Morning had not yet broken over the horizon of Guildstowne and yet, the city had been alive for hours... perhaps it had never slept. The dark chill of the early hours still clung to the cities defensive perimeters like a predator growing weary of the chase, while inside predators of a completely different variety thrived.

This was the only settlement to mark the surface of Mandalore and, so large was it, that Guildstowne could be clearly seen from orbit. At her heart rose the massive Spire which functioned as the head offices of the Bounty Hunters Guild. Fully a thousand meters tall, from the heights of the Spire one could observe the city to its farthest limits. Further more, it also functioned as the primary spaceport on the planet.

High in the Spire, Oxford had been summoned to attend a meeting. The sort of meeting which one does not speak about ever again, except within very closed circles. Not that he was the sort to be bothered with such an occasion, he was built for it racially, physically and, mentally.

Oxford was a Bothan ex-patriot who had served a rather unremarkable career in the Bothan militia, he was the type of asset that others tended to overlook. While it was true that Oxford's career had not been too highly spoken of, it was the activities he had going on the side which really made for such an interesting opportunity. He had been involved in nearly every sort of indecent activity that his government had been fighting to abolish... Which meant; Oxford was able to maintain an inside track on the market and make out like, to use a common metaphor, a bandit.

Make no mistake, however; Oxford was not the sort of person who ran things quietly. Quite often he had been forced to make a show of just what sort of things he would do to those poor souls unfortunate enough to cross him. The resulting bloodbaths had been quickly covered up by the Bothan Spy-net, which had feared that one of their senior offices was directly involved. No matter where, Oxford had some involvement so it was only a matter of progressive logic that Oxford would come to be employed with the Bounty Hunters Guild.

The meeting had gone smoothly enough. Private meetings with BHG's Chief Executive Officer usually did and, despite not actually seeing the man in person, Oxford was more then proud that Beff Pike had shared a room with him. From start to finish the President had sat in his chair gazing out the window with his back to the Bothan, the conversation went along well enough. Oxford knew his mission.



It had been a long voyage but, the trap was about to be sprung and the pay-off was nearly in their hands. Nearly.

One of the main keystones to this mission had been stealth, at any cost. As such, they had dropped out of hyperspace some distance away, well out of the predicted range of the targets sensors, then spent some time under cloak while closing on the system.

They were three, Denial, Demise and, Serendipity. Three as of yet unknown ships about to make their presence known to the galaxy. The two, Denial and Demise, were some 400 meters long and designed much to resemble a stalking bird of prey while the other, the Serendipity, was of another class entirely. She was smaller, only 200 meters and, built for entirely different purposes.

And the target; a small convoy of ships tied to a new and upcoming Republic. The name was not imperative to the mission, the bounty was the primary goal of this mission. That goal consisted of a large shipment of personal artillery, along with, if possible, any extra prizes that the commanding officer might deem worthy.

They had paused to prepare in an area of relative instability, which they could use to, hopefully, baffle the local sensors. Fighters and gunships had been deployed, then similarly cloaked which meant; they were moving fully prepared and ready towards their mark.





Fleet Manifest.

Demise - Deception Class Cruiser
D1 Squadron - 12 TiE Phantom Starfighters
Stealth 015 - Stealthray Blastboat
Stealth 016 - Stealthray Blastboat

Denial - Deception Class Cruiser
D1 Squadron - 12 TiE Phantom Starfighters
Stealth 017 - Stealthray Blastboat
Stealth 018 - Stealthray Blastboat

Serendipity - Stalker Class Corvette
S1 Squadron - 12 TiE Phantom Starfighters
Stealth 043 - Stealthray Blastboat

EDIT:
Fully a thousand kilometers tall, from the heights of the Spire one could observe the city to its farthest limits.
To
Fully a thousand meters tall, from the heights of the Spire one could observe the city to its farthest limits.

The Chagal rift was never crossed when in hyperspace. Never, ever, ever.

Captain Talgum twitched aboard his Loronar cruiser, his nervous eyes darting from communications, to sensors, and back again.

Every convoy coming from Balmorra to Clak’dor was required to drop out of hyperspace to pass the Chagal rift. Shallow, but wide enough to prevent an alternate rout from being faster, the Chagal rift was a space anomaly prone section of the Anthos sector that every captain hated. Sensors were incapacitated, standard communications fuzzy, and cheap mercenaries a-plenty. The rift extended out of the Anthos sector, and out of the Republics hands. Until the sensor relay posts were setup, anyone could sneak in and out without being detected.

Thus the heavier than normal escort for the lone freighter. Aboard her bountiful cargo holds, small arms from Balmorra lay neatly stacked and stored. A wealth of weapons for any small time revolutionist to capture.

Talgum’s chin jutted out slightly as he snapped an order over to communications. “How is our LOS line holding up?”

Communications sighed slightly, almost inaudibly. “The LOS communications system is operating at 110% of standard capacity, and is prepared for a 40% change at any moment. I doubt we’ll loose the transmission from any ship sir.”

Talgum nodded curtly, and turned to the sensors post. The man operating it swiveled his head about and answered preemptively. “Nothing unusual, out of the standard anomalies.”

He grimaced. He knew he was acting nervous, who wouldn’t. Last week the convoy had been attacked by some marauding band of criminals. They had been utterly whipped out, but not without loss of life on both sides. Any captain would be on his toes.

“Keep a sharp lookout. Two minutes until we are out.”


<hr>Anthos Republic Manifest

Aramond Bulk Cruiser (prop ship)
Loronar Strike Cruiser Everything New
<Font size=”1”>TIE Phantom squadron
Corellian Gunship Marauder Wing 1
Corellian Gunship Marauder Wing 2
Corellian Gunship Marauder Wing 6
Corellian Gunship Marauder Wing 7
Infiltrator Sp</font>

The mood aboard the Demise was one of tension and anticipation. The same was true for the Denial and the numerous gunships and fighters that sat in paitent formation. Every pilot and crewman watched with growing aticipation as the formation of Republic ships moved ever closer to their formation.

Oxford had ordered a splay pattern which left their fleet occupying a massive feild of space before the target ships and every ship was now waiting in position.

Clutching the arm of his captains chair, the Bothan captain seemed poised for action, his ears flat back against his head and fur rippling in rising expectations.

"Position?"

"5 thousand meters and closing," responded the officer seated at the tactical position. He was a lean looking Bruub.

There was another moment of silence aboard the bridge as Oxford counted off the closing meters in his head. Behind him, officers leaned eagerly over their stations, awaiting the incoming rush.

Suddenly, it was time.

"Now!"

Oxford practically barked the order as the Anthos ships moved within 800 meters of the Demise's bow.

All planned ahead, it was only a matter of carrying out the preset orders and, Oxford had the upmost trust in his fellow officers.

Like a waiting predator, they seemed to appear as from nothing, their cloaking devices dropping with timed percision. They were as if a wave as their cloaks dropped and like angry piranah beetles as their weapons tubes jumped to ready status.

For but a mere instant they held position, below cloak, before their engines burst into the bright blue explosion common to ion engines. Then, with speed that ships their size should not be capeable of, the whole of their formation moved as one in strafing motion. Soon, they would have their weapons to bear for their first barrage.

Talgum bit his lip with nervous anticipation. Almost there, almost safe. Protection of the freighter was his main goal, but the lives of the men under him hung in the balance as well. Who would place such a force-forsaken rift right here… twisted sense of humor.

A small, yet repeating beep over at the sensor station caught Talgum’s attention, and he swiveled to glance over. “What is it?”

“I don’t know sir, about fifteen hundred meters off our port side, multiple trace and spacial disturbances. The disturbances are screwing the sensors up so bad I can’t tell what it is, but it definitely isn’t normal.

“Theorize.”

The man shrugged. “Could be anything. A wild guess is that some ships came into the rift, leaving a the spacial anomalies disturbed. Or an asteroid.”

Talgum drummed his fingers as he deliberated.

“We’ll play it safe. Begin powering up the shields.”

The man at tactical nodded and was reaching over to carry out the command when every alarm plus two went off. Sensors started screeching, and the ships computer began to automatically preparing the ship for red alert.

“WHAT THE FRELL!”

“We have multiple contacts, all on our port bow, ION engines powering up. Cloaked ships of some kind Sir, a lot of them. Sensors are so scrambled I can’t tell what it is.”

“Battlestations everyone!”

“500 meters and closing. Freck, they’re moving so fast…”

“Get the shields up!”

“200 meters… energy weapons firing.”

“Get those blasted shields up NOW!”

Excellent...

"Shields detected Sir..."

Oxford cut the officer off short. They may have run simulations but, this was not a battle-hardened crew that truly understood their machines... but, they would.

"Fire all tubes! Now! All projectiles away!"

All around him Oxford could hear the hiss and release of pressure tubes and feel the subsonic vibrations of the proton launchers going hot.

Even as his ships swept past, each among their number deployed their barrage of projectiles. Like a cloud of angry gnats, they closed... All seemingly aimed at the Strike Cruiser which held the center of their formation. Clearly Oxford planned to disable the largest threat first.

"Straight to Mark Two Five, then invert and make for another pass! I want the Serendipity to hold off and get on those damn sensors! All fighter wings, break and harry those Gunships!"

Snarling with the joy of battle, the Bothan scrutenized his display screen.

In application, it was a sight to behold.

Riding immensely powerful aft thrusters, the Denial and Demise had made a dual pass, side-by-side, over the ventral surface of the Strike Cruiser... It was easy to see that the Demise had specifically targeted a good portion of her projectiles on the crafts bridge...

Following in the wake of the larger two ships came a number of TiE Phantom Starfighters, which, oddly enough, refrained from firing in favor of buzzing the Gunsips with the hopes of distracting their gunners. Along with the Phantoms came a number of Stealthray Blastboats, all of which were bent on the destruction of just one Gunship, their projectiles streaming towards just the one. Working in tandem, the Phantoms were flying interference for the Blastboats.

Last but, certainly not last, came the Serendipity. Though she made a similar pass, firing away with her turbolaser turrets, it was clear that she was only screening for the larger ships and, her course would take her up over the horizon of the battlefield... Prime for sensor recon.

Aboard the bridge of the Demise, the Bothan commander, Oxford, slammed his fist down upon the arm of his chair. Apparently he was more then pleased with the action these few moments in.

Explosions rocked the Everything New, and Captain Talgum fell to his feet with the last.

“Enemy ships have made a pass. Damage assessment, the Marauder 7 is down to 30% shields, everything else at half. The rest of Maruader Wing is doing fine. We’ve lost fifty percent of our forward shields. Reinforcing now … energy taken from life support. Shunting more power to the turbolasers.”

Weapons rattled on, seeming to recite everything he did to calm his own nerves. Battle was hard on all, even the experienced. Standing painfully, Talgum ordered the aft turbolaser batteries to target the engines of their enemy, and asked what they had been hit with.

Tactical replied in a concise, unflustered manner. Advantage to being a droid. “We have just endured a missile salvo of approximately 33 proton torpedoes. Our tractors beams caught five; we received fifteen direct hits and six glancing blows off the shields. The shields over the bridge are down to 50%, and will likely buckle with the next salvo, enforced or not.

“Stang… prepare to evacuate to the secondary bridge. Are our fighters ready?”

“Just about, half of them are powering up now.”

“Have them launch at will. Tell them to circle down and aid the Marauder 7. Give me the status of the enemy”

Five voices piled in on Tulgum simultaneously.


“The two bigger ships, the ones that just straffed us are preparing to turn for another run. Aft turbolasers have scored several direct hits on their aft shields, perhaps the engines. No weapons other than the missile tubes were detected by sensors.”
“The enemy fighters are keeping gunners busy, TIE Phantoms, just like us. However, they have not yet engaged in any actual coordinated attack.”
“Some sort of variant of the skipray blastboat is hammering the Marauder 7, they’ve got it down, the engines are out and weapons are dying. The captain has ordered ship evacuation.”
“One of the enemy ships, smaller than the others is moving to an observation position. Sensors detected several energy weapons firing, however nothing serious.”


Two minutes until they would have been in hyperspace. Just two minutes.

“Order the corvetts to coordinate an attack on enemy MK1” Talgum ordered, pointing to one of the two big ships making a loop. “Eject our fighters, and have them begin to pick off the enemy, try to draw the enemy fighters into range for our ION cannons. When these big ships come for another pass, let’s give them a Republic greeting they won’t soon forget. Turbolaser batteries synchronize your shots, all fire on the same target on enemy MK II.”

“Orders acknowledged by everyone Captain, enemy within turbolaser range… aft turbolasers targeting enemy MK II’s bow in synchronization.

The “wang, wang, wang” of the muffled after turbolaser emplacements vibrated through the ship, and Talgum watched the tactical screen intently as the rest of the bridge crew moved out to the backup bridge.

“Come one Captain!”

Reluctantly Talgum tore himself from the screen, and rushed to the turbolift as the port turbolasers and turbolaser batteries came into play, their deadly fire reigning in on the enemies bow.

The pass was pulled off without a hitch... They had decloaked, engaged and, fired, all done in record time. They'd done even better then in simulation.

"Enemy Status?" Oxford barked the question, his eyes still locked on the viewscreen.

The report came back much as he would have expected. One of the Gunships was already in dire straits while those missiles that had targeted the Cruisers bridge did a good job of heavily reducing their fore shields.

Completing their pass, the BHG ships had made the mistake of presenting their flank for a full on attack. While only a few of the enemies turbolasers could swing around in time to attack, the reverberations of impact rang through the Demise's hull.

"Tactical?!"

The Brubb spoke in a blur, "We have multiple impacts on rear shields, down to 75% with minor impact damage on the sublight engines. Damage report incoming.."

"Never mind that," snapped Oxford. "Order the Denial to complete her attack, break off two Squadrons to harry that Cruiser. I want the Denial to be open on the next pass."

Smiling, Oxford moved to play his surprise card.

"As soon as we're around for the second pass, I want our cloak back up. Be good and show off about it, put us in a forward position. I want them targeting us. Order the Denial to follow in our wake and be ready all tubes."

The Demise shook as she took a second burst of turbo-fire as she brought her nose around to bare on the Strike Cruiser but, in the way she was moving, she managed to present herself over the Denial, whom preformed a similar maneuver in the shadow of the flagship. A number of blasts exploded against her shields, reducing her ventral and port shields 30% each while her aft shields were steady at 70%.

As she came around, however; something unexpected happened.

Presenting her nose to the Strike Cruiser, the Demise suddenly seemed to vanish into nothingness, her cloak coming online. At the same time, the Denial suddenly became the primary target, her nose pointed bow to bow with the Everything New. Her tubes suddenly alive with action, ready to fire in the next moment. She was not alone for long, mind you, because at that moment, each of the Blastboats and TiE Phantoms seemed to take on a common purpose and, with renewed vigor, they closed on the Cruiser with weapons blazing.



OOC: Demise - Cloaking...

Port Turbolaser Battery #4

Master Gunner Tuon glanced up as the holo above him relayed the Captains orders.

“You got that?” He asked on of the gunners. The man nodded in the affirmative.

The filtered, yet strained words of “Here they come” came over the gunnery intercom, and Tuon readied his men. The turbolaser status display started to blink as the aft turbolasers came into play, pounding the bow of the incoming ship. As the comparably sized vehicle swept forward, one by one Tuon’s port turbolasers came online. Guided by a the computer, each gun placed his shots in exact synchronization with the other guns, resulting in a meter round area on the enemy MK II’s shields being hit with energy, over and over.

“Sensors report shields on the enemy bow buckling!” Shouted a gunner. “We’re ripping his hull to shreds!” Three, four, five shots laced their way through the hole in the shields, pounding the amour of the enemy craft. The intense energy bolts slamming with undampned power against the raw armor plating.

“I doubt it crewman, we’re damaging it, perhaps even puncturing. Friggin tough armour.”

Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, the enemy ship simply … vanished. The computer guided turbolasers paused for not an iota, but continued to hammer their now invisible target, following the predicted flight plan. The gunnery crew however, sat stunned.

“Fire, Fire, Fire!” Tuan shouted. The enemy straffing ship may have taken the damage, and vanished, but another ship had followed in the sensor shadow, and was now looming directly to the port of the Everything New.

Turbolaser emplacements franticly diverted to focus in on the new threat, and Tuon braced for impact.

Meanwhile, on the Starboard side…

Turbolasers lanced out, away, into, and through two of the skipray look-alikes, and they erupted in two spectacular explosions. ION cannons focused on a few fighters, sending blue lighting dancing up, and down their solar panels. Tractor beams worked in tandem with five turbolaser batteries to capture, and annihilate a few more fighters, and damage another blastboat. The firefight continued, but the starboard side of the Everything New appeared to have it all under control.


Maruader 1

With the exception of Marauder 7, the Wing had received relatively little damage. The enemy fighters had not coordinated an attack, but rather a screening maneuver to keep them busy. It had worked… for a few minutes.

“Cap’n wants you to draw the enemy fighters into the Everything New’s ION cannons, either that or annihilate them.” Came a scratchy voice over the LOS communications channel.

“Roger” replied the Wing commander.

ION cannons, what a load of rhkar. Annihilation was so much cleaner.

“Marauder Wing, attack pattern Alpha F”

Swirling together, drawing the fighters away from the slow and cumbersome freighter, the corvettes maneuvered in tandem with their invisible Phantom partners. Pulling out of a double-helix turn, two Corvettes pulled up, one breaking away to the left the other to the right. The third corvette headed straight down. The perusing enemy fighters were suddenly confronted with a neatly arranged wall of laser fire coming from de-cloaking brothers-in-design. Confused, several pilots went into a straight dive, right into their wingmates, while others pulled left and right, right into the waiting arms of the Corvettes.

*

The Anthos Phantoms re-cloaked, and moved into position for the next maneuver, leaving twice their number damaged, and drifting, while the Corvettes finished off a few of the re-grouping enemy fighters as they arched in a long turn up, and above the battle scene toward the enemy Skipray look-alikes.

“Enemy fighter wings scattered Cap’n, we’re coming to your assistance.

OOC:
Two squadrons of Phantoms distoryed/disabled
Two squadrons receiving heavy/moderate shield damage
Two Blastboats Gone
One blastboat damaged

The Demise (Bridge)

"Cloaked Sir, enemy turrets moving to adjust!"

Oxford snarled, the enemy had adjusted better then he would have liked but, he still believed the time was there.

"Full reverse engines, dump the thrust!" The order was barked above the scream of system overloads and the haze of smoke that was filling the bridge. They had taken it bad, he knew.

He could feel it in the hull, The Demise was straining to comply. Her iron layered hull would take it, he knew... but the question here was time. She had to be clear.

Suddenly vaulting into action, the cloaked Demise seemed to practically leap to her rear, thus; managing to avoid a number of the following lasers. More then a few still managed to hit their mark as she progressed on an opposite track to that of the turbolasers.

"We're clear..."

"Organize those fighters! Order strafing runs and, by the void, utilize those cloaking devices. Keep those Gunships busy. Everyone knows their orders!"



The Denial

She hung now like a predator poised to strike, the moment of opportunity clear before the deadly bird.

With the Demise flying cover, she had maneuvered perfectly into position along the port side of the Everything New and now lay in perfect precision to unleash a deadly barrage of projectiles.

With all of her shield power redirected to reinforce her forward deflectors her numerous proton torpedo tubes and equally numerous concussion missile launchers glowing, the Denial delivered that blow for which she was designed.

Even as the haze of projectiles swarmed towards the unfortunate craft, the Denial was re-establishing her cloak, soon to have dumped and gone in true guerilla fashion.

The Everything New clearly had a skilled crew but, even so, a number of the advanced, high-yield warheads managed to make it past the defenses offered by the port gunnery stations. In all, they caught or otherwise stopped six of the inbound targets while the remaining number were able to strike through.

Multiple impacts struck the port-side shields, quickly reducing their effectiveness but, a treacherous few managed to score direct hits on the hull. As their tracking computers had all been similarly aligned, each of the projectiles sought to detonate within close proximity of one another. Under their might, durasteel was reduced to liquid, doomed to flashfreeze once touched by the vacuum of space.



D1 Squadron

Their numbers were dropping fast, despite the odds the Phantoms were taking losses... and badly.

Abruptly, they had new orders.

Those that could dropped under the cover of their cloaks and veered off to set up for converging runs on the thick of Gunships that still posed a threat. Now they were geared to attack.

The unfortunate few among their numbers who had lost their operational cloak did not break off but, rather they shot off on seemingly kamikaze flight paths towards the Everything New. With lasers blaring and proton tubes spitting their deadly projectiles, the five uncloaked dove under the cover of the enemy guns. A trip that three of the six did not make. Their weapons, meantime, succeeded in further depleting the ventral shields of the larger ship... Their mark was, for some reason, the bridge.



Stealth 015

The Stealthrays had already lost too much. They were in deadly and, competent ships. Craft that were designed off of the most successful Blastboats of all time. Loosing like this was not going to serve their purpose.

One among their number sought to rally the troops. With secure comm channels open, the lone Stealthray ordered his brothers to cloak and form up on a lower plane of attack then those Gunships were currently on. The suggestion was to move as one and, use that one talent which made their ships deadly.

It was time for a special tactic; Stealth Bombing.

With ion engines humming, though hidden by cloak, the swarm of Stealthrays moved into position to bomb their unsuspecting adversaries.



The Demise(Bridge)

"Sir, heavy damage to our bow. We have structural failures in the hull plating and, our nose cluster is offline. We're down to fourteen functional."

What a beating, he thought but, one that would earn them an excellent strike. Everyone had formed up, or was in the progress of doing so. Their next attack would be precise... and extreme. Or so he hoped, the fact was that the Demise had taken some heavy damage. Oxford considered himself lucky.

Their shields still stood, if severely weakened. Their hulls had proved themselves worthy. Not many weapons were effective against Mandalorian Iron. Best of all, in his opinion, their cloak was still operational.

"Status?"

"We'll be in position in point mark oh five."

"Good. Warm up the tubes..."






OOC:
Heavy Damage inflicted upon the Denial.
Severe Damage inflicted upon the Everything New.

3 BHG Phantoms destroyed

Talgum lurched to the side with the sway of his ship, as yet another impact jerked the mighty vessel. Sithspawn … that feels bad. The final door slid open with a decompression of air, and the bridge crew lurched into the secondary bridge.

Hidden deeper within the vessel, it was not as complete as the primary bridge, and lacked view ports to the outside galaxy. Instead, it relied upon sensors and cameras for a feed of what happened.

“Let’s get some data in here people.” Another blast lurched the ship, and Tulgum moved toward tactical himself. “Damage report as soon as you can get it.”

An alarm went off, a long loping booooOOOwwwp signaling a hull breach, and an atmospheric leak.

“Seal that section off, close it down.”

“Aye Aye Sir”

The alarm faded off, to be replaced by another, and another.

“Sir, the ships damage sensors are almost eradicated on the port side, right around the middle. We have what appears to be a fifty meter round hole, ten meters into our ship. Multiple atmosphere leaks still, magnetic screens going up once hallways are confirmed empty of life.”

“Port weapons down to three turbolasers, two batteries, and two ION cannons. Everything in the middle of the ship is gone”

“We have multiple power outages all over the ship… weapons on the starboard side are loosing power. Engineering is on it.”

“The enemy ships have begun cloaking. Multiple hits on their fighters, and gunships. Our fighters returning to run protection runs now… Marauder Wing is pulling around against the visible enemy ship.”

Talgum bit his lip, his mind racing.

“Message the Phantoms about our spacial disturbance readings, see if their pilots can track that somehow. Same for the gunships. Have the Marauder Wing move in an take the enemy ship camper out, don’t let him fire again against the port side.”

Something clicked, and Talgum practically jumped.

“The Infiltrator, where is that?”

*

Five men, one 26 meter, highly expensive craft, and the ability to remain totally undetected.

While cruising twenty meters above the enemy ship.


“Beautiful, no?” Asked one.

“No.”

“Yes.”

The two men glared at each other, while the other three ignored them.

“Cloakable, decently armed, and heavily armored… a dream. A pity to destroy, or even injure such a magnificent ship, no?”

“No”

“Yes”

“Shutup”

The Infiltrator swooped low over the enemy craft, the only one not partaking in the battle below. The engines were cut as the ship ghosted over the top, allowing absolute silent running. A kilometer out, the engines were ignited again and the ship did another fly by. And another, and another. Seven flybys of the motionless ship were completed in a few minutes.

“Reading complete.”

“Ready the charges. We will drop three, one behind with a ten second charge, one on top with a eight second, and one in front, with a five second.”

“Charges … ready.”

“Vacuum suits on”

“When do the Real bomb bay doors get installed?”

“Never.”

“No...”

"Yes."

The crew strapped in, turned the magnetic seals on their boots on, and slowly decompressed the command chamber. The rear door to the ship opened, and as the ship ghosted one final time over, two men pitched three proton bombs out by hand.