Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Private The Long Road Home

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[ Music for Aces ]
Airspace above Empress Teta
Close proximity to the capital, Cinnagar

The X-Wings engines had been pushing red for minutes. That they hadn't exploded could only be described as a miracle.

Another volley of green laser fire shot past the transparisteel windows toward Teta's horizon. Bernard didn't even regard them, too preoccupied with the missile alerts aggressively blaring incoming. He shoved the control stick forward, sending the starfighter into a hard descent and on a collision course with the enemy patrol boat.

The cockpit lit up with green light as the view ahead was fileld with spirals of green point-defence cannon fire. Every battery this side of the gunboat had him locked, and any TIEs still chasing kept their own volleys coming. Shots from every angle barely missed the X-Wing dancing towards the patrol boat's hull through a web of laser fire that was quickly closing around his approach vector. And that damned missile alert continued beeping.

Bernard held the X-Wing's course. He fipped several controls, diverting energy from the shields to the already whining engines. He only needed a little more power.

The patrol boat's hull blocked out the view from the cockpit, as the distance between it and the starfighter closed more and more. Individual shots from pursuing TIEs impacted the patrol boat's shields, blue ripples flaring at the impact points. The radar showed several of the TIEs breaking off their pursuit as their firing lines intersected with the allied ship. Bernard's plan panned out. His pursuers had been eliminated, but the gun boat now had a clear shot as his starfighter dipped into the killing field of its point-defence cannons.

Bernard yanked the control stick sideways, putting the X-Wing into a spin, and green bolts passed between S-foils as the craft barely escaped an explosive end.

A collision warning added to the cacophony of missile warnings and other caution signals in the cockpit. Proximity sensors read a hundred, ninety, eighty, seventy meters, continually dropping as the starfighter continued on its path directly toward the patrol boat's hull. The laser fire suddenly stopped, point-defence cannons reaching the limit for safe firing solutions.

Bernard flipped every break switch he could think of and pulled up, hard.

The engine readout dropped into the greens as the starfighter stalled. Its nose barely avoided grazing the patrol boat's particle shields. The missiles chasing the X-Wing didn't manage the turn in time, and slammed straight through. A large explosion lit up the cockpit, and the resulting shockwave rattled the starfighter as it levelled out its path along the length of the patrol boat. The rear display showed a large wound in the ship's hull. Blue shields flickered as they failed to contain the damage.

Bernard broke off from the patrol boat right as he passed its engines, exploiting what he hoped to be a deadzone for its point-defence lasers. Using that moment of peace, he took stock of his situation. For all intents and purposes, his X-Wing was shot. Damage reports indicated an imminent engine-matrix collapse. Exceeding the safe operating conditions had all but fried the electronics. More importantly, the half-decade old electronics all around the cockpit had suffered considerably under the strain of his stunt. As energy levels returned to normal readings, more and more systems blinked out as the fuses simply burned up. The last warning of enemy weapon's lock came as a dying whine that quickly faded into silence.

Green lines whizzed past the cockpit. Bernard pulled the control stick left and right, but the X-Wing's responses came delayed and with only a fraction of the desired effect. In none of Corellia's nine hells would he win a dogfight with his starfighter in this condition.

The laser fire kept closing in, shaving off meters between their trajectories and their intended target.

Bernard grimaced as he muttered a curse under his breath. If he couldn't beat his pursuers, the only option would be to lose them. In a quickly-fading X-Wing, he saw only one viable plan. More a gambit than a plan, if he was honest with himself.

Another green bolt flew past, nearly grazing the left-side S-foils. Bernard exhaled sharply, bracing himself as he rerouted all remaining power to the air brakes and pulled at the control stick to bring the X-Wing almost perpendicular with its flight path.

The starfighter's velocity readout dropped by almost half in an instant. The S-foils bent and buckled under the strain as the entirety of the X-Wing's wingspan suddenly had to struggle against the oncoming winds with its flat sides. Metal groaned and whined under the pressure, but the manoeuver worked. The TIEs shot past the starfighter, shots going wide. During the time they would need to realign to get a killshot, Bernard could safely get the X-Wing into the treelines in a controlled landing.

Except, one TIE hadn't missed. A lone green bolt slammed into the right-side S-foils. The impact broke the wing in two, and sent the X-Wing spiralling into an uncontrollable descent toward the treeline below. All Bernard managed as his insides were completely spun upside down in the chaos of the fighter's chaotic path toward the surface, was to flip on the distress beacon. It broadcast its signal for all of a minute before the X-Wing became a scattering of scrap metal on the countryside of Cinnagar's outskirts.

Heinrich Faust Heinrich Faust
 

Bernard Bernard

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Coruscant burned...

Heinrich had made his best effort to assist the Galactic Alliance when their capital came under attack, yet he was too late. Now all that he could do was assist them in the aftermath, searching for survivors and helping in whatever small way he could. Of course, he knew that Solipsis was present at the fray, and if Heinrich had been there, he may have rushed in to end the conflict before it could go any further. Perhaps this was some way of Ashla preserving his life for a later purpose, or at least that's what he would tell himself to keep his mind from giving in to sorrow.

He had taken a moment away from the captain's chair of the small shuttle to rest, leaving the pilot droid at the helm while he kicked up his feet for a moment. Both the ship and the droid were on loan, a favor he had called in from a former comrade. Heinrich may not have had all of the resources that he did during his time as the Grand Marshall, but favors were the one thing that didn't disappear with time. He had stuffed what supplies he could into the vessel, mostly medical equipment, along with some food and other essentials. It was surely not as much as the Senate could provide their people, but in his mind, every little bit would help.

A beeping sound from the main control panel rose him from his bunk, a red light flashing in sync with each beep. Heinrich knew the signal all too well... a distress call. His eyes darted to the console as he approached, his arm leaning on the back of the captain's chair. The signature of the distress call seemed to come from an X-Wing, though Heinrich's proximity to Teta and Tython made him feel uneasy. It wouldn't be the first time that the Sith laid such a trap, after all...

But then, the signal stopped.

His eyes narrowed, his gaze snapping to the droid.

"Were you able to track it?"

"It was active just enough for me to pinpoint an approximate location," the droid replied in an expectedly monotone voice.

As the coordinates popped up, Heinrich's paranoia intensified...

Teta...

What was worse, it was right outside of Cinnegar. If the signal was legitimate, there would still be great risk involved. The person might not even be alive, in truth. Yet... something kept nagging at him, pushing him to investigate despite his better judgment.

"Bring us in. Keep our power use minimal as we enter the atmosphere, I want to leave as small of a footprint as possible."

As they entered the atmosphere, he could see smoke from the crashed ship in the distance. If the Imperials weren't here already, they certainly would be soon.

"Keep the ship in the air. I'll send you coordinates for pickup when we're ready."

He opened the shuttle door, and with a quick motion, he leapt to the planet below. As soon as his boots touched the ground, he broke into a sprint, closing the gap to the X-Wing as fast as he could. As he drew close, he could feel the presence of the one inside. Whoever was there was alive... and strong in the Force...

A Jedi...

He quickly ignited his lightsaber, it's emerald blade coming to life as he carefully cut away the hatch. Pulling metal and transparisteel away, Heinrich's eyes widened as he saw the visage of none other than his fellow Lightsworn Bernard.

"Bernard... can you hear me? It's Heinrich..."

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Bernard barely stirred awake. A breeze chilled wet trails that covered his face. Messy strands of hair stuck to flowing and dried blood alike, and when he felt the urge to brush it away his hand refused to move. Instead, there a deep ache radiated through his body. It spread outward from his chest, until the nerve endings down each limb pulsed with a distant pain that seemed to wrap around his entire body.

He forced his eyes open, fighting to keep them that way. Overwhelming brightness assaulted his senses. The glow of waning light as the sun touched the horizon, and a more immediate, humming shine of emerald plasma that tripled and quintupled in his field of vision.

Distantly, he could make out a voice, but the words didn't quite string together. He could recognize the words, but their meaning slipped his grasp like sand. His entire body throbbed with pain.

He shifted in the seat, groaning weakly, and his hand fell to the med-compartment more out of luck than volition.

"Stim ... pack," his words came slurred, barely above a whisper. He didn't know who this other being was, but they hadn't taken the chance to kill him yet.

Heinrich Faust Heinrich Faust
 

Bernard Bernard

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Heinrich was no healer. He had left that work up to others within the halls of the Grand Jedi Temple, for he was often too busy fighting Sith off-world to learn such an art. Thankfully, he was knowledgeable when it came to basic field medicine. Quickly taking the med kit out of the compartment, he opened it, desperately looking for the stimpack.

"Don't worry Bernard, we're gonna get you out of here. Just hang in there."

As soon as the stimpack was in his hand, Heinrich set himself to work, finding a suitable location to plunge the needle into his injured companion. It would be a bit jolting for the man, but it was either that, or eventually die here in the rubble of the X-Wing. Pulling the needle from Bernard's vein, Heinrich quickly stashed the rest of the contents of the med kit on his person. He hoped they wouldn't need it, but one could never be too sure.

"If you can hear me, we have to get you moving. We won't be safe here for long."

With that, he would wait for a response. Hopefully it wouldn't come too late. Heinrich was strong, but getting out would be easier if Bernard could at least walk. He prayed silently to Ashla, hoping she would answer his call for aid.

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