Re: Act 4 - A Time to Strike with the 'Shrike?
"Maybe I can add to that... he said nodding at Devon. "As you know, I was tasked to look at insertion scenarios for us on the Refinery Strike... Since I can't learn much about the Typhon refinery from here, I had to get to Phindar Prime to do it, and tagged along with Merreck... hence the tired rugged look this morning..." he apologized with a grin. "We had a long night, but managed to find out a few things by various covert means. Given the insertion aspect of my tasks, I was mainly concerned with the Imperial presence in the Area and its strength, as well as the imperial's routines in the Sector to determine if there might be some blind spots in their network that we can use...." Darvin said as he shifted his weight against the bulkhead.
"One thing we found out early was that Typhon crews have been displaced by Imperials. The only time there is a Typhon crew, it's usually when the Imperials are too busy and need to pull a few people around. It happens rarely, and the crews were rather vocal about it. The point is, we wouldn't be up against your usual crew compliments... security is probably going to be tighter than expected."
He let his words hang a bit as he straightened up and walked back over to the Kaf dispenser. "To make matters worse... while Typhon freighters are technically similar to the ones that Phindar Petrochem uses, Typhon has had theirs beefed up," he said as he poured himself another cup, his back was turned to everyone for a bit, and then he continued as he returned to his seat... "Apparently, Typhon freighters have been equipped with shields and four point-defense lasers for starfighter defense, with a complement of 2-4 stormtroopers on board for security, not counting crew complement which is usually 8 for optimal operation.
"If that weren't enough, they're usually escorted by a complement of 2-4 TIE fighters, depending on the convoy size. Larger convoys sometimes have a small capital ship (corvette or light frigate) in defense. Smaller convoys usally have only fighters with them. Those freighters are equipped with docking clamps to carry the TIEs through hyperspace. We found out that these clamps take time to power up after a jump. We might have a 30 second window that we can exploit," the later was followed by a nod, directed towards Team 1's leader, Mr. Kismet.
"Other than that, convoys leave from Typhon refineries at regular intervals. Remember, the usual crewmen are out work at the moment because the Imperials have taken over. They're kept out of the loop on convoy planning, so they don't know many details. I'm afraid that we'll need a whole lot more info, and that we'd need to go directly on Phindar prime to get it." Darvin looked over at Sheppard, "Sir, I'd like us to consider doing a recon mission on Phindar Prime, before any convoy strike."