Trial by Fire
Posts: 4025
  • Posted On: Jan 19 2006 9:53pm
A small moon, orbiting an unihabited planet, near the Borosk system

The pirates re-grouped after the bloody nose that they had recieved from the Empire when they have arrived to sieze the planet away from the gang. The leader of the group, a short man by the name of Batiste, was not pleased with the way the pirates had handled the battle, or that the way the Imperials had just barged in and took whatever they wanted away from them. He was a man of revenge, and so had authorized a mission, a daring strike at an Imperial outpost world, stealing supplies and blowing up several commerce ships belong to the Imperial citizenry and commerical companies. The raid should be returning at any moment.

Then, they were back. Four corvettes, two gunships, and one dreadnought, the pride of the Blue moon pirate gang, appeared out of hyperspace, moving torwards the moonbase. Some of the gunships and corvettes showed new battle damage, and Batiste frowned at this as the outpost world was rumoured to have been unprotected, at least as reported by his spies and agents. He queried the pirate gang, and got his answer. Apparently a pair of patrol cruisers had responded to the distress call made by the planetery authorites, and had engaged in a brief battle with the pirate gang. Neither side had sustained serious damage in the brief skirmish, but the Empire did lose about one squadron worth of TIE fighters. In addition to the brief skirmish, four bulk freighters and two ore haulers, plus about ten smaller ships had been destroyed or heavily damaged, and the pirates had gotten a full load of valuables and finished durasteel from the commerical and industrial districts of the main city of the planet. The valuables and durasteel hauled away from the raid would make up for the losses they had sustained in the Borosk campaign at least partially.

Then a signal was detected as coming from one of the corvettes. The signal transmitted from out of the system. It was quickly traced to a homing beacon that had somehow been planted on the corvette, possibly during ground operations. Batiste grimaced. Now that the Empire had location of his moonbase, it would be sending a full fleet to wipe him out once and for all. He ordered the evacuation of the moonbase, and then ran to his quarters. He had a lot of packing to do before he left in his personal ship. Hours later, he was prepared to leave. He boarded his personal ship, a Corellian stock freighter, heavily modified, somewhat similar to the Outrider. Punching in liftoff codes, he piloted the ship out of the hangar bay and headed into orbit around the moon. When he got into the upper orbit, he found the rest of the pirate gang already waiting for him. He took in the sight of his fleet and smiled broadly. Strung out in orbit ahead of him sat the dreadnought, along with two escort frigates, six gunships, and eight corvettes, along with about thirty medium to small sized stock freighters, plus a large assorment of older starfighter types, mainly X-wing and Y-wing type snubfighters.

That's when the trouble began. Hyperspace re-entry alarms went on in Batiste's ship, and he knew that their time had run out. For emerging from hyperspace from the direction of the Core worlds was an Imperial Star Destroyer. The Star Destroyer cruised in to attack the pirate fleet, and in desperation Batiste immediatly ordered his fleet to enter hyperspace. However, as the coordinates were being layed in, a gravity well was detected. The enemy star destroyer had powered up gravity well generators. Batiste took a good look at the approaching Star Destroyer and noticed that he could not recognize it. It was larger than the normal star destroyer, and different looking too. A decision had to be made, and fast. Seeing no other alternative, Batiste ordered his entire fleet to attack the Star Destroyer. It would either be destroyed and his surviving pirate members able to flee, or the Blue Moon pirates would go out in one last blaze of glory. Punching his drive, powering up his shields and weapons, he lead his stock light freighters to the attack along with the starfighter squadrons of his fleet. Emerging from the hangar bays of the Star Destroyer was a full wing of TIE Fighters. Batiste smiled. His ships would easily blow through the wing of ancient TIE Fighters, then hammer the Star Destroyer with proton torpedoes and laser cannons. Then the rest of his fleet would arrive and utterly destroyer the SD, allowing his ships to escape into hyperspace before Imperial reinforcements could arrive.

His ships were preparing for the attack when he noticed something strange about the approaching TIEs. They were moving far too fast for normal starfighters, and their wings more closely resembled TIE Interceptors. He was dealing with Interceptors then. More losses for his starfighters then, but his side would still prevail. Then they were upon the enemy starfighter swarm. His eyes widended as the two clouds of fighters met. The enemy fighters were a type he had never seen before, and not only fired laser cannons from their normal emplacements, but also bigger energy bolts from their wing struts. Caught by suprise, many of the pirate's starfighters were destroyed in the first pass. Batiste manuevered his ship onto the tail of an enemy starfighter and opened fire with his laser cannons. When he achieved a hit, he was again shocked to see his lasers dissipate against the shields of the fighter. The ship flew up and away, out-manuevering his stock freighter. Suddenly afriad of the fighter's capabilites, he fled from the battle. When he was a safe distance away, he looped around and looked at the sensors. Three of his stock freighters and two Y-wings had followed him away from the battle zone. Of his other starfighters and stock freighters, they were largely disabled or destroyed, the enemy having lost only eleven TIEs in the battle.

Then his capital ships reached the engagement zone. Batiste grimaced. The SD had taken no damage, and so his ships would sustain a pounding. But, his side should still previal. The star destroyer began firing it's turbolaser cannons, each ten batteries targeting a single corvette or gunship. The reinforced shields installed on the smaller ships meaned that the destroyer would be pounding them for quite a while before they would succumb. But suddenly the weapons on the destroyer flashed, and Batiste grimaced as each ship was apparently targeted by twenty batteries, not ten. Within minutes, the corvettes and gunships were overwhelmed, and were destroyed. Then the destroyer hit the frigates with a barrage of proton torpedoes, breaking their backs. Batiste was shocked. The only ship left was the dreadnought. It and the destroyer exchanged several turbolaser barrages that left the dreadnought badly battered and losing hull armour. It picked up speed, clearly intending to ram the destroyer, but then the heavy weapons batteries near the bridge of the destroyer let loose with long streams of turbolaser pulse fire. They penetrated the dreadnought's bridge and breached the reactor core, causing the ship to explode. The destroyer's shields, barely tested against the strength of his ships, easily handed the debris field created by the remains of his pride.

Batiste sat numbed in the cockpit of his ship. His pride and joy, gone in a matter of an hour. Now the only thing that mattered was the preseverence of his own existance. A blinking light warned him. A squadron of the new fighters were coming for him and his small group. He attempted to flee the battle scene, but before he could put his ship into motion, the stars shimmered from around him, and ten cloaked ships dropped their camofluague and surronded his ships. He transmitted a surrender hasitly to the ships, which was accepted. He then slumped in his cockpit seat. He was defeated.

On the bridge of one of the cloaking vessels, Admiral Kraken looked out at the carnage, satisifed with the destruction wrought by his newly designed and comissioned ships. Just as the squadron of TIE-2 fighters passed the bridge of his vessel in parade formation, the moonbase exploded, lighting up the night sky, the pirates having set charges to erase the evidence of their existance there.