Reconnaissance for a client (highway to hell)

[Atrace]

Atrace activated the Stygium Cloak on his ship, he had parked his vessel in probably the most obvious location possible. This didn't worry him he didn't have the fastest ship in the galaxy but he flew a ship that was designed to sneak into highly protected areas and sneak out of them undetected All atrace had to do was make sure the hourly patrols didn't smash into him his ships cloak would mask him from sensors ams eyesight but they didn't make him intangible. Atrace quickly punched in the evasive maneuver protocols into his ships control panels so he could devote his time into operating his scanners.

"What does my client want with these scans anyways there is absolutely nothing of value out here" Atrace didn't care why his client wanted these scans all he cared about was his payment. He activated his ships sensors and began to scan the construction of the nearby truckstop. Atrace looked over his mission details "something doesn't add up here why would they build a hyperlane going through this part of space it doesn't make any sense!?" His ships sensors displayed a detailed map of the truckstop below him he would look for flaws I'm the design anything his client could use to his advamtage. "There seems to be a lack of defenses for a project of this magnitude" Atrace couldn't help but wonder why there was so little defense systems for the construction of a hyperlane how do they plan on defending themselves against pirates or even smugglers

Atrace onced over his ships defenses in case he was forced to use them. His ship wasn't outfitted with the most devastating weaponry mostly due to the high power demands a high grade defense system would take. "All systems appear to be working properly." His ship looked to be running fine so he decided he would pass out and let the scanners do all the work for him.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace awoke to the screaming of his command console. He jumped up and rushed over to the control panel he screamed into the panel "DIAGNOSTIC REPORT!" The ship showed no problems onboard the ship which made Atrace wonder "if the ship isn't damaged what's setting off the alarms?!" He looked out of his cockpit windows to be completely shocked. Two very large waships not 1,000 feet from his vessels nose. The warships were releasing military grade ships which seemed to go directly to work on the hyperlane. "So that's why the truckstops have so little security!" Atrace made sure to record every movement the warships made.

The warships did not stay around for very long after about 30 minutes they began to move towards the next truckstop. Atrace figured he had to follow these warships, something big was happening here something his client would like to see. "I guess I'm done with the Muunilinst part of the mission. He figured the scanners had a good 9 hours to scan the entire truckstop below him it.f the scanners picked up anything good I already have it in my databanks." Atrace followed closely behind the mysterious warships that had appeared not an hour ago.

The warships were quite boring to Atrace they barely did anything except launch an occasional fighter that would sweep the area once the dock once again with the warship. Atrace found it amusing that he was flying right under the warships nose and they weren't even close to detecting him. He would try multiple times to tap into the enemy comms to try and get a lock on what they were doing with this hyperlane but each and every time he would fail it was almost like breaking into The Jedi Archives at least that's how Atrace viewed it. He couldn't help but wonder why his targets would need such an extensive firewall on a warship only escorting what appeared to be construction workers.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace was relieved when the warships finally stopped at the kalee truckstop. He reactivated his scanners he made sure their priority was the kalee truckstop however he also set aside 3 separate scans of the enemy warships just so he knew what he was dealing with it would prove catastrophic if his ships power systems failed without Atrace knowing his enemies weaknesses. After Atrace had began his scans he did a quick once over of the ships systems like he always did after a demanding task. His ship had never been pushed as hard as it was
Pushed right now not only did the ship have to maintain a constant cloak to remain undetected from his enemies it also had to devote large sums of power to the scanners and weapons systems.

All the systems looked to be running decently but that came at a price the only way he could keep the ship at a stable power level was to cut power to the comms system as well as any non essential systems which made Atraces ride very uncomfortable "I better get paid well for this!" He grunted the living conditions of his ship were normally pretty adequate Atrace actually lived on his vessel full time there was of course an occasional stay aboard a Sith dreadnought etc.. But for the most part this is were he lived and he would not have it any other way. However given the current conditions his ship was nearly unbearable artificial gravity was turned off, and the temperature was rising due to the heat of the massive computers onboard. Atraces sh wasn't designed to perform very long reconnaissance missions however it did come equipped to do so his ship was more designed to make slip into highly guarded areas and also slip out of the same areas undetected. His ship wasn't very fast but it is probably one of the only ships in the galaxy that can get this close to any enemy warship without being detected it was designed to evacuate the hands of the dark lord out of harmful situations anyways.

Atrace tried his best to meditate in the hot environment of his ship, he would meditate when things bothered him or brought him a sense of calm a sense of worth. Atrace felt at peace with himself and the force when he was able to meditate. Atrace was able to meditate for a good few hours until his command console went off again. He walked over to the console to see what had happened. He noticed cargo being unloaded from the warships "computer! Get me a scan of that cargo I want to know exactly what is in those crates." He watched closely as the cargo was being unloaded from the warships when finally the cargo reports were in.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace wasn't too surprised at what the warship was transporting, after what he had seen the past two days he wouldn't be surprised if all the Jedi became Sith and all the Sith became jedi. "So these warships were carrying weapons and starship components...I wish I could say I was surprised it explains why they have such a military presence moving between truckstop to truckstop it looks like my targets are smuggling weapons along the hyperlane." Atrace recorded the results in his databanks.

The scan on the truckstop had finally finished, Atrace was happy the warships didn't leave the current truckstop yet it gave him more time to perform scans of the warships and the truckstop respectively. Atrace let the scanners do all the work for him as he returned to his meditation. He couldn't clear his thoughts as easily as he used to now that his brother was missing he though too much about him he thought about where he was what he was doing whether or not he was still alive. These thoughts made his meditation extremely difficult. He knew he should talk to someone whom has more experience in this type of thing like maybe a Sith lord or even a fellow knight but he knew something had to be done.

The warships finally began to move once more. Atrace once again followed closely behind as to keep tabs on what was happening and to see if any more cargo was being delivered between the warships. Atrace sat at the command console, he stared off into the darkness of the galaxy he never really got to look too closely at the stars they absolutely mesmerized him he never got to really appreciate the beauty of the galaxy when his brother and himself were doing smuggling runs. He leaned back in his chair and watched the stars go by.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace awoke to the startling robotic voice of his ships commands console [Now arriving at Kad V checkpoint...] Atrace went over the video logs to see if anything big happened when he was asleep to his surprise nothing really had happened yet. He once again activated the ships scanner and with a protesting whine the scanners fired up. Atrace returned to the command console he began typing away at the controls as if trying to reach someone. Atraces typed and he typed and he typed at a letter to his brother a letter he knew his brother would never receive but still he typed and typed. He wrote about his job he wrote about the Sith he wrote about all the old memories the two shared. Finally he stopped typing and sat back In his chair looking off into the stars.

"This job really is boring...why did I even accept this damned task" he leaned back "all they do is work and drop of cargo. " Atrace had no means if entertaining himself during this mission all power was being used to power the stealth field and scanner he couldn't even think for a second to reactivate the holonet connection not only would that jeopardize the mission giving the warships a signal to track but it would also compromise the very carefully set up power disteibution. Still he was tempted what else was he going to do? The scanners were running hard as Atrace had programmed them to, he would monitor each and every little detail km the scans just to try and kill a little bit of the boredom.

 

[Atrace]

The journey to Esfandia started very slow not much happened the journey was pretty much the same as it was at Kad V up until the warships haulted. Atrace didn't notice that the warships were haulted up until a blarring spimd played in his ear [WARNING! WARNING!] he began to check if he had been found or if the systems were failing when suddenly...CRASH!!! [COLLISION! COLLISION!] atrace saw an image of the ship appear before him it showed the frame of the ship but with damage on the port side. Atrace knew that his cloak couldn't hold much longer with that type of damage on the hull he knew he had to get as far away from the warships as possible before his cloak failed.

Atrace put the ships engines on full power, he flew between asteroids, and debris, sometimes barely scraping through cracks. Before Atrace joined the Sith he was a notorious pilot able to outrun an entire imperial fighter squadron and he did that more than once. Once atrace got to a concealed location within the asteroid field he cut power to the cloak and rerouted it to the scanners. They would need it with the increased range between the ship and the truckstop.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace tried to finish with the Esfandia scans as quickly as humanly possible he didn't like being in a damaged ship near enemy ships. He took some comfort knowing that the next stop listed in the mission briefing is In sith space. Atrace was frantically looking over items in the video feed to try and speed up the scans so he could start moving before the warships and this fighters which would rip his ship to shreads.

Atrace nearly let out a squeal of joy when the scans on the truckstop where finally complete he saved them as fast as he could as he fired his engines and continued his journey. Atrace no longer had the luxury of a stealth field he ought to have handed i his pilot card back there. He wondered how he of all people rammed their ship into an asteroid. He couldn't afford to dwell on his mistake the enemy patrols were only a few minutes behind him and he was in a gimped ship. Atrace was pushing his ship to its absolute limits he had to reach the next truckstop before the warship even cleared the astroid field.

After fighting with his ship to keep flying at its max speed Atrace was able to reach the Shrab truckstop. He was happy to be in friendly airspace. Atrace found a place to park his ship where the enemy patrols wouldn't think to look he then fixed the scanners onto the truckstop.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace couldn't help but laugh at his mistakes he made during this mission. "How could I hit an asteoid... And they call me a good pilot" Atrace couldn't control his laughter it only stopped when he remembered the time his brother and him stole a large shipment of credits. That was the first successful smuggling run they ever pulled off he remembered how drunk Urak got when they went to Aldeeran one year. Somehow him crashing into an astroid reminded him of his dimwitted brother who most likely got himself killed.

The scans of the truckstop finished quickly to Atraces surprise he wasn't going to argu with it however. "Off to Solovarna" he thought to himself. He figured he had better keep a good lead on the warships he fired the engines they didn't want to start for Atrace, probably a result of the astroid. Atrace finally got the engines to fire, he was off. He figured he was a good 30 minutes ahead of the warships.

After a decent while Atrace had reached the truckstop. This one looked to be hardly worked on "should be an easier scan...but you never know." Atrace got as close as he could to the truckstop he knew he has time before the enemy patrols or warships were far away from him.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace was able to finish the scan on the truckstop within 15 minutes due to the close proximity between it and the ship. Atrace wanted to get this mission over with as soon as possible so he was pulling all the stops even getting risky with the delicate power managment software. He wanted to reroute the weapons systems power to the engines so he would be able to make a quick escape he couldn't quite put his finger on it but he knew he was going to be found soon.

Atrace began moving towards Serpena he made decent time his ship wasn't as slow as most civillian vessels and certainly faster than military vessels. He made it to serpena and immediately began taking scans of the hyperlane and truckstop. He was surprises at the lack of construction going on at this portion of the hyperlane. Atrace was wondering why this hyperlane was even being created he had his suspicions and I'm sure others do to.

Atrace heard the familiar screaming coming from his command console atrace looked to see what the problem was and immediately yelled "DAMN!" The warships had caught up to Atrace far before he had anticipated. Atrace knew he was detected how could they have missed him he is essentially a beacon. The warships began to deploy fighters atrace turned his ship around to face the opposition.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace couldn't leave the area until the scan was finished. He had to do something so why not charge down the enemy? Atraces charged down the enemy fighter squadron. The fighters began to take shots at Atraces ship. Atrace knew he probably wouldn't make it out of the altercation unscathed but he was going to give it his all to get out of his current situation. He rolled the ship then pulled a 9g inverted dive as he came within 100 feet of what looked like the squad leader. As as the squadron began to dive Atrace was already going vertical. Atrace knew he had a major speed advantage over these fighters and he was using it. A series of beeps came from the console behind him indicating the scan was completed.

Atrace was pulling all the maneuvers he knew against these enemy fighters. He figured he needed to escape and fast. He flew down towards the planet below the hyperlane and used it as a cover for his movement and it was working not too long after Atrace pulled that maneuver he had lost his pursuers and was on his way to Dasid Anya.

 

[Atrace]

Atrace figures that those warships would search for him for awhile before coming to Dasid Anya. He began to scan the hyperlane like he had at every other stop but now he finally thought he could make a few makeshift repairs to the ship. For the most part the scan was the same at every other spot but this one seemed different whether it was the fact that the warships
Weren't around or the fact that this was the last stop in his mission.

Atrace grinned as he received the notification that the scan was complete. He saved the scan to his databanks like he did with all the others and then he began his flight back into familiar territory. "Now all I have to do is get paid" he smirked as his damaged ship began inching its way towards safety.