ECHOES FROM HOTH: Episode Four: Fleet, Fuel, Firestorm

[kipper]

"Copy" Clark rumbles in reply to Jackson. He targets the TIE Bomber with his next assault from the Ion Cannons.

[Solo4114]

Cal: "Jax, Professor, I probably won't take him out, but I'll try to give you covering fire from that interceptor. Liberty's Flame, this is the Outrunner. I'm coming in hot to your docking bay with that coaxium. Get ready to off-load it fast!"

Cal will continue to fly to the Flame, and attempt to land, while firing at the pursuing short-range interceptor with his turrets.

[Starbeard]

Are there are any unmanned gun ports that Vale can get to? If there are, he'll dash to one of those and start firing at incoming TIEs. If not, he'll follow Kit to the medical area and try to make himself useful.

[max_vale]

Rebel Alliance Rendezvous Point; Deep Space and on board the Bulk Cruiser Resolve in hyperspace


In deep space, a running battle continued for a trio of Rebel Agents in a pair of space craft and three Imperial fighters....

First, Cal fired a couple of ineffectual blasts from the Outrunner's twin turret at the last remaining TIE Bomber, before sighing in frustration and suddenly snapping the Light Freighter up and a bit to the left as he de-accelerated rapidly and lined up the ship with the Hangar Bay that now filled his cockpit and he deftly passed through the magnetic force-field and lowered the landing gear and touched down. A half-dozen Rebel ship's crew men were waiting by as he lowered the ramp and the sounds of their running footfalls echoed through the ship as they raced for the cargo bay and the vital coaxium fuel.....

Meanwhile, in the Y-wing fighter; Jackson angled the Strike Fighter towards the last TIE Bomber and kept his eyes glued to his Fire-Control scope....lining up the Imperial craft in the center of the aiming circle. When the double-hulled Imperial fighter filled the center of the circle, he mashed down on the firing buttons and a pair of red bolts flashed through the inky blackness of space and bisected the TIE, turning it into a spectacular, though short-lived explosion, and whoop of joy burst forth from Crodowski's lips. That too was short-lived as the fighter suddenly lurched hard to the side and alarms began wailing throughout the Y-wing's cockpit as a massive impact rammed the Rebel craft from behind....

In the rear seat of the Y-Wing, Professor Clark had just finished rotating the Twin Light Ion Cannon to face front towards the last remaining TIE bomber when Jackson nailed it with the front laser cannons and let out a cry of joy. A moment later, one of the two TIE Interceptors on their tail nailed them with a blast from its Quartet of heavy laser cannons and alarms began filling the cramped cockpit and the Professor quickly looked at a computer screen and saw that the shields were totally gone now and the fighter had taken a hit to the central rear section and it didn't look good. The lateral thrusters were out, which would severely impact maneuverability* and another blast from the Imperials would almost certainly be the last one the Y-Wing would ever absorb....

The Professor snarled and whipped the Ion Cannons back around and almost on pure instinct he pumped a bluish-white blast directly into the closer of the two TIE Interceptors on their tail; getting immense satisfaction from watching the electrical flashed dance all over the cockpit as the imperial ship was immobilized and sent drifting, locked on its last trajectory. The academician KNEW the effects wouldn't last long; but for the next few moments, as long as they didn't pass directly in front of that fighter, it couldn't move to face them at all....plus it would be a VERY easy target for them to go after. The problem was the OTHER TIE Interceptor, who though slowed; was still faster than they were and which had just slid into Short Range, lining up on them in an attempt to finish their wounded Y-Wing off once and for all. Now it was just a race to the trigger.....



Meanwhile, on board the Rebel Bulk Cruiser Resolve, which had just jumped into hyperspace; Kit and Vale found their way to the Medical Baby, helping out with wounded crewmen to the best of their abilities. Zuul on the other hand found his way to an unused Refresher and gratefully stepped into a shower, cranked the heat up and sighed in relaxation as the invigorating heat washed over him.....


*The Y-wing is heavily damaged and the maneuverability is now at 0; which means when making any efforts to Evade enemy fire or make any non-standard maneuvers at all (like the kinds made in combat); you're down to JUST your Piloting skill....which for Jackson means 5D+1

There are 2 Interceptors out there....1 is Lightly Ionized (It has lost some speed, but is STILL every bit as fast as the Y-Wing) while the other is Totally Ionized (i.e. it's basically frozen and can't do anything)....both conditions are TEMPORARY...

Both Interceptors are at short range right now......and also, Clark has a couple of Force Points.....just thought I'd mention that.

Oh yeah....last thing......the Y-wing currently does NOT have a Droid onboard....which means you have no hyperspace coordinates....which means while the Y-Wing can JUMP into hyperspace, it has no course...which means it's a REALLY bad idea..so you're gonna want to be on the Rebel Frigate Liberty's Flame before she jumps to hyperspace. Just thought I'd mention that!

[Rex]

Kit

Kit does her best to help out the medical crew.

[kipper]

Clark uses a Force Point in an attempt to quickly immobilise the last TIE interceptor with the Ion Cannons.

OOC: Can the frigate target the Interceptors to take them out?

Two options are:
1) Destroy the interceptors (with the help of the frigate?), then board the frigate.
2) Board the frigate ASAP while the interceptors are immobilised, and hope the frigate can either destroy the interceptors or hit hyperspace before the interceptors recover.

I think option (1) is better if we have the time (if there are no further imperial craft heading our way), otherwise option (2).

[max_vale]

OOC: Yes, the frigate can fire at the TIEs but probably need a comms message first to do that. Also note that only 1 interceptor is completely immobilized right now. Hope that helps!

[ybn1197]

"Hey Professor," Jackson calls back, "any chance you can give those muckity-muck naval people up there in the frigate a call and see if they can do anything about this last fly on our tail?"

If they can get the frigate to target the operational Tie, Jackson will bring the Y-Wing around and about to be behind the immobilized Tie and fire off a couple shots to finish it. If they can't, Jackson will get back to the docking bay ASAP so the frigate can ditch the Tie in hyperspace.

[Solo4114]

Cal

Will help unload the coaxium to get the frigate hyperspace-ready as soon as possible.

[kipper]

If he can do so while firing the Ion Cannons, Clark gets on the comms and in a very frustrated and profanity-laden manner orders them to attack the TIE Interceptors!

[Monsieur Rose]

Zuul

Zuul enjoys his shower.

"Ahhhhh."

Eventually, he goes to see how Vale and Kit are faring. He's not a medic, but he's seen one on tv.

[Starbeard]

Vale goes to see if anything is being done to help the wounded stormtrooper. "That stormtrooper may have information that can be used by Alliance command staff. But either way, we should treat him well—our best tool to bring people into the Alliance is to show them that we're not unfeeling like the Empire."

[max_vale]

Rebel Alliance Rendezvous Point; Deep Space and on board the Frigate Liberty's Flame and the Bulk Cruiser Resolve in hyperspace


In deep space, the battle between a pair of Rebel Agents crewing a Y-Wing fighter and a pair of Imperial TIE Interceptors battling near an Alliance Capital ship came to a fiery conclusion....

First, Professor Clark in the rear-seat took a deep breath, felt a mysterious.....connection for a moment, and letting go the breath, he rapidly lined up the Imperial Interceptor fighter in his sights and mashed his thumbs down sending bluish-white bolts from his Twin Light Ion Cannons directly into the central body of the Imperial craft, leaving its engines and weapons powered down and floating helplessly in space....

Jackson at the pilot station carefully turned the crippled fighter towards the Hangar Bay while the good Professor behind him got on the comms to the Rebel Frigate and let loose a profanity-laced rant for the gunners to target the now Ionized TIEs and take care of them....which they duly did after a couple of moments. Crodowski grinned a that, but it was short-lived as he realized the landing gear controls had been damaged by the TIE laser blast that had badly damaged the Rebel fighter and sweat suddenly broke out over his brow as he he killed the engines and called out over the external speakers of the fighter; "LANDING GEAR IS OUT! COMING IN HOT! TAKE COVER!", and his peripheral vision caught the sight of Alliance crew members in the hangar bay scrambling this way and that as with a horrible screech of metal on metal, he put the Y-Wing on the floor of the bay in a stomach-lurching; spark-flying; body-rattling around the cockpit landing.....eventually coming to rest parallel to the side wall and missing a rack of Proton Torpedos by perhaps half-a-meter....

Watching the whole thing from the cockpit of the Outrunner, Cal winced and didn't start breathing again until he saw the fighter finally come to a stop and the cockpit open up, revealing both of his friends were okay. Letting out the breath, he laughed in triumph as he raced towards the hangar bay slamming open the ramp as he did so, to start getting the precious hyperspace fuel to the crew members who were picking themselves up from whatever cover they had rushed too and were now running over to the light freighter to help unload its cargo....

Jackson, despite his body aching in several places from getting thrown around the cockpit, audibly quoted an old pilot saying; "Well Professor, any landing you walk away from is a GOOD landing"; to which Clark just looked at the Engineer/Pilot/Rebel Agent incredulously before they were climbing out of the ruined fighter and moving to help to distribute the Coaxium to the crew of the Liberty's Flame. In no time, they were in the relative safe confines of hypespace....


A couple of days later, the Resolve and the Liberty's Flame rendezvoused in a system in a backwater part of the Wykinil Sector in the Outer Rim and soon the band of 6 Rebel Agents were all reunited and all in good health and relatively good spirits. Case Office Mers made sure they were all given awards and even generously gave them a month off to go spend their hard-earned credits which their payment from Thakis would translate into, if they so desired. She made sure to have them come back in 30 days though, as she was already dreaming up missions to send them on; which those of the party who had worked with her in the past knew could only mean potentially bad things for them in their future.....




***OOC: Okay, this is the end of this little adventure I threw together, I hope all you enjoyed it and thanks so much for being the great players that you all are! Everyone has 12 skill points (Vale has 13 as he had 1 from a previous adventure he was unable to spend) to spend on improving skills and will start the next adventure in full health and with 2 Force Points.

For those who may not know (or remember how it works); to improve skills by one pip (i.e. from 3D to 3D+1 or 4D+2 to 5D) costs a number of skill points equal to the number before the D. I.e. improving a skill from 4D+1 to 4D+2 costs 4 skill points. You can improve a skill a maximum of 3 pips at a time.

For Vale: if you wish to gain a new Force Power, it costs 5 skill points.
For Vale/Rex; I know Kit was learning about how to use a Lightsaber....if you wish to go down the 'Vale teaches Kit some Force skills' please let me know.

In addition, I will soon be putting up a post with numerous weapons, armor, items, etc. so that anyone who wants to go on a 'shopping spree' can do so....as each of you now has 10,000 credits to spend.

Solo: If you like, the party can now transition to your character's ship; the Nova Kestrel or we can say that Cal's ship was lost at Hoth/in the space battle afterwards and stick with the Outrunner. If we do the former, please PM me and we'll get the details sorted out.

Either way; in addition to personal gear; I'll put up a post about some possible modifications that can be made to the ship you'll all be using (whichever it may be).....and costs for said mods, if that's something that folks might be interested in.

Finally; if anyone wants to make a 'Intermission' post about something their character does during this 'vacation time'; by all means, please feel free to do so. Cal could pay off some debts (or not)......Vale could do some Jedi training.....Jackson could run into an old buddy......Zuul could hunt something on some uninhabited planet and eat it.....the possibilities are endless!

Of course, they're also not necessary either......I just figured I'd give everyone a chance to do something with their character that they may not yet have had a chance to do. (Also, it can give me ideas about stuff to add in later adventures! )

The next adventure will start soon; I think I'm gonna run with the kinda silly, but still fun (in my opinion) published adventure: Scavenger Hunt.