Faction Catching the Scent (RTL)

[Krenis Skirata]

COMET CHASER STATION

Krenis paused, his glass half raised and rested one hand on his helmet in his lap. There were low conversations, accompanied by furtive glances from some shadier than normal humans at a nearby table.

“Yeah, those Eclipse types were bad- but you at least knew they were there.”

“Well, until Yvarro blew up their ship. Then who knows where they went.”

“Prison mostly,” a third human, her long hair shading her face, “Along with three dozen bankers, a half dozen accountants, and Force only knows how many questionable arms dealers.” The glasses clinked and paused as a Squib hurried past, carrying an unfamiliar piece of wreckage.

Krenis’ scarred face darkened as he waited to hear the next part of the conversation. They spoke too quietly for him to hear, but then they got up, leaving a handful of Talons on the table as payment.

“This is the third ship coming from the Rim that’s gone missing in two months. Has to be pirates. That hyperlane is too well established otherwise.”

“Could be uncharted anomalies—“

“Nah, the Pathfinders have to survey ships out all the time, trying to get out past the edge.”

Krenis keyed in a con link and sent out a message. He had a lead to share with the others. In theory, privateers were motivated by profit. But dead men earned no credits and sometimes it was preferable to reduce the prize money to ensure a return home.

He stood, paying his own bill, and heading to a private meeting room. Commercially motivated warfare was still warfare and all the old rules still applied.

“I’ve got a lead,” Krenis spoke into the con link, going out to associates and acquaintances. “Three ships missing from the same route in the last month or two. Well developed lane, no wreckage that I know of. We may have found ourselves the target of our next cruise.
Get our agents and info hunters scoping out shipping manifests and IMCG records about missing ship claims. I’m inviting some acquaintances to see if we can’t work out a deal on this.”

Assuming the cruise was successful. Many were not, but that was just how life went.

 

[Mig Gred]

Spoiler: Music

Mig sat aboard a Downburst-class Stealth Torpedo Frigate, the Downburst. She was running low sig: Cloak up, baffles activated, and unneeded systems unpowered. The vessel's A.I., Burst, would soon show himself in the hologram in his chosen appearance of a male Twi'lek in armor. He looked back around at the Alor, seeming annoyed.

"We've been running low sig for a while now. Nothing on scanners yet."

"Look, we both know these hunts take time. Just keep up the occasional pulsing. If Krenis is right we'll be able to find something eventually and shadow them until we can get some more help. We'll give it a couple more days." The A.I. just nodded and disappeared as Mig got up to go check on things in the bridge looking out as the stealth frigate continued to slowly travel under her cloaking field.

Krenis Skirata

 

[Krenis Skirata]

Mig Gred

Krenis stood in the back room of the Comet Chaser Cantina, studying a map of the hyperlanes of the Outer Rim, and their many branches, marking highlighted dots where the ships had disappeared. Not near Sith space, like the Eclipse raiders, and far beyond the reach of the League. It was out near Castilon, where the hyperlanes were small and local, twisting between systems, black holes, and anomalies at the edge of the galaxy's gravitational effect.

"So, someone operating out there," Krenis said, frowning. "Time to start looking at parallels between the ships. What's the word on their cargo and itineraries?"

"Nothing from the merchant captain's guild yet," the reply came back from one of the other privateersmen. "They haven't found any cargo record or the ship's itineraries."

"None?" Krenis turned, frowning. "That shouldn't be the case. Most ships in the Outer Rim post to the same general cargo itineraries and insurance brokerages."

"Tramp traders don't," the reply came.

"No, they don't, but these were big cargo vessels, not tramp traders."

"Our ship will be ready in a couple of hours, at least."

"That gives us that much time to start getting lead to Mig and the rest."

 

[Cass Gemini]

Spoiler: Gear and other links

Equipped:

• Calypso's Thunder
• Harlequin sabers
• Gravpack
• Viper mk2 skinsuit
• Thermal Detonators

Ship:

• Midnight Kyber
• 4 x Sciss stealth fighters

NPCs:

• Crew of the Midnight Kyber

Location: An uninhabited system on the Rimma
Objective: Piracy... duh...
Tag: Krenis Skirata Mig Gred

The Midnight Kyber once again slipped from its hiding place within the magnetic shadow of a iron moon, and approached her prey while still cloaked. Her Sciss fighters were in formation to her starboard and were ready to board and loot their prey. Ahead of them was a cargo vessel, stopped over in this isolated system along the Rimma Trade Route. They did not know that they had already been interdicted by a cloaked mine, and that the pirate queen of the Kraken Coalition was closing her trap. "Reuven!" she barked and the little six year old half ubese boy quickly attended her side, his head came up the the waist of his proud mother and she placed her hand on his small shoulder. "Pirate Lord Justene," the pirate said to her son "Our target cannot use their hyperdrive due to my mines, pur boarders are ready, how should your mother begin her attack?"

"Well mum, I say take out their engines first, and then their weapons, then see if they surrender?"

Cass nodded and smiled.

The frigate decloaked in the aft of the target and immediately opened fire. The larger cruiser was caught completely unaware and one of its engine pods was burst open before they even had time to raise shields. The ship twisted in space as they vainly tried to manoeuvre away from their attackers. Several more missiles burst against the cargo ship in the moments before they finally had their shields up and began shooting back.

The Midnight Kyber swept upwards and over the target, drawing the attention of the bigger ship as the sciss craft made their move and latched on to the underside of the target. Two dozen pirates, led by her mawite assault captain would very quickly board and overrun the cargo decks of the vessel. Their aim was to take control of the cargo doors, get them open and allow the Kyber to remove the largest crates of delicious munitions while they themselves cleared out any private lockboxes. They had 18 minutes from the moment their ship decloaked before the Kyber needed to leave to avoid incoming patrols. But Thrace and Dryshan were smooth operators, Cass had no concerns about their ability to do the job.

"Captain, they are releasing droid Interceptor drones to target our fighters."

Cass nodded and lifted up her hand to which a holographic weapon control appeared. She locked on to two of them and immediately blasted them to atoms with the Kyber's weapons. A hand pulled on one of her buckles "Mum, I want a drone" she smiled at the little face beneath her and flipped to Ion weapons, disabling the remaining two in an ion field discharge "I'm not picking up your toys Reuven, if you want one, you better get on to tractor control". The child beamed and ran to the control to begin reeling in his gift.

As quick as it had begun, it was over, the crippled cargo cruiser found itself alone and venting atmosphere with its cargo hold empty. The crew were beginning to leave their hiding spaces and count their casualties. Most of them would live today, but none of them would ever forget Cass Gemini.

Tag also for Isidor Justeene

 

[Krenis Skirata]

Isidor Justeene Cass Gemini Mig Gred

"Open source intel just picked up a distress signal on the Rimma," one of the company's communications specialists said, stepping over from the side of the room. "It just got relayed to us- attack is almost certainly over, but it's a trail at least."

Krenis turned around and nodded, "What's the location?"

"Uninhabited system, but has regular patrols from the Service."

"Excellent. Send the details to Clan Gred. They're probably the ones closest to the system and hopefully they'll pay us back the favor someday."

The message was quickly put together and beamed out while Krenis resealed his helmet. "Let's get to the Maarva. The custom parts aren't in yet, but we can take the corvette for a spin. See what we can do with that kind of speed and power."

 

[Mig Gred]

Downburst would continue to slowly troll the area in a hunt for anything when the new transmission came in, along with the SOS signals. Mig looked at the signal location. Seemed about right. Mig looked at the ships captain, who nodded and quickly gave the order.

"Get us just outside of those coordinates guys! Give us time to recloak before engaging."

"Aye captain!" And with that, the cloaking device would power down so that the vessel could jump off the to location.

It didn't really take long for the frigate to leave hyperspace, and it would soon reengage it's cloaking device and run in low-sig towards the distress call. And towards....

"This is Burst, I think we have something!" The A.I. would frantically send out to other ships in the area.

"Captain, get us close, and prep ion torpedoes and Conner nets."

Cass Gemini Krenis Skirata Isidor Justeene

 

[Cass Gemini]

Spoiler: Gear and other links

Equipped:

• Calypso's Thunder
• Harlequin sabers
• Gravpack
• Viper mk2 skinsuit
• Thermal Detonators

Ship:

• Midnight Kyber
• 4 x Sciss stealth fighters

NPCs:

• Crew of the Midnight Kyber

Location: An uninhabited system on the Rimma
Objective: Piracy... duh...
Tag: Krenis Skirata Mig Gred

The Midnight Kyber had withdrawn and recloaked so the captain could count her loot. The ship was hanging low over the moon of of a planet within the system and she still had the target vessel on her scopes. It was often useful to hang around in case a juicy target arrived provide a rescue along with more loot.

"Captain! We have something on scopes, a hyperspace arrival burst and then nothing, I think we might have company. I'm powering up the grav trap." A voice came to Cass from one of the terminals, the little chromed up techie was good and would find this interloper.

"Thanks Dex, keep me informed, tonnage?"

"AI is guessing frigate sized from the tachyon burst."

Cass puckered her lips and swung them back and forth as she pondered her next move. Cloaked ships were a pain in the ass, she knew, she owned five of them, but she was so tempted to go for a fight, if she could get her grav trap running and detect the target vessel she could play. Hmm..... what... to....do. The tapped her fingers on her chin and looked at her son as her fiddled with a processor stolen from his new drone.

"Ah screw it, battle stations, keep us cloaked until we have detected them or the detect us. Get the fighters back out there and ready to engage."

Cass climbed into her chair as the ship silently left it hiding spot and crept back toward the crippled cargo vessel. Her fingers activated the comm to her fighter squadron commander, out there right now cloaked. "Pix, dear, stick a disruptor torpedo into their remaining life support plant, lets give these rescuers a little quandary." There was a little laugh back through the comms and the Zeltron pilot followed her orders. The cloaked ship fired two disruptor torpedoes while cloaked then banked hard and hit her slam to get ensure the enemy couldn't immediately track her. Seconds later, the heavy ion package detonated and on board the gravity and lifesupport would immediately fail.

Tag also for Isidor Justeene

 

[Mig Gred]

The Downburst continued to slowly run in low-sig as she the crew continued, occasionally giving a sensor burst to try and detect anything. The frigate's own scanner suit didn't include grav sensors, but she could try and follow an engine trail, assuming they weren't also low sig. Wasn't perfect, but it worked well enough. But then then explosion came through, and Burst would form in the bridge.

"Captain! Something hit the freighter's life support and grav gen. I'm not picking up another ship." The captain looked, glaring at the screen. The Mandalorian armor lacked... well any visor whatsoever, but had a "T" painted into it's face. She sighed a bit, looking back.

"That can't be a coincidence. Alor, this isn't a good situation for us."

"Any idea?" Mig trusted the crew, but he did have to agree. this wasn't good.

"We could move in on the opposite side.... Fire multiple decoys with spoofs of mag, or ion trails from our drives. Even have them seem to approach the ship at different angles. Two near, two to the winds to look like flanking maneuvers." Mig simply nodded, and the plan was set. The quartet of decoy launchers all fired, spoofing the Downburst's engine signature. While the frigate did make a slow move to get close to one of the freighter's docking ports, two of the decoys would move somewhat close, while the other two spread wide. They'd have to stay cloaked as long as they could. Right up to the point of docking to only hopefully pull this off.

Cass Gemini Krenis Skirata Isidor Justeene

 

[Krenis Skirata]

Mig Gred Cass Gemini

"The Maarva's about ready to depart for a fast cruise," one of the company techs said. "They're just topping off the tanks and ensuring the generator's ready. The improvements aren't ready yet, but the turbolasers and shields are running at full capacity."

"Let's head aboard then," Krenis replied, raising his voice and magnetizing his helmet to the hip of his armor. It felt good to have proper armor again. Armor that looked like it was supposed to. Sure, Mandalorian armor was nice, and he was Mandalorian, but Mandalorian aesthetic armor never felt like him. But this new armor, copying the design of his original armor, felt right.

The whole operation packed up quickly, gathering essentials, and heading down the building to the landing pad on the exterior, where the CR90 corvette sat with his boarding ramp lowered. The engines thrummed in the hull and the vibrations radiated through the durasteel struts.

It was not long at all before they in space and in hyperspace towards the distress signal.

"Signal Clan Gred we're on the way as back-up," Krenis said, buckling into a chair on the bridge. Not the captain's chair, but a chair nonetheless. "When we revert to realspace, I'll join the boarders."

 

[Cass Gemini]

Spoiler: Gear and other links

Equipped:

• Calypso's Thunder
• Harlequin sabers
• Gravpack
• Viper mk2 skinsuit
• Thermal Detonators

Ship:

• Midnight Kyber
• 4 x Sciss stealth fighters

NPCs:

• Crew of the Midnight Kyber

Location: An uninhabited system on the Rimma
Objective: Piracy... duh...
Tag: Krenis Skirata Mig Gred

Cass looked on as the sensor systems lit up with multiple small traces around the damaged ship. The gravity signature of the cruiser shifted as something heavy pulled up close to it, that was their target, but what were the other contacts, it was concerning. "In for a credit..." she said as she pulled up the flight controls. She was still not sure what the contact target was, but she was confident in her ship and her crew.

Her engines flared up and the Kyber accelerated hard towards the target, less concerned about stealth now, Cass dropped her cloak and opened fire. Several of her laser cannons targeted what she did not know were spoof drones, but her primary weapons raked the docking position which would hopefully be occupied by the Downburst her first pass ambushing the target would hopefully catch the enemy captain off guard and she rolled her ship to begin the turn for another pass.

As she carrier on her pass, Dex, her cyber girl began trying to sift through any electronic emissions to work out what each of the contacts were and also to probe for any potential opportunities to attack the computer systems of the enemy target. She was good, if there was a crack, she would find it, but the target still hadn't revealed itself and all their attacks were blind at the moment.

Out in space, Pix and the other Sciss fighters waited for the enemy to make its move before they would attack. Ensuring Cass would still have a second ambush up her sleeve.

Tag also for Isidor Justeene

 

[Mig Gred]

The Downburst's sensors operator was about to yell out as the stealth frigate rattled with enemy fire. They'd decloaked, but now they definitely knew where the ship was.

"Well there goes surprise." The captain quickly called out as she ran to her seat. "Burst! Get us target lock, now! Gunnery get turrets ready to fire, we're decloaking! Alor.... Hold on tight." As the stealth ship revealed itself, the twin Blackout cannons would open fire, while the nose of the frigate would take aim before a spread of six heavy ion missile let loose from the forward launchers. The frigate would burn hot as it pulled away from the attempt to dock. All they could hope for right now was to survive long enough for support really. That or that this would become a cat and mouse game soon. As the ship pulled away, it would duck back into cloak, but not before activating the baffles and launching another decoy, reflecting the engine signature. They were hurting though. A few shot had gotten through and damaged the hull. Well there went the nightshadow on those spots of the hull.

Cass Gemini Krenis Skirata

 

[Krenis Skirata]

Mig Gred Cass Gemini

The Maarva hurtled through hyperspace towards the last contact from the Gred ship. Krenis sat with his fingers interlaced, his helmet resting on his knee as he waited. The boarders were preparing to launch from the ship, but they needed a boarding target before pulling that off. And for that, they needed to be patient.

He cracked his knuckles slowly and double-checked the magnetization on the Westar carbine. It was read to go.

"Reversion in five minutes," the captain announced calmly, staring ahead. "All hands- general quarters, general quarters." Alarms flashed through the ship as the crew hurried to their positions. "Shields on stand-by."

Krenis felt the tautness in his gut, indicating the release of adrenaline before a significant action. Some interpreted it as nervousness, but Krenis knew it was his subconscious system preparing for a fight.

Soon, the clouds of hyperspace turned to streaks, and then dots, as the ship returned to realspace. There was a buzz of activity in the CR90 as the shields went to power and sensors probed out into the dark for any threats.

"Picking up torpedo trails, engine exhaust, and other weapons fire, but few ships appearing on scopes," the sensor officer said, staring at the display.

"Work backward and see what you can do to identify them," the captain replied, nodding to Krenis. Krenis returned the nod and sealed his helmet in place. "Focus on trace trails. Activate League IFF privateer transponder- the Gred ship is out there somewhere and we don't really want to get shot at by them."