Peek-a-BOOM

[Taeli Raaf]

When Taeli had received intelligence of a pirate presence in the Kelsier system, she had contacted Admirals [member="Gir Quee"] and [member="Reshmar"] to help deal with the infestation. The idea of pirates in a system that had stygium in it was a worrying sign as pirates with working stygium cloaks was not a good thing at all for commerce. Plus, it would be better off in other hands any stygium that the pirates happen to have on their station in the Mistcloak.

That was going to be the tricky thing as sensors wouldn't work too well in there unless someone was only a few light-minutes away. It was probably going to be a rough experience but that was why a force was needed to deal with the pirates.

Flashes of light announced the Aurora Industries security fleet in the system, Taeli standing on the bridge of the flagship of the force. One Judicator-class cruiser, two Sentinel-class frigates, and one Constraint-class Interdictor were on standby for this operation. Not the largest force they could muster, but all reports said it should do.

"Ma'am, sensors aren't picking up anything but recon vessels have detected a large space station in orbit of the planet," the bridge officer said.

"We wait for Admiral Quee and Admiral Reshmar to arrive before proceeding," she said. "We're gonna need that stygium for security reasons ourselves. Project Galvani needs a stealth freighter for the shipments."

"Understandable ma'am."

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Reshmar sat on the bridge of the Waverider as it traversed hyperspace enroute for Kelsier system. Admiral Quee had ask for his assistance in dealing with a pirate band there and knowing fell well Reshmars hatred for pirates, His old friend Gir knew Reshmar would jump at the chance. Gir had rated the threat as medium to high, which in itself was an issue. For a band of criminals to amass such a force was troubling. Then Reshmar was told of the potential for pirate cloaked vessels, that was not going to happen. The three ships of Reshmars group were modest but well suited for the objective and environment. The Scythe-class battlecruiser was more than enough fire power and hosted enough fighters for the job. The escorting Sabertooth-class Assault ship were hardened and gave Reshmar some direct assault capabilities which would come in handy in the asteroid belt. Lastly the ShaShore-class Frigate, which was deployed with an ELINT modular pod to aid in telemetry and battlefield communications interception. The force was a mixed light recon deployment but was well suited for what Reshmar needed.

"Captain Gran, ETA to reversion." said Reshmar as he watched the tunnel or blue and white dancing around his force.

"FIve minutes Admiral, Commander Kii is our jump officer he will be taking control sir." said the Duro captain. Reshmar nodded then spoke.

"Very well, Commander Kii the ship is yours." Reshmar said nodding to a human officer standing behind the navigation station. His operations officers sitting before him making the arrangements to drop out of hyperspace. The Human turned and acknowledged Reshmar.

"Aye sir, I have the CON. Reversion in two hundred seconds. Start the timer Lieutenant Beun." The officer sitting directly in front of Kii punched in a set of commands and the small jump timer display came online and displayed a downward climbing timer.

Reshmar watched the times count down for a brief second them returned to looking at the light show of hyperspace.

"Reversion in sixty second." announced Commander Kii as the timer began the last minute of its countdown. Reshmar watched the time then seconds before it reached zero he flt the slight shutter of his command chair as the ship dropped out of hyperspace.

Before him he saw the system. The gas ring blocked much of the systems to scanners but once the Kuri Ju began her ELINT operations that would not be the case. The three ships sat motionless for a moment then as one they began to accelerate and move into the system towards the forth planet in the system and its belt of asteroids.

"Admiral we have Contacts bearing seventy five by ten degrees to port, range three light minutes. IFF has them as Aurora ships sir." said the officer standing at the tactical station. Reshmar had been informed by Admiral Quee of Master Raaf involvement and to expect her to be on site. Reshmar has never directly spoken to the woman but had been considering contacting her for awhile about a business arrangement. This would be the segue way he needed to start a relationship with the woman and Aurora Industries.

"Open a channel to Master Raaf Captain. Lets say hello."

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Standing in the CIC-style bridge of the Stormfire-class Assault Frigate Watchkeeper, Gir eyed the room's central holo-projector as he reviewed the system's information once. The admiral had visited the Kelsier system once before, but information was always changing. A bothan female wearing a frumpy gray jumpsuit slinked over to stand next to him.

Gir spared Azira a brief glance, "Any news from your contacts?"

"None yet," said the slicer, "at least any information that is new."

The admiral glanced at his wrist chrono, "We're almost at the rendezvous point, but if your contact comes through, don't hesitate to let me know if he comes back with something important."

She bobbed her head up and down, "Once we can closer to the system, I may be able to do some sniffing of my own."

The blonde man hesitated, "Don't do anything too crazy or dangerous. I can't have my fellow employees going out and getting killed on missions like this."

She barred her teeth in what Gir knew was a grin, "This happens pretty frequently. You forgot the lunatics you sent me to work with every day. I might be safer here since Gai isn't around."

Gir snorted, "That might be true..."

"Admiral...errrr...president..." started the ship's captain, "we have five seconds to reversion."

Gir tapped a button on the projector's control panel before typing in several commands. The holographic visage of the Kelsier system dissipated as he set up a three way encrypted call on the projector. A quick glance at the ship's captain, who promptly nodded, informed the man from Hast they were in realspace. That's the one problem with burying the bridge so deep into the ship. I bet that [member="Taeli Raaf"] and [member="Reshmar"] were already aware that the Labs's frigates were present before I realized we were in realspace.

"Greetings Admiral Reshmar and Master Raaf, I trust your journeys here were not too unpleasant..."

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Reshmar"]

"Ma'am, reversions in system ... sensors are detecting friendly IFFs," the sensor officer said from the bridge pit. "Communication lines opening, definitely the admirals."

"Thank you," she said, activating her holo-projector. The image of the Mon Calamari admiral and the human admiral flickered into life. She hadn't worked with Reshmar before, but he seemed steadfast and he also operated the Mon Cal Shipyards, always something to consider. Between the three of them, they probably provided most of the remaining sources of new ships for the Republic.

"Admirals, thank you for coming on such short notice, but as I'm sure you no doubt realized, these pirates need to be dealt with swiftly," she said. "My contacts said these pirates are close to getting a working stygium cloak developed and their space station is packed to the brim with crystals. We need to destroy these pirates and confiscate the crystals..."

"Ma'am, several contacts are coming out of the Mistcloak and the asteroids," the other sensor officer yelled.

"Guess it's showtime, gentlemen," she said, switching to a grainy image of the surrounding space while keeping audio open. Their forces were in blue on the map, pirates were in orange for her.

"Looking like several squadrons of uglies ... counting an old Dauntless-class cruiser as the flagship with three CR90 escorts ... two more contacts coming from behind the station, Nebulon-Bs."

"They raided a museum," she said, a joke yes, but the ships were still deadly if obsolete. "Tell the boarding crews to get ready for infiltration on the station, I'll be joining them myself."

"Yes ma'am."

 

[Gir Quee]

Stormfire-class Assault Frigate Watchkeeper, Kelsier System

Captain Welche grabbed Gir's arm, pulling his attention to another tactical screen. Quee's eyes darted over the blinking icons. I haven't seen some of those ship classes outside of simulations...Looks like we're cutting this call short...The blonde man strode over to his station on the corporate warship. After focusing on several of the sensor readouts from the vessels emerging from the belt and mistcloak, Gir tagged one of the corellian corvettes as the Watchkeeper's target, and relayed that information to the rest of the fleet. Gir spared a glance at Welche as he began to type in various orders.

"You look nervous."

"It's the first time the Watchkeeper's been in a battle," said Welche, "but the crew's well trained, and I do not doubt the Watchkeeper's capabilities."

Gir nodded in understanding. It was one thing to train for a battle, but an entirely different thing to actually experience it. Still, Gir found the man's nervousness curious. He's been through battles before in smaller and less advanced ships than this...in much larger battles against harder foes...so why is he nervous? Gir began to think of the profiles of the other members of the ship's crew and quickly realized that many of them had never seen combat. An untested crew then? Everyone undergoes their baptism of fire...but even those that do aren't necessarily better men than those who haven't. The man's memory flashed back almost a decade to his first combat experience as a quad laser cannon turret gunner. He remembered the swirling emotions from back then briefly flood into his mind. His lip twitched. Too long ago...and with a more idealistic man too...

His finger hovered over a single blinking icon. He tapped the button. A hundred meters away from, the bow missile tubes of the warship began to unload their first salvo. The two-stage carwennan missiles leapt out of the tubes towards the incoming pirate ships. Gir watched the tactical screen intently. Now the question is...are any of them capable of cloaking...or are there enemies among us that we do not yet know about? He tapped another button, issuing an order for the mass driver cannon crews to load scattershot.

[member="Reshmar"] | [member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Taeli Raaf"]

Reshmar closed the channel without a word. He knew the other commanders were doing the same. The battle was set and the ships in the distance were moving into weapons range.

"Captain, Target the heavy cruiser, Have gunners alternate ten salvos of turbolaser then four salvos of ion cannon fire. Give the ship ten rounds of alternating salvos then fire all eight tubes ten at a time with 1 second intervals. Then bring our shields down and divert the power to the guns and hit the ship with everything we have." Ordered Reshmar without looking at the ships captain. The fire pattern was something standard he had learned long ago when engaging large pirate ships. Most pirate vessels were old like these. And most had sub standard shielding. The fire pattern would usually overwhelm the shield generators on the last salvo and half the weapons would hit home. He was not sure how well these pirates kept up their ships. IN a minute or so they would know.

Ten seconds later the Scythe-class Battlecruiser reached weapons range and Red bolts lashed out at the ship in the distance. Ten quick volleys of red energy lapt out followed by the blue white energy of the ion cannons. Then the ship shuttered slightly as the eighty warhead launchers expelled torpedoes. The torpedoes sped off into the distance towards the ship. A screen to Reshmars left had a running distance to target of all eight torpedo volleys. The first wave of torps hit the ship half missing and speeding off into the distance. followed by the second wave scoring more hits but still losing four which passed by the ship and sped off into the asteroids. Before the sixth of the eight salvos slammed into the ship The shields of the Scythe-class dropped. Bolts of turbolaser fire slammed into the forward hull as the cruiser in the distance struggled to return fire. The as one the Capacitor banks fully charged let loose a salvo that caused the viewport to dim to block the brightness of it. All of the forward weapons let loose their stored energy in one massive wall of turbolaser and Ion cannon bolts.

Reshmar watched the timers count down to zero as the last of the eight torpedo volleys struck the cruiser int he distance, then a second later as the forward view port cleared up he watched the mass fire fill space all around the cruiser. Much of the fire missed the ship but the brunt of the energy had found its mark and rippled the shielding of the large ship. A secondary explosion could be seen as stray turbolaser bolts found their way through the shielding and hit the hull of the cruiser.

The Cruiser's shields fought against the massive bombardment of energy and faild for moment. It quickly countered and the shielding of the cruiser came back online. Reshmar made a note and moved on. It seemed these pirates had been keeping up their maintenance schedule. Reshmar turned to the tactical station commander who eyed him inquisitively.

"Hit them again Commander. This time give the torpedoed a ten degree spread."

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Reshmar"] [member="Gir Quee"]

While the two Admirals engaged the pirate flotilla, Taeli calmed her mind and quieted everything around her, reaching with the Force throughout the system. She had a feeling ... there they were ... two squadrons of fighters using cloaking devices. They were trying to get an attack run on the Scythe-class Battlecruiser that Reshmar had brought to the field, coming along the starboard side.

"Gunnery, open fire on this spot," she said, the Force guiding her hand to point at the spot where the enemy forces would be in moments. "All anti-fighter fire... Now."

Red bolts of energy left the two Sentinel-class frigates that was part of her flotilla, ripping through the space that the cloaked enemy was going through at just that moment. Explosions would seem to appear out of nowhere as several fighters took direct hits, to the surprise and awe of the crew of her vessel. The attack run was disrupted, some of the remaining fighters had been damaged by shrapnel so their cloaks would be leaking their positions now.

"Activate gravity well generators and have the boarding crew ready," she said, getting up from her spot and heading to the docking bay. "Admiral Reshmar and Quee are in command, I'll lead the boarding action."

"Yes ma'am."

Getting onto one of the Wraid dropships in the hanger, she nodded at the helmeted troopers carrying Aurora BurstStreak weapons and the Harbinger droids that were also attached. From each vessel capable of carrying dropships, eight ships took off and started making their way to the enemy station.

 

[Gir Quee]

Stormfire-class Assault Frigate Watchkeeper, Kelsier System

The admiral's eyes were glued to EPR footage streaming into his console. He watched light turbolaser fire and fast-moving starfighters intercept several of his missiles on their attack run. But for every one destroyed by the pirate forces, one slipped through to pierce through the enemy's hull and detonate. Brief conflagrations lighted up the corvette as it charged headlong towards the Watchkeeper. Gir turned his gaze past the corvette to see another CR90 surging forward alongside of the pirate vessel. Almost a fair fight...Red light began to lance out at the frigate from the two corvettes to punch out his frigate's shields. The Watchkeeper immediately answered back with scattershot rounds and serried volleys of blue ion cannon fire. Gir turned his attention to Rehan, the lanky helmsman of the Watchkeeper, and cleared his throat.

"Take us on a course that will run us between the two corvettes," directed Gir, turning to the gunnery stations, "prepare all gunners to fire broadsides as we pass them by."

Glancing at their stations, Gir quickly realized that the last order had hardly been necessarily. Welche has already given the order to fire at will. He briefly blushed. Perhaps I should just sit back and let him run the show...it seems like he has everything under control so far...Still...The admiral's mind moved to continue to analyze the full situation, eying the newly revealed stealth fighters with a mixture of curiousity and apprehension. The Watchkeeper's point defense was notably lacking compared to most warships of its class, a tradeoff for its heavy firepower and shielding, but that did not trouble him as much as the lack of a reliable way to detect such an enemy, especially when he was unsure of the stealth fighter's weapons loadout. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to study what bits we can find of them.

He quietly typed in a secondary order to the ship's tractor beam operators to recover any wreckage that they could of the stealth fighters. The admiral spared a glance at the EPR footage to realize that the Watchkeeper was in the middle of slipping between the two piratical corvettes. It seemed to Gir that their was hull beginning to tilt to its starboard side. Any number of things from an engine malfunction to a gravitational anomaly could have caused the tilt, but a quick glance at the ship's gunnery screen noted that the Watchkeeper had snagged one of the corvettes with its tractor beams. Gir frowned. A normal corellian corvette shouldn't have enough mass to make us tilt like that. So how are they doing that?

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Taeli Raaf"]

The Shielding dropped for a third time as the Scythe once again carried out the mass fire operation. The forward hull took a volley of fire from the Dauntless scortching the armor and finding its way to one of the turbolaser batteries. The blast of fire that followed the torpedo volley once again caused the glasteel to dim to block out the glare. A moment later the shields came back online and the Dauntlass cruiser's shields caved in under the blast. In the distance as the view port cleared Reshmar noticed the starboard flank of the cruiser was now venting atmosphere and debris cluttered space around the large vessel.

"Damage Report!" Reshmar barked to no one in particular. The answering voice was that of the ships captain.

"Sire we have minor hull damage to the dorsal fin structure and three heavy batteries have been hit. Minor damage but they are out until the chief and his crew can get them back online." said the ships captain. The man was frantically looking over reports coming in of the damage. The maneuver had accomplished its desired effect and the Dauntlass was now severely damaged. But in doing so the prow fin of the Scythe had taken hits from the heavy cruiser. The re-enforced armor on the prow had held but the gun batteries on the external hull had been hit with a series of direct bolts.

Reshmar looked at the ship in the distance. It had managed to get it's shielding back up but the flickering lights gave away the weakness of the ship. Its gun batteries still lanced out for the Scythe but their rate of fire had been drastically diminished. The Nebulon B Frigates had moved in to support the cruisers fire and now moved in on the Mon Calamari Formation.

"Captain, Target the port frigate, Standard fire."Said Reshmar looking at the ships captain. He turned his gaze to the CAG who had been prepping his squadrons for launch. "Commander, Launch your squadrons. We have stealth ships out there so have them make sure they are covering each other. Those ships can not fire without giving themselves away."

Reshmar swung around and watched the ships in the distance grow closer. He saw the form of the ShaShore frigate move up into view from the starboard side. It had added its own weapons to the guns now tracking the frigates. The ships in the distance kept coming like they had the initiative and were capable of effecting the battle. At this point the Pirates had to be getting desperate. Reshmar reminded himself that These were not rational beings. They were pirates and no one would ever understand why they do what they do.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Reshmar"]

The approach to the pirate station was a rocky one, but Taeli had experienced worse during wartime invasions such as Kashyyyk and Manaan. While the two admirals took apart the pirates and their ships, Taeli had eyes for the main target. An explosion rocked the Wraid dropship as they neared the station and the defenses came online to stop their boarding.

One Wraid exploded as it neared the port side of the station, all hands would have been lost ... except for the Harbinger and Herald droids. Those droids were launched into the vacuum of space towards the station, using their magnetic clamps to walk along the edges of the metal surface. Taeli's dropship was able to slip inside one of the two hanger bays on this side before they could seal off the bay. The other Wraids would either try and find an airlock or circle around and wait for those inside already to open the hangers again.

Leaping from the ship as the sides opened, she immediately activated her lightsaber to deflect incoming blaster fire. Crates of crystals were strewn about the hanger, two starfighters with cloaking devices haphazardly attached were still there as well.

"Secure the hanger!" she ordered as Aurora men deployed from the sides and the two Herald droids with them opened fire on the enemy coming through the door.

 

[Gir Quee]

Several possibilities flitted through the man's mind as he tried unravel the puzzle of the corvette's unusually large mass. The most obvious solution to the physic's problem would be if the ship was carrying an unusually heavy amount of heavy cargo. But you'd have to be carrying crates upon crates of neutronium or osmium for something like that to happen. Even then, that would probably require some sort of structural modification to be able to deal with that heavy mass...A thought suddenly struck Gir. Unless...He began to type in various commands into his console to bring up the sensor data on the vessel. Unless they completely rebuilt the corvette as a ramship...The ship did have a far heavier full spectrum transceiver readout that it should have for its size. Probably filled the thing with reinforced durasteel, ferrocarbon and the like to make a heavy ram capable of penetrating through a heavy cruiser's armor before it exploded. He flipped to another sensor screen to look at the lifeform readout indicator. While the screen did show that it had some lifeforms on it, they weren't in the right places compared to a normal CR90, nor were there enough of them to run a full size crew.

He turned his attention to the sensor scans of the other corvette. But a cursory glance quickly told him that they were within normal parameters for a ship it's size and function. Gir gently tapped on Captain Welche on the shoulder.

"Did you see the scans of the corvette on our starboard?"

A frown spread across his face, "Is it about to break up?"

"It appears to be a ramship."

"Well, it obviously didn't do a good job hitting us," muttered Welche, pulling up the sensor data.

"It'd be a waste on a ship the Watchkeeper's size when there are larger targets present."

Welche nodded in agreement, "Probably intended for someone else."

"We can't opt to let it get away," said Gir, "let's release the other corvette from our hold, come around and rake the ramship's engines from the stern..."

[member="Reshmar"] | [member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

The 48 attack craft spilled out of the hangers of the Scythe and moved to engage pirate craft. The cloaked ships were still out there and as of yet The advanced ELINT systems of the ShaShore had not pinned them down. IN the distance the Dauntlass had made a brief recovery and was once again under power and moving to engage the combined fleet.

"Commander, Send word to Saber One to engage the cruiser. We will cover her as she moves up." Ordered Reshmar. The human officer nodded and saluted then went to order the smaller of Reshmars vessels to close in on the Dauntlass. The Sabertooth-class ship sped off away from the group towards its target in the distance. The guns of the Scythe paused to let it cross across the fire arc then as it passed in front of the scythe and off to close on the cruisers starboard flank once again opened up on the ship. The small assault frigate closed the ground rapidly drawing the attention of a Nebulon B frigate.

The pirate frigate opened up its guns on the assault ship but found them nearly useless against the ships shields and heavy armor. The Sabretooth returned fire from two of its three batteries as it moved into position. The Cruiser which had now noticed the smaller whip had moved its starboatd fire off the Scythe and concentrated on the smaller Mon Calamari vessel. The heavy weapons slammed into the smaller ships shielding rippling it under the heavy barrage. It Might have done something to stop the hardened little ship if they had done so earlier but it was now too little too late. The massive forward pincers latched onto the ship as the mass if it slammed into the shielding penetrating it by virtue of the velocity and mass of the assault frigate. The forward Clamping extensions dug into the metal of the cruiser and pulled the ship in. Cutting laser went to work on the hull of the pirate cruiser cutting holes in on various levels along where the forward clamping fins contacted the hull of the ship. With a wisp of compressed air and the snap of a breaching charge the cutting lasers ceased and the hull of the pirate frigate ignited sending the cut section into the corridor of the vessel and opening it to vacuum.

The armored forces of the Mon Calamari ship stepped through the hole clad in zero G armor and toting high powered blaster rifles. The group engaged the pirates for a moment until the atmospheres was sucked from the corridor and the hallway left soundless in vacuum.

[member="Taeli Raaf"] [member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Reshmar"] [member="Gir Quee"]

Slowly but surely, the pirates were driven out of the hanger by the Aurora security forces and the droids they had brought with them. There wasn't much a pirate using an old blaster rifle or pistol could do against a phrik armor plated war droid touting essentially an E-Web blaster cannon on its arm.

As the droid pushed the pirates back into the main corridor, Taeli quickly had her men go to secure the control room of the hanger. The pirates had sealed the door, and she could sense several individuals inside to try and hold the place ... or even worse, programming the hanger to decompress and shoot everyone out the door into space. There would be none of that.

Nodding, two men set a breaching charge while more men stacked up. Three ... two ... one ... and the door exploded inwards in a rain of shrapnel and fire. Blaster bolts flew through the smoke, her violet lightsaber deflecting enemy fire back to their sources as she led the team into the control room. Limbs and yells filled the air as she took down two pirates, leaving them unconscious as her men dealt with the rest.

"Get the blast doors open so the rest of our dropships can get inside," she ordered.

At outside airlocks, several Harbinger and Herald droids had breached them and were now advancing into the station, ignoring enemy fire patterns as a mere annoyance. They still needed to locate the storage area for the stygium itself, besides the crates in the hanger, as a station this large would have a large holding area.

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir watched as Captain Welche began to personally direct the tractor beam operators as they refocused their equipment exclusively on the ramship. A quick glance at the helmsman's face showed Gir that they were nearly ready to initiate the maneuver. Welche barked an order, and the Watchkeeper suddenly jetted forward only to be abruptly swing about to present its broadsides to the corvette's stern. A quick tap on his console gave him clear point of view as if he were one of the ship's gunnery crews. Abrupt flashes flickered across the frigate's side as the mass driver cannons began to drive round after round into the hazy blue exhaust nozzles of the dilapidated corvette. Streams of sapphire blue ion cannon fire poured out of the Watchkeeper to smash into the angry red shielding of the corvette. Flickers of fading light began to blossom across the corvette's stern as its shields collapsed. Finally one of the mass driver rounds tore through the shields to smash into the engine block itself. One of the ion engine's light abruptly turned a shade of blue-green before turning into a cloud of blossoming debris. Exhaust from the other engines around it began to flicker on and off abruptly before more rounds began to break through the failing shields. The ramship's stern turned gray as the engine block turned into an expanding cloud of metallic specks and loose wreckage.

"One threat down," murmured Gir, turning his attention to the other piratical corvette.

Welche strode up next to him, "Now we have to catch the other one we let go."

Gir pulled up the data on the other corellian corvette, "Fleeing the battle it looks like..."

"Helm," started the ship's captain, "put us on an intercept course with the other corvette. Navigation, start ploting us a micro-jump to cut them off..."

"Launch gunships," added Gir, "we have to give them something to be concerned with in the meantime..."

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Taeli Raaf"]

Reshmar watched as the Smaller frigate slammed into the side of the cruiser in the distance. Its fin like clamps extending docking ports and claws to hold the ship. The job was done for the cruiser, he knew the marines which were now about to pour into the ship would get the job done. It was time to deal with the frigates.

"Tactical, concentrate fire on the starboard frigate." Reshmar said as he swung his command harness around. The officers began sending orders to the gun crew and an instant later the lead frigate in the distance began having a very bad day. Turbolaser and ion cannon fire engulfed the forward shielding sending ripples across it which reverberated to the aft of the ship. The second frigate in the distance changed course and began to spin and move in behind the now motionless cruiser.

"CON! Tactical! new contact dropping out of hyperspace. sixty five thousand kilometers bearing zero one five by one eight eight. Wait?" The sensor officer paused with a confused look. "Its gone sir, Contact lost." said the confused officer. He began checking and double checking the sensor feeds then ran a diagnostic on the console and scanner arrays. "Sir It was there then gone." said the now nearly frantic officer.

Reshmar entered in a set of commands and the location of where what ever it had been appeared on the forward view screen. Nothing was there, that was appearant. Thinking of the incident earlier with the attack craft only one thing explained what had just happened.

"Get the ShaSHore on the line, have them scan that location with everything they have." said Reshmar cutting the image from the view screen. "Get me the commander of the Aurora Group on the line." ordered Reshmar. He waited a moment then the communications officer sent the channel to his command harness. A human male appeared on the view screen and greeted Reshmar indicating his name was Captain Donson.

"Captain, Sync your targeting computers with My Escorts. They have advanced sensors and I think we have a cloaked ship out there. Please have your INterdictor begin projecting a field in the designated area. It is where we picked up what ever is out there when it dropped out of hyperspace. Also prepare your fleets gunnery teams to fire for effect. We will shunt the telemetry to you once we have it. I will leave this channel open encase we need to chat captain." said Reshmar. The human nodded and saluted then the viewscreen changed back to a view of the darkness in the distance.

"Captain. Split our fire, All starboard guns target that area. Wide dispersion arcs and sweeping fire. We can not see it but that doesn't mean we can not hit it if its there." said Reshmar as half the guns changed targets and began firing blindly at where the ship had exited hyperspace.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Reshmar"] [member="Gir Quee"]

With the hanger secured, and the droids providing a hefty obstacle for any pirate forces dumb enough to try and rally a counterattack, the bay doors slid open and the rest of the Aurora dropships flew in to land. Taeli was looking through the crates in the hanger while she waited, some of them stocked with components, while others had some stygium crystals within.

"Load any of the stygium here, along with the cloaks on those two fighters, into the dropships and have them go back to the fleet," she ordered a few troopers. "The rest of us will continue to secure the station. I want established checkpoints and clear zones of occupation."

"Yes, ma'am."

"The objective is securing their main storage area of stygium crystals and locking down an exits. Target the security control stations."

With those orders, the Aurora forces began to advance out of the secure hanger. Taeli frowned at a flimsy barricade the pirates had constructed, potholes open so they could shoot at anyone approaching. Gathering the Force to her, she unleashed a powerful blast of energy at the barricade, sending pieces and bodies flying backwards. Blaster bolts started flying through the air again.

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir watched the holographic representations of Devastator gunships drop out of the Watchkeeper's ventral hangar bay before zooming off in pursuit of the Corellian Corvette. Yet the piratical starship seemed to abruptly halt its retreat and come about as the sensor officer tried to figure out what the new sensor irregularity was. From his own experience with the Obi-Wan Kenobi and knowledge of the belt itself, he guessed it was some sort of cloaked heavy cruiser. If it was any smaller of a ship, it wouldn't likely have enough power to alter the battlefield's dynamic that the enemy corellian corvette would come around to continue battle. The only other possibility that Gir saw was that the CR-90 was being used as a diversion for a smaller cloaked ship to evacuate the station of personnel and cargo. The blonde man glanced at the glowing icons of the other ships present. It looks like Admiral Reshmar has this under control...still, it can't hurt to safeguard against other possibilities...even if they aren't obvious...He turned his eyes to the vessel's helmsman.

"Take us on a heading towards the station," ordered Gir before turning to the ship's flight controller, "pull the gunships back to screen us."

"Aye sir."

Welche cleared his throat, "We're going away from the corvette?"

"It's coming back towards us," noted Gir dryly, "so there's no need to pursue. The ramship isn't moving anywhere."

Welche nodded, "The station is the key to this all...you think it's going to try and run past us to the station?"

"I think that's a possibility," admitted Gir, "but the future is as clear to you as it is to me..."

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Space in the distance was afire with bolt after bolt as the ships of the assembled fleet now blindly searched for what ever was out there. The area had been empty as the first of the weapons came to bare and now the gun crew swept their fire searching for the ship. Reshmar had been quietly watching and waiting for what he knew was there.

"Admiral, The ShaShore reports picking up a transmission. They are attempting to track it." said one of the communications officers sitting at the station. Reshmar heard but made no attempt to acknowledge. HE was studying the displays and waiting for something, anything to show its face. Then he saw the smaller frigate stop firing on the location the ships had been bombarding and begin to turn and fire on another section of space. Before the communications officer could report what the frigate had just communicated Reshmar swung his chair around.

"There concentrate fire there!" pointing out at where the ShaShore was now firing. The ships guns silenced then tracked to the new target location and fired.

"GIve me a forty degree arch spread from port to starboard, The track that up and down in sweeping vollies." shouted the Mon Calamari as he swung his chair around to face the rear.

"Commander launch your fighters!" Reshmar said as the hanging harness chair stopped then began to move again. Commander order all ships in our and the Aurora group to spread out echelon right formation. spread to two kilometers and throw a wall centered on the firing solution the ShaShore is transmitting." Reshmar said as his chair swept back around to its forward position and the view out the forward viewport.

"Lay hell down on anything you find!"

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Taeli Raaf"]

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Reshmar"] [member="Gir Quee"]

"Ma'am, we captured one of the secondary security stations, and the pirates are evacuating the base at a hanger on the other side," one of her lieutenants said into the comlink. Taeli frowned as she deflected a blaster bolt into the face of a scarred Ishi Tib. If they were trying to evacuate, they would be moving their harvested crystals with them.

"We can't allow them to escape or they might start attacking more civilized and profitable areas," Taeli said. "Captain, hinder them however you can."

"Yes, ma'am."

Scowling now, she started to take a lead position as the Aurora forces continued their advances through the station, her purple lightsaber blade swinging meant another pirate met their end. Considering what was going on in the space around the place, they had been quietly building up their forces in the fringes before attacking, most likely, SSC space.

"Admirals, the amount of pirates and the forces they are fielding are more significant than first reported, I suspect they have a benefactor," she said. "We've secured maybe 30% of the station, but the pirates are trying to evac through a secondary hanger. If any fighter craft can be spared to cut off that avenue of escape, we need them now."

 

[Gir Quee]

Stormfire-class Assault Frigate Watchkeeper...

Gir's headset comlink let out a faintly audible buzz, alerting him to an incoming call. He switched the channel to listen in on [member="Taeli Raaf"]'s message with rapt interest. The ability to field cloakable ships would make otherwise ordinary pirates quite useful...Gir could easily think of strategic advantages that it would afford this potential benefactor. Obviously cloakable ships could make pirating itself much profitable both from being able to surprise their prey and to cut their loses by disappearing from pursuers. But a politically savvy benefactor might be able to engage the pirates in smuggling operations that would otherwise be impossible for conventional smugglers, and those sorts of operations brought in a host of political implications with it, whether it be smuggling weapons to a resistance cell or smuggling people, both willing and unwilling. But this isn't the sort of the thing that we want running around anywhere without a better knowledge of them...we will need to gather more information later...

He turned his attention from strategical implications back to the unfolding tactical situation. The surviving corellian corvette seemed wary enough to try and be avoiding the frigate's firing arcs, but it was clear to Gir that it was still trying to return back to the hangar if in a roundabout way. He decided that since its goal was known, and they easily had the means to stop it from achieving its mission, that it was a lesser threat compared to the pirates trying to evacuate out of the station by other means. He turned to his flight controller.

"Redirect our gunships to secure the hangar bay of the station that's on the opposite side of where Master Raaf originally led our boarding crews," ordered Gir.

His Devastator gunships were designed to assault and take ground, and he had little doubt that they'd be capable of taking over the hangar bay itself. But they wouldn't be able to effectively corner or capture any of the craft could potentially be leaving. We can cut back on some of those trying to escape though...but ultimately this task likely fall to the small strikecraft off of the ships that Aurora Industries and Mon Calamari Shipyards under [member="Reshmar"]'s leadership. Gir turned to his weapon's officer.

"Load the mass driver cannons with concussion missiles," decided Gir, "and target any small craft that manage to avoid our gunships."

"Yes sir..."