Crossing A Line (NR Dominion of Hex W22 Redux)

[Sabetha Tag]

Sabetha didn't really care how much Ara had changed.

She knew the other woman wouldn't execute her.

Well.

Pretty sure.

They'd grown up together on the streets. Ara had been like a big sister to her, shown the five year old Sabetha where it was safe to sleep, the soft touches for local businessfolks who would give food to a wide eyed child (which she would then share with the older girl), and as she got older, how to charm a coat, pick a pocket, how to lie, how to grift. It was not too fine of a point to say that Ara was not only how Sabetha had survive that first winter, but had helped shape the person she had grown into today.

They'd been children together, dreaming of something good. Something better. Of being better, of doing better.

While doing what they had to in order to live.

There were times it was something to be gained in struggling? This? Nah. This was a time to let them haul her up by the seat of her pants and march her into the next hallway. She kept her tongue until the doors closed again. Again, bold, not dumb.

But once those doors closed.
"Sooooooo..... how you beeeeeeeeen?"

[member="Arage Bao"] [member="Mav Vohaloveer"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Sabetha Tag"]

Just before the doors closed she'd hear the blaster sounds starting.

The cries and the begging.

Whatever else this was, it was a grim situation. One that Sabetha immediately shattered with her question. Arage had been elsewhere for a moment. Eyes closed firm. Trying to find a center in the here and now. To this day, even with all the blood on her hands, she wasn't used to it. Not really anyway. It was necessity that drove her forward. Shaping that exact dream that they had talked of so many years ago. "Sabetha Anastasia Tag," Round on her with a pointed finger.

"Don't you 'hoooow you beeeeeeen' me."

A quick glance around, darting eyes, before she made sure they were alone as she gestured for Sabetha to follow.

"I taught you that one- what the fork are you doing here? Last I saw your redheaded ass you were becoming a Jedi." A groan there. "There is a big karking leap between Jedi and gorram pirate."

It had been a painful separation, but a necessary one. Arage didn't have a force sensitive bone in her body. And say whatever you wanted about the Jedi. They had it more comfortable than living on the streets. It had been a no-brainer.

 

[Mav Halo]

S P A C E
[Member="Arage Bao"] | [member="Sabetha Tag"]​

​

Snap-Clack. Snap-Clack. A battered lighter glinted in dim emergency lightning, idly flick open and snapping closed in rapid succession as the mercenary watched impassively the Golden Guard shuffle through the ragtag collection of prisoners awaiting the woman of the hour to pass judgement upon them. As if they didn’t already know what awaited them; they only needed to look past the viewport window to see the length and breadth of the newly minted Admiral’s mercy. Currently it seemed she was content to talk them to death, however.

A novel development; it was interesting to see that he wasn’t the only one able to get under Bao’s skin, although he suspected this was a little more personal than the barbs and flirtatious remarks he and the Admiral traded. Was that icy demeanor finally on the verge of thawing? Apparently not. Ah, well.

First and last.

The air sizzled with the concentrated smell of o-zone as his blaster rang out twice in rapid succession. Two shots, two bodies. Another day, another credit. The barrel of his gun still smoking as it was twirled theatrically before returning home to its holster. Snap-Clack. Snap-Clack. Snap-Pause-Clack.

“Wait, sorry. Did she say the first and last for the group on the right, or the first and last on the left?” Mav supposed, with the deed already done and the bodies already cooling on the decking, it didn’t really matter. A message was signed, sealed and well and truly delivered in any event. It wasn’t like Bao was going to let anyone walk out of here either way. It wasn’t her style….

He sighed, reaching for his gun once more. “Well, feth. If she asks, they were all uncooperative.”

 

[Sabetha Tag]

The blaster fire was impossible to ignore. It was muffled as the doors finished closing. Sabetha didn't flinch.

Oh, she didn't like it. But her time in an Alliance prison and with Hira had hardened her in some ways. Those morons out there were why they were in this situation to start with. And, assuming she got out of this?

She got to keep the second half of the pay they'd been promised when it was over.

Sabetha made a face.

"Anastasia? Really? That's like, Coruscant old family chit."

It was an old joke. Sabetha had been too little when her mother had gone, she didn't remember her middle name. So Ara would make one up in that pompous manner of an adult and the two would end up in a pile of giggles.

Of course, that had been a lifetime ago now.

She eyed her friend up and down, taking in everything from the smart uniform to the perfection of her hair.

"Yeah and last I saw you, you were trying not to cry and pretending you didn't want me to stay, but stuff changes. Also, either ya'all are blinder than I thought over here- and that would be pretty bad, considering the crew I brought with me was kinda contingent on ya'all being not very observant- or somehow you missed the Silver Jedi chitting the bed for a while. If you think I would have stuck by after they abandoned hundreds of systems to the Sith, you never knew me."

She stopped in the middle of the hallway then, crossing her arms over her chest.

"So you wanna talk about 'leaps' might wanna look at your own, Admiral Bao."

[member="Arage Bao"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Sabetha Tag"]

"Hey, it was that or Arulianna, so count your blessings, lady."

A glance to the side, catching her look up-and-down.

"What, you never noticed my prim white suits and holier-than-thou attitude before?" She bounced right back. It was a crack, just the smidgen of an opening there. Allowing a look inside behind the armor. Something that she had build up around herself, because of necessity. There were two kinds of people who ordered the death of an entire bridge full of people without any outward feelings. The sociopaths and the ones that had retreated their core very, very far away to protect themselves.

It seemed not everything was gone from their past.

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Leeroy Jenkins'ed straight into the collective wall that is the Sith Empire and then ran." A shrug followed there. "I assumed you would move elsewhere. Alliance, Outer Rim, I don't know, okay? I was kinda busy trying to survive here."

Her hand smoothed out the ridges of her sleeves.

"Yeah, well, it was either enlist or keep getting my face kicked in. So that wasn't a hard decision to make."

She was about to say more, before the audio systems cracked into existence. A message from the New Republic command. Apparently they had moped up the rest of the resistance. There was still clean-up to do, but they had won the day. A sigh. "What am I going to do with you." That was the main question running through her mind right now. None of it... none of it was ideal. If only she had just shut up when they had seen each other. It would have been easy to sell it as amnesty in exchange for information.

That would have been surprising, because Arage didn't do mercy well.

But if the information was good enough? Sure, could be. Nepotism was a different story.

"We will move you to my flagship first and then we will figure chit out, redheaded menace."

 

[Oukaze Ryuu]

Oukaze Ryuu The Cog Boy
Location: W22
Objective: Destroy the Station
Allies: [member="Livia Maddox"]
Enemies: NR [member="Kaine Australis"], [member="Jerek Zenduu"] , [member="Tilesa Seth"], [member="Aithne Charr"]


Carefully laid out plans never survive contact with the enemy, an old adage that would always be tossed around from one officer to the next. Unlike such military men though Oukaze believed that such plans that fall apart that easily obviously was doomed from the start. Why put into place such a weak plan if you expect it to crumble within moments of it acted upon. Honestly, Oukaze could never understand such novel concepts and found such manner of logic a fallacy best avoided.

Such as the current naval conflict in front of him; the Republic forces were numerous and regardless of the pirates own strength such a direct confrontation never bodes well for the side with less discipline. Even both sides are mostly flesh, some flesh are better trained than others. Oukaze monitored more of the frequencies and an alert was raised that inbound fighters were targeting his vessel.

Counter measures were already in place, but the earlier barrages had weakened much of the weapons emplacements, so Oukaze braced as the fighter's attack run pummeled the shields and shook the entire bridge. More alarms and red lights, it became clear that their engagement should end soon before Oukaze found himself in the coldness of space. While he feared the void very little, since he built himself to survive the vacuum of space, the fact would be that he no longer had a ship to travel and collect his payment.

Oukaze tapped his computer, a rather bored expression as more heavy fire from turbolasers rocked his carrier ship. The fighter count continued to diminish as the Republic naval forces continued to grow. More ships hypered into the system and Oukaze smiled, despite the grim appearance of the situation, it was after all going as planned. His observes in the bridge continued to compile more data, collecting IFF tags as well as frequency numbers as Oukaze typed in a few commands.

"Proctor, alert the battle group to prepare a jump to hyper space. Time for us to retreat." Oukaze ordered, his hand lazily gestured away at the Proctor to pass the message along. More Republic Assets tied up here, heavier concentration of escort ships needed to continue the trade routs which allows my employer to explore more options to raid other location.

As those in the bridge continued to run about with the new orders and the Quasar Carrier slowly turned about, as the rest of his damaged battlegroup fleet did as well, Oukaze slowly walked back towards his personal room. The credits were certainly not worth the time spent with such crew on this ship, That at least is what I'm certain of today.

 

[Aithne Charr]

Location: Inbound to aid Blue Squadron
Allies:[member="Hannah"], [member="Edward Thane"] [member="Kaine Australis"] [member="Beth Cadera"]
Enemies: [member="Oukaze Ryuu"] [member="Livia Maddox"]

Fleet: Second Relief Force

Spoiler

The Skyfall - Infernus Class Heavy Cruiser - 900m
Apollo Class Interceptors - (5)
Rendili Starfighters - (12)
Scurrg H-7 Bombers - (12)
Umbra Class Dropships - (16)
Shard Class [SIZE=12pt]droppods[/SIZE] - (16)
Glaedr - Hapan Battle Dragons - 500m
Rendili Starfighters (24)
Aurek Class Interceptors (12)
Shield of the Core - Hapan Battle Dragons - 500m
Rendili Starfighters (24)
Aurek Class Interceptors (12)
Nebula - Cluster Class Heavy Frigate - 400m
Quasar - Cluster Class Heavy Frigate - 400m

Aithne smiled when the ships started to turn.

They were trying to escape.

Something in her chest pushed her to order that the ships follow and hunt these pirates down but she was not blind to the damage that her fleet and [member="Edward Thane"] had suffered in this conflict.

Her hand yanked hard on the yoke, pulling her up and away, letting the ships fall back and retreat as her hand reached for the comm box, letting her fellow admiral hear her voice as she sighed into the receiver.

"Admiral Thane, Captain Vaal, hold the ships back and return your fighter craft to their holding positions. Do not follow the enemy, we cannot leave the station defenseless." Her hands had turned white, squeezing on the yoke so tightly that she had to force her body to listen as her fingers let go and she drifted there, letting out a sigh. Battle always made her like this and she reached up to touch her eyes, rubbing them before looking at her hand for a few moments.

When she got confirmation from those in her ear, she would lean her head to the side and rest on her hand, turning the fighter and looking as the Pirates escaped while the Republic reassumed its positions. The allied forces were still fighting, but that conflict was soon to be over as well. This day had been a victory for the Republic, even if it had been a messy one with little true cohesion. It was a problem the Republic needed to solve if it were to fight more significant enemies, ones with proper training and weapons.

Her eyes tracked over to another presence in the system, two actually, that of [member="Arage Bao"] and [member="Sabetha Tag"], two beings she was unfamiliar with, but were definitely of Republic origin give the ships that arrived. Aithne wondered if their arrival helped inspire this retreat but she was uncertain of that fact so she could only speculate.

So speculate she did as her fighter made its way back to the Command ship, happy with the victory today and letting the Republic enjoy their hard fought gains.