Faction Core of the Issue

[Wedge Draav]

Open to: Revenant Squadron and GA Pilots



​

Following the events of the attack on Coruscant... Revenant Squadron had been tasked by the 10th Sector fleet for a vitally important mission: to protect the Core and Deep Core worlds. Following the invasion of Coruscant, numerous slave raids and raiders, thieves and smugglers began to encroach on the vulnerable Alliance space, taking advantage of the damaged fleets... It's here that we find our heroes, outnumbered by a massive, sprawling pirate attack on Anaxes!

Revenant Squadron, on routine patrol, has been attacked and their communications are jammed, and the Alliance's reinforcements are far away... They'll have to fight through the Pirates, proving once again, that they're the best of the best.

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Pirate Fleet:​

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x23 Stolen TIE Fighters​

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x2 Repurposed NIO Frigates​

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x2 Prisoner Transports​

Wedge yanked hard on the throttle, dodging the incoming fire of the TIE fighter behind him. He took a deep breath, rolling his X-wing into a helix, trying to shake the TIE fighter. Pirates were often thought of as lesser pilots, but in Wedge's experience, they had just enough experience to be dangerous, and sometimes, more experience than most. Being a pirate from the edge of space required skill and training, even if it wasn't formal.

The blaster bolts hit his shields, and elicited a grunt in response to the violent shaking. Not enough to break his shields, but enough to cause concern. Wedge hit the throttle, diving towards the enemy frigate, point-defense turrets, manually operated he assumed by their slow response, began to chip towards him. Wedge rolled his starfighter, going under the frigate, coming back up- and around. He flew so close to the frigate in his loop that he could see the new paint on the frigate outside his canopy. He completed his backflip over the frigate- the TIE fighter still going straight to where he believed Wedge was.

The loop worked, and he scored the kill on the TIE fighter, who was probably none the wiser that Wedge was behind him. The TIE exploded in a small fireball, before eerily drifting into the cold abyss of space.

"All Revenant callsigns, check in."

He had most of Revenant here on a routine deep-space patrol, but. He just liked to hear their voices. Made the situation seem less daunting when everyone heard who was there, together.

 

[Reima Vitalis]

"DUCHESS"
"Revenant Twelve"

pebbledash houses underneath the flightpath

​

"Bartoo, give me scans on those fighters," Reima ordered her astromech. The ball-shaped droid was freshly cleaned, all the carbon scoring and scorches from his ordeal at Coruscant scraped, his white and green and platinum sparkling. "See if we can get a signature. Those aren't Imperial flight patterns, at least not any I'm familiar with, and I'm curious -- "

Her voice dropped as she focused her attention on the battle as a TIE fighter's green lasers stitched across her shields and spat out ahead of her. "Motherfucker," she seethed, and tracked the fighter's movement. These pilots were definitely not Imperials -- at least, not the competent kind. The people maneuvering these fighters didn't know how to make the most of the Twin Ion Engine platform.

Pirates, obviously, or else criminal scum.

://AFFIRMATION: YES, FLIGHT LIEUTENANT VITALIS. THIS UNIT WILL SCAN FOR IDENTIFIABLE SIGNATURES, AND ...

The words stropped scrolling and the droid chittered with what sounded like annoyance.

://ERROR: SCANNING ABORTED DUE TO TARGET DESTRUCTION.

Reima grinned despite herself; the fighter that had peppered her shields with laserfire overshot her and had placed itself directly into her line of fire. She couldn't not kill them. "Sorry, Bartoo," Reima said.

://RESPONSE: HUMOR SIGNATURE IN FLIGHT LIEUTENANT VITALIS' VOICE INIDICATES: YOU ARE NOT REMORSEFUL AT ALL. COMMENCING RANGED SCAN OF DISTANT FIGHTERCRAFT.

"Good man," Reima said, then switched to the squadron channel. "Revenant Twelve, engaged," she reported coolly. "Bartoo, focus on anything that gives us a clue as to where these ships were stolen from. We can forward whatever we get to the SIA; they might be able to do something clever with it."

Wedge Draav

​

 

[Shar Sieu]

Flight Lieutenant Shar 'Skids' Sieu
Revenant Squadron, 10th Sector Armada​

Location: Deep Space
Objective: Patrol
Equipment: Alliance-Blue X-wing Starfighter
Callsign: Revenant Four

ALLIES:
//REVENANT// || One - Wedge Draav || Twelve - Reima Vitalis || Others

"All Revenant callsigns, check in."

He had most of Revenant here on a routine deep-space patrol, but. He just liked to hear their voices. Made the situation seem less daunting when everyone heard who was there, together.

"Revenant Twelve, engaged," she reported coolly.

<<Rev Four, bringing up the rear.>>

Shar fiddled with the scopes as he continued on-course at the back of the spread-out formation. They were spaced out for maximum scanner coverage, and with the patrolling TIEs located (and destroyed), the pirates would have to be near. Problem was, if they hadn't got them on the scanners by now...

He cut power and slowed, maneuvering close to the expanding clouds of debris. An old trick he'd learnt during the deep space sneak-and-strike days of Revenant:

<<Four to squadron, I'm commencing scan of destroyed debris- could get a lock on the Ion trail signatures.>> The pilots had clearly been inexperienced- and hopefully that meant sloppy discipline over Ion Engine emissions, baffle control and anti-emission trackers. Such TIEs belched their ion trails in ways that would light up Revenant's advanced sensor suites, and in highly unique ways that would easily lead them back to their deployment zones.

His asteroid bleeped in affirmation, and Shar reversed engine output, slowing to a crawl as he hovered near the graves of the TIEs, his X-Wing recording the Ion emission signatures carefully.

 

[Addison Porte]

" Tinks"
"Revenant Six"
Piloting blue & black X-wing w/R9 unit "Gizmo"
On patrol accompanied by:
Wedge Draav Rev One | Reima Vitalis Rev Twelve | Shar Sieu Rev Four

TAKE_WHAT_YOU_CAN_GIVE_NOTHING_BACK
​

Suddenly out of nowhere, a fleet dropped right in front of Revenant Squadron as they were patrolling the sector and outpuked a swarm of TIE fighters.

"Gizmo! What the... ?! Where did they come from?" Addy shouted at her astromech droid in audible frustration as she immediately went evasive to avoid getting vaped in the first incoming volley of laser bolts from the yet-to-be-identified enemy.

<I don't know... You're the Jedi. Aren't you supposed to tell me?> Tink's R9 unit retorted in his usual dry fashion.

Addison just huffed at his snarky comment as she inverted and dove. Yeah, she'd been distracted in thought after a distressing family message was received just prior to going on this sorte. It had caused her to not be totally focused on the task at hand thus not registering the disturbance in the Force; promising herself in the future to not allow it to happen again as that is how you get yourself killed or others.

Porte pulled back on the Howling's control stick to power up through a teardrop onto a TIE's tail. As the fighter rolled, she swooped the X-wing in and fired. Her quad-lasers burst the spherical pod like a bubble, sending the hexagonal wings slicing off through space.

<Splash one for my girly. Woohoo!> quipped Addy's silver and blue personal cheerleader... or was it menace?

"Oh shut it, Gizzy, and just scan would ya? Maybe link up with the other astromech droids. Seems we are being jammed by that frigate."

Comm traffic from Revenant Leader caught her attention followed by Twelve and Four's responses.

<<"Revenant Six engaging as well. What's the plan here, boss?">> Addy keyed over the squadron's comm channel, then the brunette changed frequencies to contact the Gossam as she ratcheted the throttle up to full and swooped the T-95h up on its port stabilizers.

<<"Skids, if you need me just whistle.">> the Taananbian offered as wingmates do just before she corkscrewed down through a roll that brought her out on another TIE's six. And, this one seemed to have more skill than the first.

​

 

[Wedge Draav]

Allies:

Addison Porte Revenant Six
Shar Sieu Revenant Four
Reima Vitalis Revenant Twelve


OUTGUNNED, NEVER OUTPERFORMED


​

Flying without a droid had it's disadvantages, but Wedge never liked the damn things, so-

It was impressive that just by himself, he could keep up with what was going on. He looked at the screens in his X-wings, formulating a plan. Not much of one, but enough of one. He rolled into attack position, letting out a sharp whistle over the comms to gather everyone's attention.

"Fly in a line with me, then break off at 45 degree angles after your initial bursts. We gotta split 'em up if we wanna win this. Take out the fighters, then the frigates. We need to fry those prisoner transport engines too- do not shoot them, they could be chock full of people for all we know."

He fired another deadly volley, sending a stray TIE fighter away from it's post into oblivion. The explosion incinerated the pilot, and Wedge could only sneer as the other Revenant members fell into line, and he breathed deeply, pushing the throttle forward, engaging his thrusters.

Wedge moved fast.

His attack run was fast, full throttle almost. The frigate was barely able to target him, and another TIE went down as he strafed them. When the rest of Revenant followed suit- the diverging split would cause the Pirates to have to engage them at random, and without coordination. A trained enemy force would designate squadrons or wing groups to engage them together, but Wedge had a feeling they weren't as coordinated, based on their response and how confused they seemed.

However, if the Frigates or the Prisoner Ships escaped, Revenant could chalk this up as a loss. There was no telling what was on those ships. The frigates might've been fair game, but the Prisoner Ships became Wedge's primary focus, primary target. And he noticed something. Their engines flared.

They were getting ready to jump.

Revenant had to move quick, destroy the enemy quickly to prevent the transports from getting away, with whatever they had onboard. Or whoever.

 

[Kelly T. Perris]

IN THE HANDBASKET
Wedge Draav ★ Reima Vitalis ★ Shar Sieu ★ Addison Porte ★ Zane Cameron

Dialogue guide:
"Speech." / <<Comms>> / <MESSAGES> / [Thoughts]

Meanwhile...

"We need to fry those prisoner transport engines too- do not shoot them, they could be chock full of people for all we know."

Perris was already ahead of the game.

The deluge of ostensibly stolen and recovered pirate TIEs had brought to mind one of his first brushes with the ballsy, insane side of his wingmates in the initial Revenant Squadron when he was still a Flight Officer. The situation was similar, and being kept in the dark on just what the fuck was going on when some people didn't check in, then, was something of a rite of passage in the squadron. You only got informed on it after the first time. Though he hadn't realised it at first, it was also one of the things that contributed to developing the degree of detachment a starfighter pilot needed despite the bond with their wingers. To keep their minds on the job, and harbour concern about their fellow pilots only to the degree that it wouldn't interfere with the mission.

The Maalraas Protocol was a judgement call exercised typically by the A-Wing flight, or one of the X-wing flights within the old squadron, when things went a bit to hell before any progress could be made. The idea was that a small number of fighters would split off and go dark, switching to a secure ship-to-ship band to push objectives, which would invariably split the attention of the enemy sooner or later when they'd realised that the Revs had pulled a fast one on them. It required a large degree of faith in the abilities of their wingers, much like the majority of actions did.

Which was what Indy was doing here.

He'd said nothing, which had been more or less standard, except that the word 'Maalraas' was sent via text to the rest of the squadron, back then. The only difference here was, he'd only notified the people that were already in the know - Skids and Tinks - before switching to ship-to-ship with Zane and directing him further. The two of them never checked in, and it would have taken too much precious time to explain to the others, and... the Corellian was fine with that. Oh, he respected Draav for some things, sure: stepping up when Mylo got pulled away unexpectedly a short time after reformation, fitting himself into a position he must've not seen himself in so soon, proving himself a reasonably capable leader... but it just wasn't the same as the old squad. He hadn't been put through the same paces. It didn't feel truly earned.

[ Let him stew. ] he'd thought. Ask forgiveness, rather than permission. For Zane, he sent this message:

<SWITCH TO SHIP-SHIP BAND WITH ME AND FOLLOW MY LEAD. SAVE YOUR QUESTIONS.>

And for the other two old guard, he sent the following message before going dark and pulling away from formation with the new kid as the TIES descended on the squadron:

<REMEMBER THE PLAYBOOK. MAALRAAS PROTOCOL. TAKING THE GREENHORN. CITE SECURITY AND DIRECT TO ME IF LEAD ASKS. WILL EXPLAIN LATER.>

It was a matter of security that it wasn't discussed over squadron-wide channels. To inform the others of just what was happening ran the risk of being found out before any change to their situation could be inflicted. What if those channels were monitored? Once they were well and away, situated just under the far side of the aft of the transport somewhere before the engines, Indy gave the new guy the skinny on what the two of them were up to:

<<Alright, listen up, here's the play: Pirates will usually try to get their goods out of the equation before we can bypass their screen. What we're going to do is disable the transport's engines, and lay down some quick scans to see exactly what they're carrying before we're noticed and those eyeballs can get to us.>> Could be prisoners, could be contraband. Could be stolen hardware. Could be anything. He'd mulled it over for another brief second, taking sudden note of the light from the flaring up of the transport's engines. <<Shit...>> Fire just got hotter. <<If Lead knows what he's doing, he'll gun for the frigates first to kill the jamming we're under, so we can make those scans and re-establish contact with the fleet.>>

Great minds... if only either of him or Wedge knew. Nudging the stick, he started navigating his snubfighter to the back end of the transport as quick as he could, while taking care to avoid viewports and visuals.

<<Careful now; come on.>>

 

[Shar Sieu]

Flight Lieutenant Shar 'Skids' Sieu
Revenant Squadron, 10th Sector Armada​

Location: Deep Space
Objective: Patrol
Equipment: Alliance-Blue X-wing Starfighter
Callsign: Revenant Four

ALLIES:
//REVENANT// Wedge Draav Addison Porte Kelly T. Perris Reima Vitalis

"Fly in a line with me, then break off at 45 degree angles after your initial bursts. We gotta split 'em up if we wanna win this. Take out the fighters, then the frigates. We need to fry those prisoner transport engines too- do not shoot them, they could be chock full of people for all we know."

Well, no more need to trace the ion trails. Shar keyed his control stick- storing the data for later, just in case.

<<Four to Lead, right behind ya.>>

Two TIEs slid in behind Wedge as he made his attack run. They struggled to keep up at his velocity, and drifted out of line, right into Shar's line of fire as he brought up the rear.

<<On your six, Lead.>>

Shar's X-Wing cannons unleashed hell, the cannons shredding the first TIE and sending the other spiralling away.

<<Two down! You're all clear.>>

As was his habit, Shar was itching to go after the big ships now- this craft was no B-Wing, but it would rake hell against these freighter engines.

<REMEMBER THE PLAYBOOK. MAALRAAS PROTOCOL. TAKING THE GREENHORN. CITE SECURITY AND DIRECT TO ME IF LEAD ASKS. WILL EXPLAIN LATER.>

Shar sent a quick data transfer:

|| ACKNOWLEDGED. WILL KEEP ENEMY BUSY. SENDING TIE ION TRAIL DATA FOR USE IN SCRUBBING EMISSION NOISE || The scanners in Revenant's ships were pretty advanced, and Kelly would likely be able to pick up what he was looking for, but it didn't hurt to clean up the chemical signatures of the freighters' off-gassing in this volume of space.

Shar pulled back on the stick, sending his craft flying across the beam of the second freighter, drawing fire. He hammered the console- copied the data and broadcast to all the other pilots:

<<TIE Ion emission data packet on the way by tightbeam. Suggest broad area scan - the trails will light up like fireworks, and your astromechs can decode the diffusion trails to track how these enemy fighters move.>> Shar was already sending the command to his own droid, who responded in the affirmative. In a short while, Revenant would be able to see how the freighters and its TIE complement were moving and operating in the past few minutes. Hopefully it shed some light on how they maneuvered as a formation.

 

[Addison Porte]

" Tinks"
"Revenant Six"
Piloting blue & black X-wing w/R9 unit "Gizmo"
On patrol accompanied by:
Wedge Draav Rev One | Reima Vitalis Rev Twelve | Shar Sieu Rev Four
Kelly T. Perris Rev Nine | Zane Cameron Rev Three

TAKE_WHAT_YOU_CAN_GIVE_NOTHING_BACK
​

"Fly in a line with me, then break off at 45 degree angles after your initial bursts. We gotta split 'em up if we wanna win this. Take out the fighters, then the frigates. We need to fry those prisoner transport engines too- do not shoot them, they could be chock full of people for all we know."

​

<<Roger that, Lead. Six falling in.>> Addy keyed over the comm unit, quickly taking up her spot on the starboard side of the elite squadron's formation as they headed to break the enemy's defensive screen.

Gizmo whistled when a message came through from Kelly.

<REMEMBER THE PLAYBOOK. MAALRAAS PROTOCOL. TAKING THE GREENHORN. CITE SECURITY AND DIRECT TO ME IF LEAD ASKS. WILL EXPLAIN LATER.>

Addison just shook her helmeted head. Indy was playing with fire in more ways than one... But if it worked as the protocol had in the past for the old Revenant Squadron, he could just possibly save the day - or condemn them all to the nine Corellian hells. The Jedi was usually a half-glass-full type of gal so hopefully, Kels' luck was with him, and the Force too if she had anything to say about it.

<Acknowledged. Be careful. You owe me and I aim to collect.>

Under normal circumstances, Addison knew flying into the teeth of an enemy formation would have been suicidal, but the odds of... the number was too high to count at the moment to their four, weren't all that conducive to long-term survival anyway. Since running wasn't an option, doing what the enemy didn't expect would buy them a second or two of surprise which might just give the other two a chance to pull a miracle off.

Hauling back on the control stick and canting it ever so slightly to the side, Tinks brought the X-wing up into a lopsided corkscrew maneuver. While the jerky motion of the snubfighter's nose meant she didn't have a snowball's chance on Tatooine of hitting anything initially, the Taanabian was just that much harder to hit herself. She pumped more power into her shields, then shot through a flurry of laser bolts before she penetrated the enemy's formation.

Porte hauled back on the stick, killing the weaving flight, and arrowed her ship up into the flight of TIEs. She lined one fighter up in her sights and let it have a quad blast of lasers. While the eyeball exploded, she cut the stick hard to starboard, then rolled out into a level line that continued her original course with a half-kilometer cut to the right thrown in. As the TIE formation collapsed in after her, she cruised out the other side of it, then inverted the X-wing and pulled the Howling into a loop that brought her around in the enemy's wake; heading in and picking up another TIE in her sights to vape.

​

 

[Wedge Draav]

Allies:

Addison Porte Revenant Six
Shar Sieu Revenant Four
Reima Vitalis Revenant Twelve
Kelly T. Perris NOT CHECKING IN!!!!


REVENANT IN THE FIGHT!


​

Those MOTHER FUCKERS.

"FUCKING DAMN IT KELLY I AM GOING TO-"

He was angry, but he couldn't lose his cool. No, he was Wedge fucking Draav, and he didn't lose his cool. He had to remind himself there, but still. He banked hard as the other Revenant pilots broke formation, and performed a maneuver straight out of the old Revenant playbook. While Wedge was familiar with the maneuver- he was one of the leading tactical pilots in the Alliance, he didn't authorize it, he didn't plan on it, and nobody communicated what was to happen prior.

In short:

Kelly was going to get punched in the face after this.

Wedge was impressed with the effectiveness of the maneuver, no doubt, but in a battle against near-peer enemies, going dark on comms was too risky for him- especially with a lack of coordination.

Wedge slammed forward, turning to Reima on his wing. Sweet, sweet, deadly Reima. Sure, that was his girl and all but- His girl could dance with the best of them. He needed her to be the pilot, the soldier, the expert, the hero she was now, not just the lady he knew her to be as well. So he didn't give any big instructions, given that the rest of the squadron at the moment was off on an old maneuver.

"Twelve- I'm going after the Frigates. Take out the prisoner transports' engines then help me with the frigates, the other TIE fighters will be busy with the others for now. If you get in a pinch, roll back towards where we are now and I'll come assist."

For all his anger in the moment, even when his team was off doing something colossally stupid, he still trusted them to complete the mission- and he didn't treat Reima like a trophy, giving her the easy targets. No, Reima before he lo- before he met her, was an expert pilot, a soldier. She knew the risks everytime she got into that cockpit, and so did he. They knew that damn well for each other, and Wedge respected her for it. So it'd be disrespectful for her to get any sort of special treatment. No, she was still in Revenant Squadron, she was still a pilot, she was still an ace pilot. So he employed her skills just like he did before.

Flying without a droid made several things harder, so it was a bit much for Wedge to take the time to look over at Reima's X-wing, give her a salute, and then dive into action. The Frigates were close, pulling back together, roughly 30 meters apart after deploying the TIE fighters. He wandered his eyes over the target, just a brief moment, before snapping the stick of his X-wing, the black X-wing screaming across the bow of the Frigate. He went down the length of it, point-defense turrets firing hate and discontent across the stars as he peddled to the metal-

All the way to the bridge of the first frigate.

His first volley didn't do anything but bounce off the shields, if anything at all. However, it did tell him that they had shields- and that they needed to be destroyed. The other Frigate began to move upwards, presumably to get a better firing solution on Wedge.

Wedge banked hard, more point-defense lasers, too many, coming towards him.

And one of them slammed him, getting a hit against his shields. No, he couldn't get the Frigate by himself, not at the moment. He sneered, coming up again, firing into the bottom of the Frigate. While his shots pierced the shielding at the bottom, there was little structural or important damage to the Frigate, and unfortunately, the space ship was quite operational.

And their turrets were still shooting at him. But luckily, only him for the moment.

Regardless, it sucked to be Wedge at the moment. And there wasn't even a snappy droid for him to talk back to or have a funny one-liner. Without comms, he wasn't sure how the others were doing exactly, but-

They were all Revenant.

The bad guys already lost, it was just a matter of when, not if.