The Great battle, an Aftermath. (Smugglers Alliance)

[Damon Riggs]

They had to buy the others time, and the best way to do that was by being a diversion. This wasn't a military proceeding, quite simply it was kill or be killed. A comm frequency was opens to the oncoming fighters in case Riggs wanted to get mouthy. Instead he simply said something to [member="Alexandra Russo"].

"I really don't feel like dying today, don't bust my ship, and don't do anything stupid."

You would think Riggs didn't need to say that to a former CO, but he did. It was the reason he had her in his ready room the day he told her of his love for her. Russo had taken a mission for herself that another could have done, and got shot down when she checked something that was not on the list of objectives. She had been so angry that Riggs dared to even as old her for it, but his confession of love for her silenced whatever retort she had wanted to give. Riggs knew Alleycat. He knew she would push the limits. Today, so would Riggs.

Without a word, thumbs pressed hard on the triggers sending a surge of red laser into one of the oncoming fighters. The pilot had to been ready for such a bold move and the fight blew not pieces right away. Riggs had their attention, and now it was up to Russo to really do some fancy flying.

[member="Eliza Steele"][member="Jakeal Rogue"][member="Thane Drexel"][member="Jace Trent"][member="Kairon Rees"]@Titan@Robb Killian[member="Colap Ticon"][member="Listeri Dalane"]

 

[RC 212]

Colap was already in the Z-95 when it all went down. As the comms crackled and warnings ripped the silence he took off his helmet and lit another cigar. From underneath his seat he pulled a flask and rank a deeeeep swig of whiskey. The liquid fire rolled through his veins, awakening him, and firing him up.

"All right lets get it!" He roared over the comms as the flask was stashed under the seat and he hammered the throttle, squinting in between puffs of smoke. His deft hands pulled the joystick left then right, and the headhunter juked through the debris, coming out on the fighters flanks.

"Got eyes, their on my twelve, firing."

A stream of laser bolts stitched the darkness, two struck home on the enemy fighter, sending it spiraling into the side of a half destroyed cruiser. It exploded with a vengeance. The wingman saw Colaps surprise maneuver and juked left, peeling away.

"Got one on the run, come to pappa baby!"

He rammed the craft left whizzing by a piece of debris. The fighter still fled, and then turned nose up, flying up and over the debris to come behind Colap. It was a quick maneuver and effective, but he had his tricks. The smuggler turned his craft left, full throttle and hugged the chunk of dust. Second later he came up right behind the enemy fighter, who was still trying to register what ad happened.

"Happy hunting sucker!"

 

[Kairon Rees]

"Trent, move your arse!" Kairon screamed into the comm as the Quintessence started to pull away.

She was fast in a straight line, but not the most manoeuvrable of ships, particularly fully laden.

Rees checked over his instruments, his eyes watching the rapidly approaching blips.

"Jakael, when the defiance gets moving get us heading down a narrow corridor between debris, I want to let them have the party box!"

 

[Robb Killian]

Robb stood atop the derelict ship, staring out into the graveyard of vessels around them. Debris floated everywhere, turning this way and that, projected endlessly by whatever force had separated them from their original positions. Robb shuddered as he noticed more than a few bodies floating about. Hell of a way to go...

Jace's voice over the comm-link brought Robb back to the now, <Hey boys, I found the armory. Lets start loading it up>

Robb tore his gaze away from the mass-wreckage and followed [member="Thane Drexel"] and [member="Jace Trent"] through the breach, switching his helmet's flashlight on to compensate for the ship's lack of power. He landed in what did appear to be an armory, nearly crashing into a upended weapons locker as his boots struck the floor.

The team dispersed throughout the room and Robb set his mind to the task at hand, deciding to focus on collecting as much ammunition and as many grenades as he could. Robb snatched one bandoleer of grenades and held it before his helmet's light. Stick grenades? Well that's...oh...Cryoban, now these will come in handy. Robb slipped the bandoleer over his shoulder and adjusted the length until it fit properly around the bulk of his space suit.

Robb set to resume his task when the voice of [member="Eliza Steele"] filled his helmet. <You space cowboys better haul ass as we've got incoming… Firing up the ol' girl now. Let me know when you're secure on board.>

Robb glanced at the rest of the team to see if they wanted to stay longer, <Your call Captain, run or fun?>

 

[Nyos Val]

The armored man moved down the corridor, silent in the vacuum of space. His reflective visor shimmering as he passed by holes where starlight peaked through. He made his way to the other side of the ship, another hole lay before him showing a few vessels floating nearby. The hulk exited the hole and climbed out to the remaining pieces of hull where he witnessed a few lights dancing around inside a breach a few meters away. A man could be seen entering the hole. The armored behemoth thundered down to the other hole to investigate the unknown individuals, but his HUD lit up with movement and off in the distance, small ships could be seen making their way through the ship graveyard. He decided to make a move now and ran as fast as his magnetic boots would allow him to. Even with the enhanced strength, the giant was lumbering in the weightlessness.

[member="Jace Trent"] [member="Robb Killian"] [member="Thane Drexel"] [member="Eliza Steele"]

 

[Alexandra Porte]

To be honest, Alleycat had missed this; the thrill of the dance. But what she hadn't missed was the aftermath, which the former starfighter pilot lived with every day since that tragic space battle a year ago. Russo pushed all those agonizing thoughts away because she had to as her main priority and responsibility of flying the light freighter against the smaller, faster, and more maneuverable fighters had to be in her forefront of her mind at the moment if they were going to survive.

Fingers flew deftly over the controls of the YT-1300 as Alex took the Inquisitor's Revenge through daring turns and twists only a seasoned pilot could manage especially being that this was not an X-wing. "Come on, baby. Hold together," the Taanabian mumbled as the ship took a hard hit, shields holding though taking them down to a lower than comfortable level. The brunette swung the 'Revenge around with determination and lined up a nice shot for her partner.

<Okay, [member="Damon Riggs"]… Bases are loaded. It's the bottom of the 9th and we are down by one run with no more outs. No pressure buddy, but hit one home so we can get the hell outta here.>

That's when she notice the Defiance was still lounging amongst the debris. Oh well it was their funeral if Trent and his crew stayed any longer. They had done all they could to take the heat off of them. At least the others were moving out and doing evasive maneuvers to get to their exit vector as best they could.

 

[Damon Riggs]

"Stay together.... Stay together...." Riggs said as Russo flew the frieghter like it was an X-Wing.

If anyone could, it was her. If there was anyone Riggs would trust to fly it like that, it was her. No one else would get away with flying the ship as Russo was without getting an earful later. Damon was still nervous though. He didn't just find [member="Alexandra Russo"] again to just get blown up like he should have a year earlier. It was odd how having her on his ship again gave him a small glimmer of hope for the future.

Russo lined up the perfect shot, and of course she had used a baseball analogy. Riggs and Russo had shared a common interest in sports. Ironically Gus and Riggs' dad liked the same team. They shared stories of seeing the games as they played on holo. Riggs still had some of the old games. At some point Ruggs would pull out the old recordings and show them to Russo, but not right now. Right now, Riggs had a perfect shot, and he had to take it.

Once again his finger tugged at the trigger. A volley of crimson lasers flew through space and met the target. They way Russo liked up the ships, one blast took out three. She was good, real good. Like Riggs had said, he had needed her. There was no way he could have lined that shot up as well. There was a loud whoop that came out of Riggs when the impact was made. Blood was pumping, adrenaline flowing, and for a moment, just a moment, he forgot about the reality he lived in. That was short lived when the sight of the MC-40 came into Riggs crosshairs.

"Get a hold of Trent and tell them to be their asses out of here. We need to go too..."

[member="Jace Trent"] [member="Eliza Steele"] [member="Robb Killian"] [member="Thane Drexel"] [member="Titan"]

 

[Eliza Steele]

Eliza was pretty fit to be tied. The Sith patrol was getting too close for comfort even with their Alliance buddies drawing attention away from their location in the debris. The Defiance was going to be a sitting duck in less than a minute if they didn't get to moving soon. The Corellian had been very patient and calm up till this point, but this was pushing her common sense limits. With no signs of the space cowboys and their loot yet, the brunette hailed her partner once again putting a little fear of the lord in him.

<[member="Jace Trent"]… It's gettin' awful crowed here in my sky. If you're a thinkin' of ever getting in my bed again, you best get yourself and the others on this ship right now!>

[member="Robb Killian"] [member="Titan"] [member="Thane Drexel"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

That was it, there was no more time to lose. The Quintessence drifted away from their salvage and started to accelerate. Kairon swivelled his cannon to the aft, closely monitoring the sensor read out. The TIE Rapiers were well outside of visual range, but they were closing fast. The ship wasn't the most agile, but she had a fair bit of pace when she needed to shift - even when fully laden.

"Lets try and get their attention and keep the heat of the Defiance!" Kairon announced. He opened up a comm channel towards the approaching forces. "To interceptors, please allow us to leave the sector unimpeded. We will leave all salvage behind, we just want to leave!" He lied. He had no qualms about deception and lying. Afterall, there had been the time he had promised the crew of the Majesty that if they laid down their arms he would guarantee their....Kairon shook the thought from his mind. He didn't need to be distracted by past deed now.

There was no response, but he wasn't expecting one. There was a reason only two of their modular cargo holds had been packed with salvage, it was because the aft container was already full.

"Get ready to open the party box!" Kairon shouted.

No matter how much he tried to avoid it, violence always seemed to catch up with the former pirate.

 

[Thane Drexel]

Thane packed his last rifle and ammo into the bag, he turned and saw a glint of light reflecting off a moving object on the outer hull of the derelict vessel. An armored giant was running his way.

Cap, looks like we've got incoming, and it's huge. A massive soldier is running our way. Robb, Let's move.

With that, Thane got as much of a running start as he could and leapt from the hole. Punching his boosters he propelled himself towards the Defiance.

[member="Jace Trent"] [member="Robb Killian"] [member="Titan"] [member="Eliza Steele"]

 

[Nyos Val]

As he thundered toward the opposite hole in the ship, a ship in the distance was firing at smaller vessels and red dots lit up tiny portions in the vacuum of space, followed by a few orange dots, indicated the shot met their mark. A man jumped from the hole towards the nearest freighter. An alarm went off in the giants helmet, he turned to see a TIE fighter making a strafing run towards the jumping man. The armored man jumped into the emptiness between the two ships, unslung his heavy repeater and unleashed a salvo of blaster bolts. A stready stream of red raced towards the incoming TIE fighter.

[member="Thane Drexel"] [member="Jace Trent"] [member="Robb Killian"] [member="Eliza Steele"] [member="Damon Riggs"] [member="Kairon Rees"] [member="Alexandra Russo"] [member="Colap Ticon"]

 

[Robb Killian]

Robb turned at the sound of impossibly heavy footfalls coming from a nearby corridor, and by the sound of it, whatever was causing the noise was getting closer. Thane was quick to identify the intruder.

<Cap, looks like we've got incoming, and it's huge...>

Well THAT is an understatement.

<...A massive soldier is running our way. Robb, Let's move.> And with that the Zabrak leapt from the ship and into the void.

Robb turned and offered Trent a shrug. <Guess that solves that dilemma. Time to go Captain, see you on the other side.> Robb turned and, following Drexel's example, leapt out into the great nothing. Problem was, they weren't alone anymore.

Not only did the armor-clad giant follow their lead, but a paroling TIE-fighter had picked that moment to swing by their neck of the woods, and right into their trajectory. Of all the Karking... Thinking quickly, Robb pulled one of his recently acquired cryobran grenades from his bandoleer and hurled it into the TIE Fighter's path while shouting a warning into the comm. <Thane! Brace!> The following moments went by in a blur.

Blaster fire punctuated the TIE fighter's screech as the Titan opened fire on the ship. Well I'll be... That was when a small flash lit up the surrounding area. The ship, continuing along its' path despite sustaining damage, collided with Robb's grenade. The subsequent explosion released the grenade's contents across the ship, flash-freezing one of it's wings in the process. The Titan's continued firing hit the crystallized appendage, causing it to shatter into millions of crystalline shards. The fighter, having lost control, spiraled it's way into a nearby ship, exploding on impact.

[member="Titan"] [member="Thane Drexel"] [member="Jace Trent"] [member="Eliza Steele"] [member="Damon Riggs"] [member="Kairon Rees"] [member="Alexandra Russo"] [member="Colap Ticon"]

 

[Alexandra Porte]

Russo just clicked the comm like she used to when flying starfighters to let [member="Damon Riggs"] know she copied and would do it. The Taanabian quickly reset the nav-computer to it's previous coordinates and activated it, then hailed [member="Jace Trent"]'s ship as the brunette brought the YT-1300 around.

"Definance, this is 'Revenge. I'm making one last run by you, then we're outta here."

Titan Thane Drexel Eliza Steele Kairon Rees Colap Ticon [member="Robb Killian"]

 

[Jace Trent]

The comm in his helmet kept crackling. The transmissions were choppy, and Jace was unable to make out what everyone was saying. He tried raising the Defiance, but nothing went through. He didn't what was going on. But when he turned around, he saw everything. A large....man?....woman....? in a VAC suit had joined their party and was firing at an incoming TIE fighter, which was spectacularly dispatched by [member="Robb Killian"].

When [member="Thane Drexel"] and Robb looked back at Jace, he tapped his helmet and shook his head to signal that his comm was on the fritz. Then he pointed back in the direction of the Defiance and primed his thrusters to begin their mad dash for the ship. He was to be the last one on. The crew came first...
[member="Kairon Rees"] [member="Eliza Steele"][member="Damon Riggs"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

"Time to give them to party box!" Kairon shouted. He fired a few warning shots of the ion cannon at the group closing on them. They stayed tight in formation and accelerated towards the Quintessence.

There was a loud clunk as the aft cargo bay was released. It kept the same velocity as the ship at first, but as both the Quintessence and her pursuers were burning full thrust it started to accelerate towards the TIE formation. As it closed on them the package was remotely detonated. Kairon didn't have the funds for military grade explosives. But he knew how to make a cheap, dirty bomb and had access to as much scrap metal as he needed.

The TIE pilots had clearly fallen for his offer of abandoning the stolen cargo, and made no effort to keep their distance from the storage bay. The hint of atmosphere that reached this altitude above Coruscant was not enough to carry the sound of the rending metal. In a flash tonnes of scrap metal shards blossomed out from the explosion with enough velocity to shred the nearest pair of TIEs.

"Start jamming their targetting sensors as much as possible!" Kairon shouted. "I think that's their patience exhausted," he mumbled himself. The squadron had scattered, but four TIEs were now bearing down on his freighter with menace.

 

[Damon Riggs]

Riggs heard the click of the comm and nodded, not that Russo could see he understood that meant she copied. Riggs fired at whatever enemy craft came into view, and was unfortunate enough to get in his crosshairs. With one last run by Trent's ship, Riggs caught one more TIE and blew it into a million pieces. That should buy more time, and with Russo jetting out of there, hopefully the rest were mad enough to follow. Too bad Russo was almost ready to make the jump.

"That's it for us Russo, punch it!"

There was no need for her to click the comm. Riggs felt the jump shortly after, not caring where they were headed. It was time to change and get to work, oh a drink, a lot!

[member="Alexandra Russo"]

(OOC: inquisitor's Revenge, out)

 

[Commander Sharky]

(( Can i join?, Sharky is all mercenary and a half smuggler, or should i say thief, he collects bounties by blending and pickpocketing through people's pouches, he lockpicks through people's door locks to either gain the victum's attention and have the chance to infiltrate the home and or knock out the victum smuggle his clothes for better identity sealing and to boost down his notoriety, if he is caught he will have the advantage to give the guards the slip and hide in either crates, a sack pile crop fields and crop pile, this will also boost down his notoriety, you can see where i get this info from and for the finale sharky would tear down wanted posters and or bribe the news reporters of the so called thief to have soon cease of being notorious, i would love to join this again because it focusses about a rendezvous smuggling crew as i like to put it, could he make an appearance by having his ship the Ark being crashed by your ship and would then cause him to get injured, he would need some medical attention after the slip up what do you think?))

 

[Kairon Rees]

The Quintessence wasn't made for tight maneuvering, but she reticently tried. They kept the TIEs from getting a straight run on her, whilst keeping the turrets firing.

Kairon kept his fingers on the trigger, a stream of blue ion cannon fire arcing out into the path of a raptor. It swerved, but too late. A series of blasts ripped through its shield and left it drifting without control.

"Can we jump?" Kairon asked.

"We're clear sir!" Hague, his second in command replied.

"We've given the Defiance as much cover as we dare. Make the jump!"

Kairon's view of Coruscant, with a holo targeting grid on the top was suddenly replaced with thousands of cerulean streaks. He sighed, slowly releasing his grip on the turrets controls. His fingers shook ever so slightly as he released them.

This is why he avoided violence.

Because it enthralled him.

 

[Thane Drexel]

Thane activated his thrusters to avoid the debris from the destroyed TIE fighter. He made it to the ship and stepped inside the airlock. He turned towards his allies, hand outstretched.

"C'mon guys. Move your behinds!" He made to get contact with the giant soldier by waving it over to the ship as well.


"Let's go Heavy Metal. You can come too."


[member="Jace Trent"][member="Robb Killian"][member="Titan"]

 

[Nyos Val]

The behemoth let himself float closer to the ship the other three had been moving towards, but he was moving too slow. He charged his repeater on full and let out a short burst the propelled him faster at the ship. He clanked against the hull. Anyone inside the vessel would have heard the metal on metal collision.

Planting his booted feet under him. He began to trudge trough the vacuum towards the airlock. He would introduce himself. Given the chance.


[member="Thane Drexel"][member="Jace Trent"][member="Robb Killian"][member="Eliza Steele"]