Lose some and you win some

Posted on Mon Mar 15th, 2021 @ 2:23am by Lieutenant Kor' de'leia & Lieutenant Jafan & Lieutenant Melvyn Kosta

Mission: Scoundrels, Cuttthroats and Rogues
Location: Orbit of Nar Shadaa
Timeline: Day 1 at 1400
Tags: Kor'de'leia, Jafan

The surface of Nar Shadda shone in brilliant hues of tan, orange and gray. Few would consider the smuggler's moon a thing of beauty, the urban sprawl had entirely covered the planet, but the industrial pollution did create inventive new color combinations that few respiratory beings truly appreciated.

On to the curtain of black in which Nar Shadda hung, a pair of shiny steel arrows rocketed forth. The sleek X-wings arched their way out of the upper atmosphere grasping for open space.

"Well did not expect to leave quite like that, but they should remember us for awhile. Remind me to steer clear of Hutt space for a while...." Kor said into her Com to Jafan.

Jafan readjusted his trajectory to ensure he was flying reasonably close and in formation with Kor. Fortunately, they were moving at good pace and were likely going to get out of their without much interference. "You know what annoys the hell out of me? I didn't get to run those tables over and take all their damn money. I mean, hell, how bad do I run here?"

Her obnoxious squeaking astromech said something to her. She shot an angry eye toward the monitor that interpreted its illegible tweets. She exhaled and shook her head.

Four small blips appeared on the scanner following them from the planet.

"Looks like the locals want to give chase. We have to stay in orbit until Narac gets up here. So I guess its play time. Lock X-foils in attack position!"

Queuing the toggle switch on the flight board, the wings on her fighter began to separate, creating the famed X configuration that the fighter was known for.

"Droid. Start the calculations for jumping to the Yawst system."

The droid rattled back a series of squeaks. She read the message and rolled her eyes.

"Did I ask you opinion? Just get the coordinates set."

She switched her attention back to the tiny blips pursuing them. "Rogue Nine, form up on me, lets see if we can split this little party in half." She had just made the order when a sudden flash blasted in her face....

____________________________________

Melvyn had already redirected all the power he could to the engines, but judging by his sensors, so had his pursuers. He held the control stick with one hand while he fumbled for his breathing mask with the other ; being warm may be optional but breathing wasn't. Nar Shaddaa was growing bigger but he had no hope of getting there before the TIEs sent after him caught up to him. He sealed the mask over his face without taking his eyes off his screens. They would be in shooting range in 3, 2, 1...

He veered to the left in a typical corkscrew manoeuvre the moment his pursuers entered effective shooting range, and he saw a beam of red whizz right where he'd been a second before. He didn't figure that they had orders to take him alive. Willing his TIE to fly faster, before a real barrage of lasers blew him up, Melvyn glanced at the planet. Touching ground fast was his only hope of survival.

Another few shots missed him, each a little closer than the last. The shimmering glow of the atmosphere, clouded by heavy and persistent pollution, was getting close - close enough, in fact, that he should mind his angle of entry. Melvyn glanced again at his screens and at the two groups of three green dots coming in behind him, way ahead of the rest of the wing, then back at the planet -

A fighter shot out of the stratosphere, so close that Melvyn thought he was going to crash into it. He pulled the stick so hard, the nylar sheathing it squeaked when it was squashed against metal. The turn was so abrupt, it took a second for the compensators to adjust and for a second Melvyn was literally flattened against his seat, and even then it was almost not enough. His TIE more or less bounced against the other fighter's shields in a horrible scrunch of metal, and went completely off-kilter.

Melvyn took a second to register the fact that he was alive, that alarms were blaring, that half his indicators had turned yellow if not red, and that it was really, really beginning to be freezing in his cockpit. He didn't feel anything - the compensators were back on track - but he saw Nar Shaddaa spin wildly. Which meant he was spinning wildly. And, on his sensor screen, he saw a swarm of TIEs approaching. And, as if that wasn't enough, the Exterminator had fired its engines as well.

Kor's shields had taken the direct impact of whatever had hit her. She shook her head trying to clear her vision. Warning alarms sounded thorughout the cockpit as the flight board lit up like a Coruscant gambling district.

Her fighter began spiraling. She fought the stick to try and bring the ship back under control as it spun wildly around her. "What the hell hit us!" she shouted at her Astromech. It squeaked something illegible back that she briefly looked at the translator for. "A F*&^ing TIE. Why didn't you say so before we broke orbit?"

She switched to the squadron channel. "Rogue Nine, I rammed a TIE apparently. Spinning bad. Get yourself safe, or at least out of the way if it had friends."

She fought to controls, looking at the field of static that was most of her instruments. Damage control showed she was down at least one s-foil, if not the entire wing. She shouted something inappropriate. The tan tinged clouds of Nar Shadda were growing larger. A second stream of profanity came forth.

The X-wing was locked in a crooked dive, its fuselage slowly spinning as it fell towards the planet. Kor could feel the heat climbing as the friction of reentry began to accumulate. This was not a good time for her to ditch the fighter. Hopefully she could ride it out until she cooled down a bit, or burned up, whichever came first. She was not having a good day.

Jafan called out for Kor he saw her X-Wing plummet back towards the planet. He didn't get a response, which meant the comms were now dead. His adrenaline now pumping, he heard the ferocious and anxious beeping of his own droid, Speck, who was indicating the presence of a full squad of Tie Fighters.

"Holy shit!" he said, barely dodging the first barrage of laser fire. He barreled to the right and turned back towards the planet. "Yeah, that's not happening." Turning tail and heading back the way he came, Jafan then saw the four Hutt patrols closing in ahead of him. But just as quickly as he saw them, they scattered, most likely due to the wave of Imperial death now pursuing him.

Jafan certainly wasn't going to be able to do anything about Kor just yet, but he told Speck to keep scanning for ship to determine where she landed, or rather, crashed. Pushing the X-Wing to full speed, he manuevered back towards the atmosphere. It was a dangerous move and would likely not end well, but if he slowed down, the Tie Fighters would catch up to him and that also would not end well.

An alarm went off as he reentered the atmosphere, indicating the level of heat was rising too fast. Speck also set off a series of alarmed beeps. "Give me full power to the shields, Speck." Another collection of beeps. "I know its risky, bud, but you're other option is that Tie Squadron." The status display indicated full power was being pushed into the shields, giving them extra protection. It likely wasn't going to be enough.

***

Melvyn regained control of his TIE fighter just in time to dodge a salvo of shots aimed worryingly close to him. His left solar panel was bent in an unnatural way. Flying in the atmosphere with a fighter even less aerodynamic than its normal lumbering self was going to be hard, and that was if he actually lived long enough to find out just how hard.

His radio flashed red to show someone was trying to reach him but Melvyn was not in the mood for an epitaph. His half-frozen hands were clenched tight around his stick as he went further down and began his entry. The sudden friction made his shield-less TIE heat up, the tip of his solar panels slowly turning red. Maybe it was a good thing he was an icicle at this point, because it was going to get very hot very soon.

More shots came his way but missed. Melvyn's speed and unorthodox angle, in addition to the slight distortion of light caused by the atmosphere, made him a hard target to hit. He came in at such a steep angle, his ship looked like a fireball even to his own eyes. With any luck, maybe they'd think he was dead.

No such luck of course. Half of Melvyn's sensors had died when he'd collided into that X-wing, but the remaining half showed him well enough that his erstwhile friends were coming after him with all the determination of a hungry rancor. They were more cautious than him though, dipping more shallowly in the stratosphere of Nar Shaddaa.

Caution was a luxury Melvyn didn't have. He went even steeper and his TIE started shaking around him. The surface of the moon approached rapidly, as did the inbound and outbound traffic. All the civilian ships were desperately trying to get out of the way the moment they saw the angry swarm of TIEs coming this way but not all of them were fast enough. Melvyn had to swerve tightly to avoid a small freighter, swearing abundantly when his bent solar panel made him spin wildly. His beloved fighter had turned into little more than a flying coffin.

Having eased into the atmosphere his pursuers started shooting again, not all of them careful about potentially hitting civilians. And - was that the X-wing from before on his left ? It was missing an s-foil, black smoke and sparks visible even from a distance. And it was running from the incoming TIEs almost as fast as Melvyn was. Whoever that pilot was, they were highly inconveniently placed, much too close for comfort. He didn't fancy another collision.

Kor had managed to somehow wrestle her wounded fighter back into a relatively level path, if level meant gradually downward. The annoying Astromech droid screeched out something while trantically extending all hits arms to exact what repairs it could. "I don't care. Cut the life support but keep the shields up. It looks like the whole Imperial navy is chasing... us?"

She looked over at a battered TIE fighter with a heavily bent solar panel. It was still flying too, with possibly better control of its steering than she had at the moment. The skyscrapers of Nar Shadda were now actually starting to loom above her.

"Rogue Nine. I'm still flying. Where are you!?"
she called out over the comm.

[Jafan]

He didn't have a lot of time to worry about it though. His damaged TIE was slower than his pursuers. Soon they'd be close enough to coordinate a barrage of shots and that'd be the end, if he didn't get hit by a lucky shot before that.

They were nearing the tallest skyscrapers by now, and Melvyn swerved to put the buildings between him and the rest of the swarm. Unfortunately, the X-wing had exactly the same idea, only from the other side of the building, and they nearly collided again.

"Dammit !" Melvyn would have done a rude gesture if he'd thought the unknown pilot could see it.

"Rogue Nine, this freaking maniac in the TIE looks like he is trying to ram me again. Get the hell away!" she called out in the comm while providing an obscene gesture towards the TIE pilot, that probably couldn't be seen anyways.

Kor did note the pursuing TIEs seems to concentrate more fire on their own ship than on her X-wing. She would have been intrigued if she wasn't trying to get keep her tail from getting blown off.

As Melvyn flew lower and lower, more and more skyscrappers got in the way, and with his bent solar panel avoiding them was a challenge. He pulled harder on the stick, as if that would make his TIE any nimbler, certain he was going to die any second now - if not in a sad, underwhelming explosion, then flattened against the side of a building. The Empire would probably find some way to blame the Rebellion for that, too.

He flicked the radio open and switched the channel to the frequency Elo had given him. He was close enough now to have a chance to reach him, and he owed him that much.

"Elo, I've been found out. I don't know if you can hear me but if you can, get out - "

He didn't have time to say more. The second of distraction it had taken him to use the radio had been enough for a well-placed shot to hit. It wasn't a square hit - otherwise his abused TIE would have exploded - but a glancing hit was more than enough to down him at this point. The engines sputtered out and the TIE started to plunge, much faster than Melvyn would have preferred.

The TIE out her window took a hit and started to tumble. Poor guy, Kor thought, he had held together a long time, and the TIEs were shooting at him and not her. Her x-wing shook from an impact on her rear shields. "Looks like they found something else to shoot at." she said to the dumb droid. The warning lights for her port side engines came on as another blaster bolt pierced her shields. "Oh crap! Rogue Nine, I am hit, engine's failing! Don't leave me down here!"

Freefall within the gravitational pull of a planet was an unpleasant sensation. Adrenalin pumped in Melvyn's veins as he tried to keep calm and bring the engines back online. Panicking could wait until he touched the ground ; how many pieces he was in at that point would determine just how much panic was involved.

It looked like the last hit had fried part of the engines' cooling system, and the engines had automatically been turned off because of the automated security system. Usually that would be a good thing, because without the cooling system the engine would melt in minutes ; but right now a couple of minutes was all Melvyn needed. He started manually disabling the security limitations, his panic still rising in amounts directly proportionate to the number of floors remaining of the nearest skyscrapper. He saw distinctly one person staring out their window, mouth hanging open - or so he imagined - as his TIE fell.

With one last switch flicked his engines roared again, immediately turning a particularly ugly shade of crimson on his status monitor. Maybe thinking in minutes had been optimistic.

Pulling his stick to him, Melvyn brought his TIE back into a somewhat horizontal trajectory, his fall slowing to a rate slightly more compatible with his potential survival. At least he wasn't getting shot at anymore. In truth matching his falling speed would have been difficult for even the most daring of his former colleagues, unless they had been willing to turn off their own engines to follow.

He was still not out of the Sarlacc's mouth. His TIE was still limping more than flying, and the ground was at a distance that was simultaneously terrifyingly close and worryingly far. Too high to jump, too low to have much time left. Too bad no one had ever thought to include a jetpack or a parachute in the standard equipment package, although to be fair TIEs had never been supposed to fly in the atmosphere - hence their less than aerodynamic shape. Perfect to maximise the energy conversion of the solar panels, awful for everything else.

Melvyn managed a slow slalom between the next buildings, but they were getting more numerous - hence harder to avoid - as he continued his descent. Slowing down his horizontal speed helped somewhat but he couldn't afford to slow his descent because his engines would not hold together much longer. Already he thought he could hear something sizzle in the back, between the rattle of a loosened solar panel and the hiss of the wind, and when he looked up he could see some black, acrid smoke billowing upwards. At least if he didn't make it he wouldn't have to worry about whether he preferred to be buried or incinerated.

At long last he was approaching the ground - the actual ground - of Nar Shaddaa, so obscured by the tall buildings surrounding it that it appeared to be perpetually dark. Melvyn searched frantically for a safe place to land but he didn't have much time to make his choice. What looked like a half-empty speeder parking would have to do.

He was perhaps twenty meters from the ground - and his chosen landing spot - when his engines died again, this time for good.

His fall lasted perhaps three second but it was funny how those seconds seemed to stretch into infinity as he watched the ground below and realized he really was going to crash this time, no saving it. He might not make it this time, if the engines blew up, but at least he'd buckled his safety harness on before -

CONTINUES IN TOUCHDOWN