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| - It is the season of the Winter Fete. Typically, this means that no few members of NRSD Reprisal's crew are on leave or off duty. However, this being a ship of war, there must always be those on duty, ready to respond instantly when duty calls. On this particular standard day, that happens to include one Kesander Beysarus. Standing in the fighter bay with a cup of steaming caff in his hand, the 1st Lieutenant is chatting with a shuttle pilot. Both men are clad in flight gear. "Yeah, so then I said, 'look, you keep the Nerf and I'll just be on my way'." At this, the two men laugh loudly as though the punch-line of a joke has been delivered. And indeed it has. Nearby, there's a silver brow arched as someone clearly doesn't understand the joke. Wearing her own flightsuit, she seems to be observing a technician making changes to Ghost One, although she's not close enough to cause said tech to want to throw a spanner at her. "I do not get it," she states to Kesander in an aside. "Alright, alright," Raxis replies to his twittering Astromech droid as it is being hoisted into place in its carriage. Standing beside a technician that's doing the last of his pre-flight warmup on the outside, Raxis stands halfway up his cockpit's ladder, helping the small droid lower peacefully into its seat directly behind the pilot's cabin. Still fresh from training, the young pilot had recently been volunteering for extra patrol shifts, and is in the process of preparing for one. "Okay, we'll get you settled in and I'll let you overlook the nav, but not before I finish the shield calibration." He adds with a grunt, leaning up to flip a switch on the cockpit's console to open the moorings for the droid's magseals...the one item that keeps the droid from falling away in the vacuum. "Well, you see, Phoenix," begins Kesander, looking a bit uncomfortable at having to explain the joke. "The man had already said, 'blazes that's a fine looking nerf you've got there, I'd sell my daughter for one of those.' And since I'd already spent the night with his oldest daughter, I figured why not let the man be happy. Not my fault I didn't actually own the nerf at the time," explains the pilot of Ghost 7. However, there isn't time for any additional explanation or embarrassment. For the loudspeaker system in the fighterbay comes to life. "Attention, Attention, ready ships on pads alpha and beta launch immediately. Repeat, Immediately. We have incoming commercial traffic with an invalid transponder. Vector data will be transmitted to you after launch. This is not a drill. This is Doomsday. That is all." Kesander looks across the bay at Raxis and yells "That's you and me, L'ygr! Let's go! Let's get it done." "Yes sir!" Raxis calls out, and with a lunge he clears the last two rungs of the ladder in a single motion and drops himself into the cockpit of Ghost 3. With a hiss of hydraulics, the technicians pull away as the magnetic clamps on the landing struts are pulled away, and the fuel hoses are disconnected and reeled in. Grabbing his helmet, he quickly straps it and his oxygen breath mask into place. Adrenaline already begin to pump through his veins slowly, he finishes the last of the diagnostics that were already running, and slaps the control to encapsulate him in the pilot's chair. Having cleared the fighterbay with Raxis close behind, Kesander hits his comlink. "Doomsday, this is Ghost 7. Recieving vector data now. Forming up with Ghost 3. Performing interdict mission on unidentified vessel. Will advise, Sandman, out." Looking down at his mission data read-outs, the Corellian banks his ship onto the specified intercept heading and looks about for Ghost 3. Hitting his comlink, the blond-haired pilot transmits on the StarOps tactical channel. "Raxis, you with me? Check your mission data read-out for vector info." "I copy, Ghost 7" Raxis replies, bringing in the vectoring on his console and falling into line slightly behind Ghost 7 to cover his wing. Pulling the ship into a crisp formation and adjusting speed to match his wingleader. Keeping his S-foils locked until otherwise ordered, he disengages the comm and lets out a breath to keep himself cool and frosty. Third out of the Reprisal's hangar bay is Ghost One, the third X-Wing shadowing the two all quiet-like, the pilot not speaking on the comm, mostly listening to the others and most likely evaluating their performance for later. Might as well use a 'live fire' emergency as a training exercise. And still be available to leap in if it turns out bad. Mitler, piloting the Valspar, a small freighter, is not exactly pleased to see a number of fighters exiting one of the capital ships and seemingly heading in his direction. Simple job, the Rodian had said. Just a quick pick up and drop off. He should've known nothing would be simple if it were passing through Mon Calamari space. "Right. Might not be about you, though, buddy," he says reasonably, talking to himself. Everyone has their little quirks, right? Within the confines of his own cockpit, the Corellian says to himself, "well, time to get their attention." Switching to a hailing frequency, Kesander transmits, "New Republic Starfighter Ghost 7 to Freighter Valspar, your transponder is returning an invalid commercial license code. Our orders are to bring you in to OS Paladin for inspection and investigation. Heave to immediately and make your course the vector heading I'm sending now. Ghost 7, over." Sighing a bit as if he's got a bad feeling about all this, the blond-haired pilot switches to the tactical channel and transmits "Ok, Raxis, our bogey for the day is Frieghter Valspar, if that's its real name at coordinates 253, 393, -32, range 113.3. Once we get her visual, I want you to get your Astromech to compute the most likely course of egress to get to a point where she can jump to hyperspace, in case she decides to run. It's gonna be your job to cut her off." "Copy, Ghost 7" Raxis replies, keeping his eyes peeled as he follows his wing's flight path. Tapping the vox he issues an order back to his R2 unit. "Alright you heard the man. Why don't we prepare ahead of time and bring up a mapping of the gravity well, and the moment we get a visual I want you working on the vectors. Keep an eye peeled for obstacle through the local traffic back there." With a clench of a fist, he rests his hands on his flight controls and tries to ease his calm into an icy state, with little success. Far from scared, he can't deny that this could be his first combat engagement, and his nerves know it. Run? Why would Kesander suspect something like that? Could it have anything to do with Mitler franticly trying to calculate a hyperspace jump, at the same time that he's calling back down the hallway towards the common area of the ship. "Cerdle! That Rodian bastard has gone and screwed us again!" Never mind that it was his own transponder that set off the trouble. "Get up top, but don't light 'em up, yet. I'd much rather get out of here without getting fired on if I can manage it." Thumbing the com, Mitler prepared to do the best stalling he can manage. "That transponders been acting up again?" he bluffs uselessly. He really does need to learn more about the technical side of ships to make his stories better. "Some sorta computer glitch. I upload the new license, it gets eaten every time..." Com'on, navcomp. Do your thing! Hitting his comlink, the pilot of Ghost-7 frowns as if this was expected and transmits a reply to the freighter, "Ghost 7 to Valspar, understand your computer problem, but we are still under orders to escort you to Paladin. If you do not heave to in the next ten seconds, we will be forced to make you stop. I'm sure you understand what that means." Switching to his tactical frequency, Kesander transmits, "Ghost 7 to Ghost 3, get yourself on a cut-off heading and lock your s-foils in attack position. Illuminate that craft with your fire-control targeting system, just so he knows we're not kidding around here. Sandman, out." "Copy, Ghost 7." Raxis replies with a click of the com, and tilts his X-wing to the right, peeling off of his wingleader. With a hiss audible inside of his cockpit, the whirring begins of the S-foils unlocking. Again hitting the vox to his astromech, he begins to sample orders. "Vee-Ten, get me an exit vector and map it over the gravity well." He adds, punching the throttle as he sets a vector to be within firing range in ten seconds, and ready to begin cutting off the escape. Returning to the Ghosts' private radio: "Ghost 3 painting bogey now, over." Right. That was pretty much how he thought that'd go down. "Cerdle, feel free to open fire in 10 seconds or so. A bit sooner if you're feeling antsy!" The unseen co-pilot (literally) barks a brief confirmation, while Mitler puts the craft into evasive movements, still steering for the edge of the gravity well. Their freighter versus three fighters. This is not going to be pretty. He needs to find a way to distract the fighters. While the navcomp is processing, he runs a quick scan of the area, looking for any ships he can use for cover. Vee-ten, the Astromech aboard Ghost-3, computes the most probable escape vector for the Valspar and has it delivered to the starfighter's nav display in approximately a hundredth of a second, it being sort of a slow day for the veteran droid. It's job done, it happily tweedles its compliance to Raxis. Shadowing the other two fighters still, Ghost One taps a quick note into her computer about the comm traffic, her own senses shifting from panel to panel to assess the situation. For now, Kyrin remains silent, as things seem to be transpiring satisfactorily to her as she shifts her X-Wing into a better position. The sudden shift of the freighter causes her to reach up and flick the switch to open the S-foils on her fighter. "We have a rabbit," Kyrin announces calmly into the comm. "Ghost 3, I am on your wing," she adds as she slides Ghost One into position. Punching the shields to 60 strength in front, Raxis clicks the Ghosts' comm system in, and punches the throttle to speed into a chase velocity with the Valspar. "Ghost 3, targeting hyperdrives" He utters bluntly over the comms, locking his targeting computer to give him a reticle to mark the external hull of the Valspar's hyperdrive motivators. With a pull of the yoke, Ghost 3 angles more steeply as he patches the escape vector to Ghost One's computer. "Escape Vector plotted, patching into you now, Ghost One. Ready to fire on your order." Shadowing the other two fighters still, Ghost One taps a quick note into her computer about the comm traffic, her own senses shifting from panel to panel to assess the situation. For now, Kyrin remains silent, as things seem to be transpiring satisfactorily to her as she shifts her X-Wing into a better position. The sudden shift of the freighter causes her to reach up and flick the switch to open the S-foils on her fighter. "We have a rabbit," Kyrin announces calmly into the comm. "Ghost 3, I am on your wing," she adds as she slides Ghost One into position. Hitting his comlink, Kesander transmits on his tactical channel. "Glad to have you with us, Ghost 1. This character's clearly trying to bolt the system. I'm going to fly straight at him and make a demonstration, be prepared for him to fire on you and respond accordingly. Remember we want to capture this clown, not blow him to atoms, Sandman, out." With another sigh and an equally bad feeling, the Corellian banks his craft onto a direct intercept course with the Valspar. Thumbing his weapons selector to quad lasers, the pilot of Ghost 7 throttles up to attack speed and puts the reticle in his heads up display just forward of the fleeing quarry and squeezes his weapons trigger, sending out a stream of hell-fire red lances of destruction - intended to miss the target, but be an unmistakable signal. Mitler lets out a soft curse as the red shots flash past the transparasteel viewport. "They seem to mean business!" Cerdle shouts back in his own language, sarcastically commenting on Mitler's powers of observation. If you have time for banter it can't be all that bad? ...right. The other ships in space over Dac start moving out of the way, but Mitler decides to take advantage of a slow-moving barge that had been heading for the surface of Dac. Steering for it, he tries to put it between himself and some of fighters. "Roger that, Ghost 3, and Sandman," Kyrin says as she squints at her scopes. "Keep on your toes, L'ygr," she adds in a ship-to-ship to her wingman. "This one appears to want to become sneaky." Her formal words are at odds with how sneaky she herself pilots the X-Wing. "Do not lose him." With a muffled curse, he grips his controls and rolls with his wingman to pursue. The Velspar banks powerfully alongside the hull of the passing barge. Looming massively before them and moving at an opposing angle, the fleeing ship pulls directly upwards and rolls with the maneuver as it rockets towards the top flat-bed of the would be obstacle. However, the two X-wings spin in near unison and match the bank, taking advantage of their combat-designed engines and keep pursuit. With seemingly endless hull passing beneath them at daredevil speeds, the two X-wings tail behind the Velspar like hungry predators. All of the sudden, before the lip of the flat top of the barge, the Velspar banks again to skim along the lip. Dodging in between hanging cargo arms and communications rigging, the chase continues.... Now traveling at near-sublight maximum, Kesander, with some help from his Astromech, Smokey, plots a course around the barges to where the fleeing freighter and the two pursuing star fighters should emerge. Hitting his comlink, Sandman transmits to his squadronmates. "Ghost 7 to Ghost 1 and Ghost 3. I'm on an intercept course to catch up. As soon as I get weapons lock on that freighter I'm gonna hit his engines or hyperdrive, which ever I get a bead on first. Keep your eyes peeled. We've got a perfect record on no friendly fire incidents so far. Let's please keep it that way." Letting Raxis's fighter take the lead in the chase around the barge, Kyrin acknowledges Kesander's remarks before asking Raxis, "Do you still have weapons lock on their hyperdrive, Three? If so, you may fire upon the ship as soon as Sandman joins us. Sandman, you will take Raxis' other wing." Which means the newest Ghost gets to lead his CO and XO through the ensuing interception. No pressure. The barge-thing is working so far. But the barge doesn't get him to the edge of the gravwell. The happy chirping of his navcomp tells Mitler that the course is ready to go: just so long as he can exit the gravity well where he had been planing too. Pulling that off may be a real trick. Pulling away from the barge suddenly, he presses on the lever to throttle the engines. Already at full. No way he'll be able to outrace starfighters! "What do you say to dumping the cargo, buddy?" His co-pilot's roaring reply leaves no room for interpretation. "What? You'd rather we have destruction of NR property on our sheet?" Clearing one of the ponderous barges, Kesander finally reacquires visual contact with his two fellow Ghosts and the freighter that they're energetically trying to interdict. A few more seconds pass and Ghost 7 can throttle back slightly as he gains a solid formation spot on Raxis' wing opposite Phoenix. "Gang's all here," transmits Sandman on the StarOps tactical net. "After you, Ghost 3." Pulling away with the Velspar, Raxis' adrenaline kicks into gear as his finger rests softly over the trigger to his blasters. Rolling smoothly with the change in vector, he angles Ghost 3 slightly above the back engines of his prey to get a better shot at the hyperdrives, and harries alongside Kyrin as the dull brown hull of the barge shows sign of ending in mere instants. "Copy Ghost one, in position" He adds, blinking as a third X-wing rolls into view on his left. "Mark my target, firing now." As a shot scores on their shields, Mitler lets out a curse and reaches for the controls for the ramp. "I'm venting the cargo. Maybe it'll buy us some time. Maybe they'll crash into it and explode." Actually, hopefully not that. Murder of military personnel. Just what he would need. "And remind me to change that transponder. AGAIN!" As the hold opens, a large crate goes falling out as the vacuum of space sucks all the contents of the hold out into the cold. "Karking hell!?!" growls Kesander over his open comlink, sharing his surprise at the freighter's gamble and the appearance of a large cargo container and other flotsam and jetsam suddenly looming before him. "Break!" He suggests strenuously before banking his X-Wing sharply to the right, peeling away along the y axis. Catching his breath and shifting around to look behind him for any sight of an explosion, Sandman hits his comlink again. "Ghost 1, Ghost 3, you two still in one piece?" Raxis narrows his eyes and tries to maneuver around the debris with a banking roll. Narrowly missing the gathered contents of the container, he's forced to arc downwards further, and then roughly pull up to resume his course, pushing to get back into range. "That got 'em off our tail! Shoot a few off their bo-" Mitler cuts off as his co-pilot put his suggestion into actions. "NO, NO! I was joking! Ah, hell." Definitely time for a transponder change. "Look, almost out of the gravity well. Prepare for jump to hyperspace." Wrenching his stick back around, Kesander does his level best to put Ghost 7 back on an intercept course with the Valspar before it can clear the planet's gravity well. Of course this is before bolts of blaster fire start bracketing his craft, courtesy of the fleeing freighter. "Watch it!" Transmits Sandman to his comrades. "That idiot's opened up on us. Be careful of getting to close, that ships gonna try and jump any second now!" Punching the throttle to maximum, Raxis turns hard and dials down the inertial compensator a little to get a feel for the angling as he rockets back towards the Velspar at full speed. Harassment fire from the turret sputters in his direction and he jinks, taking as little as possible of it as he can as he angles for another attack, unleashing a volley of blaster fire in response. "Ghost one, a proton might weaken the shields enough in the aft to get us at that box..." It's a good thing they were free and clear, because a few more barrages like that just might punch through the shields. Mitler shot angry glares at the console as a few warning lights turned from yellow, to orange, and were just veering into red as they broke out of the planet's gravity shadow. "I'm punching it!" he yells back to his co-pilot, turning the hyperdrive on and letting out a whoop of delight as the stars turned into lines. An audible curse escapes Kesander's lips on the open net as the Valspar escapes into hyperspace. "Well blast and damn. At any rate, he didn't get away with whatever he was carrying. Might be something important," suggests Sandman as he looks at his sensors. "Whatever's inside that large cargo container, it meant enough to those guys to have it shielded heavily. And that thing's pressurized as well. Stang, they might have been slavers. In any event, we'll need some help to clear this junk out of here so commercial traffic doesn't get damaged by it. Ghost 1, I recommend we set a course back to the barn." Switching over to the FleetOps net, the pilot of Ghost 7 transmits. "Doomsday, this is Ghost 7. Target escaped into hyperspace. They dumped cargo before they ran, though. Request shuttles to clear the space lane. There's a particularly big cargo container that we probably ought to take back to Paladin for further examination. It may hold sentients inside it. Sandman, out." In reply, a call comes over the FleetOps net, registering on the comms systems of all NR starfighters. "This is Doomsday, copy that, Ghost 7. Dispatching shuttles now. Reports should be transmitted to Admiral Stone in two hours from your return to Reprisal. We'll have our technicians check out your cargo container. Doomsday, out." With a sigh and a slight shudder, Raxis feels cold sweat trickle down the back of his flight suit. The icy chill of fear mixed with adrenaline turns his blood into sludge, and with a roll of his shoulder, he assesses the situation. Undamaged and still flying with the same two pilots that left the Reprisal with him, he can't help but calm knowing that on some level they were doing just fine, but that didn't calm the dianoga in his belly. The image of flying into turret fire races through his mind as he returns to formation. "Ghost 3, returning to formation.." He remarks over the comm, flying behind his two superiors. "Good work today, Ghost 3," transmits the Corellian in reply to Raxis' message. "We're on our way home. Check updates to your mission data display for vector back to Reprisal," adds Kesander, who suddenly discovers that he's hungry after yet another potentially lethal encounter. "It's probably fish sandwiches again tonight for chow, I'm guessing," the veteran pilot suggests over the comm in a sort of desultory tone. "But it's all good when you're alive to eat 'em," adds the pilot of Ghost-7 with a sudden wave of devil-may-care humor. "Copy that Ghost 7" Raxis replies dully, letting the familiarity of the terrible fish sandwiches enter his mind and return him back to a place of solidity. Gradually, the adrenaline turns into a hollow, roaring knot in his stomach as his nerves fire their reverse thrusters and he finds himself to be out of danger. Side by side, the three X-wings slowly close their S-foils and set a course back towards the Reprisal. "But...I guess it could be worse sir.." He says blandly over the comm. "If we were stationed over Tatooine we'd have to eat sand." A happy twittering from his Astromech finalizes his return to a safe, happy world where the fighting no longer exists...at least for the moment, as the flight of X-wings zoom off towards their home and the pilots of Ghost Squadron live another day.
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