Mark looked at the situation and considered.  He didn't like that Beta team was out of contact but he'd wait to hear from Mika's team before forming an opinion there.  For now they needed to get moving.

"Alright, new wingpairs.  Three, you're with me on patrol.  Five and Two, I want you to take the Freighter designated Alpha 1.  Escort it to the jump point Prime has prepared and make sure she jumps safely.  Then return to us."

"All boarding teams, you have exactly ten minutes to get those freighters moving for the jump point.  If you can't do it by then you are to IMMEDIATELY evacuate those ships and return to the transport."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 02:17, Sat 23 Mar 2013.

"We'll get it done, boss.  Okay, Bootpolish.  Let's get this escort done."  Flash flies off toward the first freighter, clearly having no intention of taking the secondary role in the new wingpair.  Not being on patrol doesn't seem to bother him either.  Perhaps he just wants to get the whole thing done and dusted, or perhaps he's just intent on doing what Mark says.

"Freighter 1, this is your escort!  Get your butts to the jump point and we'll cover your rears, over!"  Flash's message is quick but precise, and with the jump point transmitted he leads the wing into a tight escort formation - if, that is, Arin follows his lead.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:33, Sat 23 Mar 2013.

Arin spunhis fighter after the freighter and Flash. The sooner they'd get the mission over, the sooner he could chew the Duro up about lack of respect and general asshattery, not to mention go back to ignoring him. He was growing weary of the constant jabs and had long ago given up the hope of having any kind of friendship towards the blueskinned pilot. He had his past, the Duro knew of and though it was what it was, it didn't warrant the constant picking on.

He had done his part on this mission and saved the lives of those refugees along with helping the Talons to take out the stormtroopers on their tails. If that wasn't enough for the reckless and dangerous pilot, then Arin was at a loss what was expected of him. His hopes for an intervention on Mark's part were growing very slim and now the Durosian seemed to assume command of the pair of fighters, regardless of the fact, Arin had been in charge when paired with Sheila. I might not enjoy it here, after all, he thought, but where would he go to - he was now considered either dead or a traitor by the Empire, neither of which made his life easy.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:05, Sat 23 Mar 2013.

Mika collects a few things from Heigren, the space suit of course, a half dozen each of the stun and frag grenades and two spare power packs.

Hearing the command, she thumbs the talon comm, "Ten, understood.

She looks to the CC9 droid, "What do you know about the situation on the freighhter?"

Heigren checked his gear.  He'd taken the same loadout as the boarding crews with one exception.  Instead of a grenade launcher he took 5 standard stun grenades.  He also took a large pack for the labour droid filled with medical gear, explosives and repair equipment.  He didn't know how to use a lot of it but it was better to have too much than too little.

He waited for them to board.

"Ten minutes?" laughed the Engineer.  "I couldn't get this bucket moving in an hour!  Not without a Sith of a lot more help.  And I'll need it now.  Engineering is a disaster zone."

Mark considered.  "What about the tractor beam on Prime?  Could we use it to drag the freighter towards the jump point?  Every kilometre closer to escape is extra time you have to work."

He assumed one of the Talon engineers or gunners would have an idea about this.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:15, Sun 24 Mar 2013.

Devon was deep in thought - working out exactly what he could do to hinder the Imperial defenders, and how fast.

"Well, so long as the power stays down they have no control from the bridge anyhow.  The second we power back up, they get control back. No, wait...."

Devon glanced at their engineer helpers.  "Open that panel there and flip all the circuit breakers you see." he told them, then set to work on another panel, calling one of the engineers over to help him.  "We need to get the secondaries and failsafes off as well..."

As he worked he explained to CC9 what he was doing:
"We're cutting the bridge out of the powergrid.  If we get this right, then we can go for a reactor start and still leave the bridge blacked out.  Then we can send the reactor team to assist Beta whilst Engineering gets the ship moving for the jump point.  Meanwhile, we go say hi to the bridge."

Devon glanced around "Say, five minutes tops if you want to stay here till the job is done... or we can move out now and leave our buddies to do the work whilst we're busy elsewhere.  Reactor restart will give us turbolifts too - we could ride one straight up to deck nine and lob concussion grenades into the bridge."

"I have no issue with lack of gravity.  Cutting the gravity was a grave error of tactics on the enemy's behalf," CC9 notes.  "It has made travelling from deck to deck much easier.  Turbolifts operational could assist, though, if the lift doors aren't sealed on higher decks."  He heads into the store room and speaks to the lead engineer.  "Imperial.  Many of the turbolift doors were sealed on our way here.  Are they sealed further up this turbolift tube?"
This message was last edited by the player at 05:07, Mon 25 Mar 2013.

"Probably not.  My unconscious colleague was sealing the deck 6 shaft when he got a taste of vacuum.  He was going to seal all the decks in the forward turbolift as he went.  Weren't expecting company so fast."

"Thank you for your assistance," CC9 states, and then returns to Devon.

"You have three minutes.  After that we move and leave the engineers to complete the rest of the repairs.  We will head upward and through the walkway as in our training.  The grenade launcher will assist in scattering them from their defensive position as we approach."

Alpha Team - Freighter 3, Engineering

Devon and his team of engineers get to work disabling the bridge systems.  With the shipjacker in charge they work quickly, Devon using tricks the regular engineers wouldn't have thought of.  They were trained to fix systems, not hijack them.

The work wasn't quite done when the three minute deadline was up, but it was close.  Devon knew they'd have the bypasses complete in under a minute.




Freighter 4 - Deck 3 (Just outside airlock)
Mika brought the transport vessel in smoothly and efficiently.  Handing control back over to the civilian pilot, she moved into the back where Heigran and PK-24 stood ready to go.  Grabbing her own equipment the two humanoids sealed their environmental suits and moved out.

The airlock was empty with no surprises waiting.  Reaching the end they found the cargo bay a shambles.  Broken machinery, frozen fuel and other items floated around.  There was a neat hole in the port hull that travelled straight through to the other side.  There was no sign of life.


OOC:  Well you're aboard.  What now?




Space
While Flash and Arin flew escort for the captured freighter, Mark and Sheila continued to fly cover for the remainder of the convoy.  Aboard Prime, Zyra could only sit and watch the sensors for any signs.  Being passive she had no real idea what was going on.

Cor likewise sat in the comms room, listening and waiting.

Time was ticking away.


Battle status
Nightshrike - 180/180SP 220/220HP
Arin (R41) - 30/30SP 87/100HP (missiles depleted)
Sheila (Z95) - 30/30SP 115/120HP (1 missile remaining)
Mark (Z95) - 30/30SP 120/120HP (1 missile remaining)
Flash (C/S)- 83/140HP
Freighter Alpha 1 - 18/40SP 60/60HP

Freighter 1 - Destroyed
Freighter 3 - *Disabled* <Comms & Weapons destroyed>
Freighter 4 - Reactor Offline Critical Hull Damage <Comms & Weapons destroyed>
System Patrol Craft: *UNKNOWN - Not on sensors*


TIE Escort x 4 - All destroyed

Xil - Unknown
Grayrhynn - Unknown
B2-CC9 - Uninjured
Devon - Uninjured
B1-AE3 - Destroyed
B1-AE5 - Destroyed
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:11, Thu 28 Mar 2013.

Mika gets on the Talon comms.  "We're on site, the cargo hold's torn up and the hull's breached.  9, 11 anything on the sensors?"

While waiting for a response, she motions to Heigren and the droid, "Let's head forward and follow the devastation.  That's probably the fastest way to see where the others are."

Heigran follows Mika through the bay.  "Wow that turbolaser blast did a number on this place.  You should tell your gunners to be more careful.  That one shot has made a hell of a mess!"

Freighter 4 - Cargo Bay

It didn't take long for Mika's team to sweep the cargo bay.  Her experience in ships like this quickly allowed her to discern all the damage here was from the turbolaser blast, there had been no battle here.  Nor was there signs of life.  One corpse in the uniform of an Imperial Navy engineer was wedged under a brace.  It looked like he'd been caught in the sudden decompression of the deck and died of exposure.  If his body hadn't got wedged, he'd have been sucked out into space.

There was nothing here to interest them and time was not a luxury.

Zyra checked the sensor board.  "Negative Ten.  But sensors are still on passive."

CC9 continues to listen to Tac Comm 4 while waiting patiently for Devon's report at the three-minute mark.

"I have a short-range visual link set up on the PK droid with you, Ten, so I will help as best I can.  Hopefully this will go smoothly."  Her tone doesn't really indicate if she think it will or not.  Realistically, though, things with Beta team are already not going smoothly.

Heigren quickly grew bored with staring at debris.  "Where we going babe?" he says to Mika.

Mika considers.  "The enineers will probably be in the engine room, lets start there.  Maybe they'll be able to tell us something more about what's going on."

Mika leads the way, hoping that the lack of comms might be a comlink malfunction.

Freighter 4

Mika, Heigran and PK-24 use the lack of gravity to float up to deck 5 where they wrench the turbolift doors open.  The bulkhead between decks 5 & 6 is closed, a normal emergency response to loss of vacuum.  The door is easily pulled open and the trio clumsily make their way through, closing the door behind them.

Continuing to climb, the trio reach deck 7 and pry the doors open.  A blaster pistol is in Mika's face the moment she opens the door but the hand is trembling and Mika casually knocks it aside.  When the man, one of the engineering team sees Mika he lowers the weapon and steps away.   They can see that the man has a nasty wound to his left arm, blaster shot from the look of it.  The wounded engineer is standing over two Imperials in full space suits, secured with binders behind their backs.

The sound of cursing is coming from main engineering.  At the sounds of their entry, a burly man wanders out.  Mika recognises him as another of the civilian engineers.

"About damn time help got here." he grumbles.  He looks at the new arrivals and laughs.  "This is it?  The two of you and a labour droid?  I need engineers dammit, that mess in there isn't going to fix itself."

PK-24 moves into the engineering room in its model's characteristic steady plod, looking around to assess the damage.  Cor's voice comes from it, calm and steady.  "Ten is an expert engineer," she says evenly.  Someone unfamiliar with the reclusive Umbaran's tone might be forgiven for mistaking the voice for a highly sophisticated Verbobrain package rather than a remotely-transmitted organic's voice.  Either way anyone who's been around PKs would know they don't talk like Cor does.  "More engineers may be coming shortly; otherwise we will need to withdraw the strike team.  You will get out of here safely.  We will make sure of it."

Heigren remained near the turbolift.  He knew nothing about engines and figured they wouldn't be staying long anyway, they had people to rescue.

He pointed to the two prisoners.  "Want me to deal with those two for you Ten?"

Arin kept on escorting the freighter. The mission had winded long enough and it was now time to get things finished up.

Mika gives the engineer a hard look as she bites off a scathing retort.  She didn't like his tone but this wasn't the place and they didn't have the luxury of time to screech at each other.  "Briefly, what's the situation?"

To Helgren, "What do you got in mind?" she asks in regards to the prisoners.  When she first put eyes on the two, she realized that the Talon's really didn't need captives.  She didn't want to shoot them in cold blood or space them, but if they can't salvage the ship, they'd blow it up and they captives would end up just as dead.

Whatever Helgren had in mind though, time was of the essence and she'd not want to proceed onwards with only a labor droid in tow, she'd need Helgren with her.