at best. Their fleet is scattered through out the system, with the bulk of it here-" He marks a spot on the system map -"about two light hours from the nearest ship. The rest of their fleet is spread out and they don't know what we're doing yet. The Novarch has decided a first-strike is the best option, we'll bloody their nose and drive them out of the system."

"I think we all know by now these aren't some pirates or fringe raiders. All analysis points to an organized astral force with hostile intent and the Novarch plans to catch them with their pants down and make them think twice about coming here again."

"No shit", she muttered under her breath. She wasn't at all thrilled about the odds, because they were, there was something the intelligence had missed and the reconnaissance squadron was not the only squadron in their roster. Sending the enemy away with their tails between their legs wasn't really as easy as they made it sound.

"Some of you are probably wondering if we'll see more fighters covering our target. I doubt it. We haven't seen any indication of a carrier out there, which indicates their fighters are probably being launched in ones or twos from their cruisers, most likely as recon or skirmish forces. We likely won't see any more than maybe another demi-squadron like we already encountered."

"That doesn't rule out larger gunboats or potentially a hidden carrier elsewhere in the system, but you already know how this works. We're limited by the speed of sight, the Hard C, so we have to leap before we look."

"Right, back to your ships. We're phasing to the target in 20 minutes."

He slides his helmet back on with the visor up and starts walking towards his personal fighter.

Jayne wasn't exactly pleased with the plans, but she didn't care to tell Shen that - it wouldn't have changed anything at all. She headed for her fighter, climbed in and sat down to wait for the launch.

A few hours later and you're experiencing that queezy rush that comes from a combat phase, shifting between invisible dimensional shears and the tension of imminent combat.

There's a customary jolt of your whole being, pilot and fighter as one shaking as you exit a higher plane of existence back to the mundane reality of the vast cold blackness.

You can hear shortrange broadwave chatter from your fellow pilot.
"-there about twenty-three two angle ninteen aught-"
"No birds yet, keep your eyes open for sharks and-"
"Move to attack spread eleven, cover the bombers."

And there she was:



In orbit around a dark rock, designated XC-Belthezar was quietly orbiting by herself as the two squadrons moved in to attack.

Jayne flew in the formation with the others, spreading out for the attack formation when the order came. Her eyes scanned the vastness of space for all and any signs of enemy fighters and kept the enemy cruiser under observation. This was it - now she just had to do what she didn't like. Rely on military intelligence.

The grainy image of Shen in his helmet flickered onto your Heads Up Display and his voice came from your earpiece.

"The Courier's leader just picked up a gunship in phase transit to the local one zero zero kay, Jackknife, Brickyard, Valkyrie and Takedown, form up on me. The rest of the squadron covers the Courier's. Break for Havenspire as soon as the Couriers do. Do not wait for us."

The commander's onboard computer pipes you data regarding the gunship-class hostile. ETA of five minutes. In interstellar warfare that was but a moment to traverse but years in combat range.

Shen fires retros and the metaenergy from his spike drive as he revs into a higher phase shear registers on your sensors. Jackknife and Brickyard are already following but Takedown stays on your wing, awaiting your move.

"Acknowledged", Jayne said and swung her fighter to follow the CO towards the gunship. She wasn't very thrilled - if this was something that they had missed until now, how close could the rest of the enemy fleet be, then?

The slab like gunship resolved on your screens closing on an intercept vector with the bomber group. Even so, the Skyserpents are faster and are already almost upon the gunship.

The computer tries to match it up with known configurations and fails after about 10 seconds. It then creates several speculative assumptions about the configuration.

Unknown Gunship-class
mass: 8000+
spike rating 1
15 cm layered composite plating, unknown composition
projectile battery (4 turrets)
ventral mounted weapon system, unknown type

"Start the attack run, weapons free, vary your Phase state!"

OOC: Combat as before, set phase 0 or 1, set target phase 0 or 1, roll to attack

Jayne prepared for the battle.

OOC: Phases 1, 0