NationStates Jolt Archive

Dreadrock. The name alone was enough to invoke a sense of awe among the pirating community. Well, most of it, anyways.

It didn’t do spit for Captain Jaime Starr. Cap’n Jaime Starr. The Devileye. Jaime Starr had a reputation. He was a gentleman, and a pirate. He was a crack swordsman, and a dead shot with a pistol. He was also one of the best damn CI-capable skippers in the universe.

If you asked his crew, he was the best.

And his ship, Oh yes. His glorious, glorious ship. His ship was the kind of ship that was only spoken about in whispered conversations in the backs of taverns. His ship, was the Moonsabre.

Now, all three were joined conveniently.
---

Jaime stepped out of the docking tube, and stretched. He was very handsome, almost too handsome, and a gentleman of the old school, the pirating school. They said that the only thing more deadly than Devileye’s blade, was his wit. Albeit, they did say a lot of things about Cap’n Devileye Starr.

His polished boots rapped against the metal plated airlock, and his spurs clinked gently. Nobody was quite sure why he wore spurs, but he did, and as far as his crew was concerned, if Cap’n Starr decided to start cross-dressing as the fattest wench you’ve ever seen, well, that was his prerogative.

Locks of brown spilled freely down the back of his coat, and his rapier hung in a custom rig from his left hip. His belt pistol gleamed lightly opposite his blade, and they were both of a level of quality that was growing increasingly rare among the outer elements of society.
---
The Devileye had a smile for every lady, and a kind word for every child. When the Moonsabre put into the Dreadrock, it came home.

Jaime had saved the asteroid from sure death many years ago, and since, had rebuilt and refined the fort to the point where it satisfied him.

His doctrine was simple: They can’t touch you if they can’t find you. This doctrine was echoed in his ship, and in his Free Port.

The Moonsabre was a battleship from before the Fall. It stretched seven hundred and fifty meters in length, and it mounted an armament almost as strong as a dreadnought. It was also fast. Unbelievably fast.

Nobody knew how the ship moved as fast as it did, and nobody knew how fast it moved.
All they knew was that it moved faster than they did.

Jaime’s boys were offloading the latest haul, and there would be a party, no doubt.

Everybody who was anybody would be at that party.
Jaime Starr would be at that party.

It was just something he did. Not something he particularly enjoyed.
-----

Jaime awoke to a bucket of water splashed over his face, and he rose with his hand on the hilt of his rapier. He blinked twice, to clear his vision, and saw the boyish face of his gunnery chief.

Adrian Carrion was the kind of guy who never seemed to grow old. He was also a genius with weapons of all types, and he’d probably have been First Mate, had he not been so damn good with the guns.

Jaime nodded out of hand, and followed Carrion back to the ship.
---
Starr adjusted his tri-corner hat, and took the wheel. Why the ship had a wheel, nobody knew. It did, and they didn’t argue.

The Moonsabre pushed out of Dreadrock under its Induction Drive, and as soon as it reached a safe distance, its modified High Drive flickered to life.

The lit engine provided plenty of power, and more than enough speed, and the sleek battleship burned off for its next prize.
After all, one had to survive.

TAG

OOC: Can I join?

OOC: Yes, of course! Anything and Everything is quite fine with me, after all, we're all here to have fun, right? My only rules at the moment are just that: have fun.

Ooo...Pirates...

T a G

The Ethereal slipped through the void, it's spearhead prow shedding stardust into the vacuum. The light freighter was built for speed rather than resilience or even hold space and captain Tippermark was beginning to make a steady profit out of shifting small, valuable and often illegal cargos from one system to the next.

Only two escorts supported the Ethereal, both Sword class frigates and only about 100m from prow to exhaust. At full power they only just kept up with the Ethereal's cruising speed.

"We will soon be entering the Solar system, captain. Shall I alert Outcast station to our arrival?"

Tippermark waved a hand in dismissal, "No need, Rauther assured us that Outcast will overlook out little convoy. Proceed directly to Io."

Jaime Starr manned the wheel, and though it was largely a prop, it did serve a purpose. The wheel concealed the 'sabre's CI system, and the leads were obvious, and slightly disturbing.

Starr's implants, like most CI implants, were only obvious when in use. The leads from the wheel connected to sockets in both forearms, and the direct-link connected to the uncovered NI-Jack on the right side of his neck.

Right now, however, the CI system was inactive, though the leads were connected, and the system was ready to engage at need.

The first call of 'Sail HO!' startled him.

"Cap'n we've got sometin'. Lookin' like a lieut freighter 'n a paira 'corts. Frigates by t' look uv 'em."

Jaime blinked, and shifted his vision to his crystalline HUD-screen. The screen confirmed the sensor operator's announcement, and he nodded gently.

'Alright. 'ere's the plan. We get in as close as we can on Cloaking ECM, then drop cloak and hoist the black flag. If everything goes right, we walk away with a cargo, and maybe some mobile defense for the Dreadrock. Savvy?'

His bridge crew nodded their understanding, and the 'sabre went to dead running. The High Drive was relatively difficult to detect, but the induction drive was a dead giveaway to gravitic sensors, thusly, Jaime took them in on thrust alone.

His ship should easily be able to take the freighter's escorts, but nonetheless, he didn't particularly care much about the freighter. Oh, sure, it probably had a nice cargo, but still, two frigates, even small ones...

One hoped it would be easy.
One hoped many things.

[tag], I`m certainly going to loose a freighter or two once the first prey has been secured ;)

Captain Jaime Starr relaxed slightly as the 'sabre pursued its target. Propulsion was through thrust alone, and the cloaking ECM systems were in full effect. The High Drive was very low emission, and very difficult to detect.

After all, in this day and age, a corsair had to be sneaky to survive. Devileye Starr made a point of surviving, after all, he had people relying on him.

Jaime went over the plan in his head, and he still wondered why he was going after this chase. The freighter couldn't hold much, and it almost certainly wasn't worth fighting two frigates for. Not that he was particularly worried, the 'sabre was no suckling child when it came to combat.

But for all that, they were still warships, crewed by professionals.

Jaime had the utmost trust in his crew, but they hadn't been raiding together for long, and if those frigates carried some sort of nasty surprise, well, who knew.

Then again, there were risks in anything. There were just a couple more for one Jaime Starr.

He adjusted his tri-corner hat with his left hand, the one free of cables, then returned his hand to the wheel.

Of course, the 'sabre had some nasty surprises herself. The two super-heavy mass drivers he had fitted the ship with, were identical to the super-heavies mounted on that new dreadnought people had been talking so much about back on Dreadrock.

Nobody other than the 'sabre's crew knew they were there.

Jaime hoped to God that it would remain that way, he really did.

One hoped blood would not be shed.
One was prepared for the alternatives.

Bridge of the Daring, Sword Class Frigate

The microbead link above Captain Othello's ear crackled to life, "Captain, this is Officer of the Watch speaking. We've picked up some gas disturbace off the starboard bow, it's probably nothing but I recommend raising to blue alert. We don't want to run into any turbulence."

Othello nodded, though no-one could see him, "Agreed, keep me informed." Two taps with his control-wand and the convoy slowed slightly to prepare anti missile and fighter countermeasures.

Captain Gregory 'crazy' Ivanonvitch glared out through the ports of the Famine, the length of her hull stretched away for fifteen and a half miles in front of him, five behind. It was a huge, old and powerful ship, capable of tangling with anything, up to and inclduing planets. Piledrivers were INTENDED to make large things into smaller things, and let the rest of the fleet make the smaller things very small.
Right now though, the purpose of the Famine was to endlessly patrol Rout Jupiter, or the area around Jupiters orbit.
beep beep beep
Gregory hit the comm button
"Vhat?" He quickly corrected his accent. "What?"
"Sir, we're picking something odd up on the Gravity Check, we have a distortion, but we're not picking anything up in the area except a convoy, and its not them."
Well, something was about to happen. Joy.
"We hafff nothing else to do, let us go investigate, I want a partial charge in the main cannons, all ships to yellow alert."
The Jupiter Rout patrol groups five ships turned, heading toward the convoy.

EDIT: Double post

OCC: 15 miles long????? :shock: Well, I've got one ship about that tall.....but its only one and pretty old.

IC:

Unbeknownst to the crew of the Sabre, they were actually not the fastest ship in the area. The small frigate LRRSV Disco Inferno was tracking the massive pirate ship, although tracking was all it could really do, as it had a couple of peashooters and a plasma cannon, and that was it. This was all sacrificed for giant drives. Nothing rivaling a battlecruiser, however, and Captain Haug McRiley was extremely mad when out of port a battlecruiser on 75% propulsion went sailing past while he was flat out. Ah well.

"Sir, we've got something on sensors."
"Shoot at it?"
"What?"
"Just ignore him. Bring us around on its tail, and follow it."
"Aye."

It was time.

Jaime's smirk grew, and he knew it was time.

"Alright, mates. It's time. Drop the cloak and turn out the guns. Prepare to transmit on completion, Savvy?"

His bridge crew chimed in with a hearty, "Aye, Cap'n"
--

The Moonsabre went to full tactical power less than a light second from the convoy. Three Hundred Thousand Kilometers.

Spitting Distance.

The Battleship's guns were turned out and at the ready, and its targetting systems were locked on the enemy ships. Strongly.

The 'sabre transmitted on a secure link, three separate comm-lasers, one for each craft of the convoy.

The Transmission Began.
---
The first image was of a grinning skull 'pon two crossed bones on a black field. The Jolly Roger.

The flag was an invitation to surrender, and a promise of mercy.

A man stepped in front of the flag. He was tall, and his long brown hair was dealt with in a varying assortment of different ways. His right eye was colored silver, and his left was a burning red with hints of orange.

He wore a tri-corner hat, and a basket-hilted rapier was sheathed at his left hip. He was smiling.

"Ahoy there, Matey. I'm Jaime Starr, Captain of the Moonsabre. I'ma give you two choices, mates. You either surrender without conflict, or you die. We don't want to kill you, but won't broke any resistance. So, I suggest you cut your drives and prepare to be boarded, Savvy?"

At the first sight of the Moonsabre the Ethereal was away, drives on full and speeding off into the distance. The two escorts swung around to face the pirates.

Captain Othello tapped his microbead and opened a com link to Captain Severin on the Prideful, all the while his sensor wand swung with lightning speed and agility on the hologramatic panels before him, preparing the defenses, "Severin, the Ethereal must escape. It's cargo is more important than either of us, our ships or our men. May the Emperor guide and protect our souls, Othello out."

The ship's weapons were powered and the drives were ready, Othello opened a link to the Moonsabre, "I would be happy to acede to your wishes, pirate, but I made an oath to my Emperor and it is an oath I intend to keep. Men! Take, burn or destroy the enemy ship!"

Jaime glared at the plotter.

"WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD DO THEY ALWAYS RESIST! WHY? ARGH!"

He snarled, and he felt his CI Implants begin to tingle. Combat was near.

"Very well then. Dead men tell no tales"

His implants went live, and Jaime Starr -became- the ship. His orders were still crisp, however, still clear.

"No use trying to take them, I've decided I want that freighter. Guns, give those frigates a torpedo each. Fire as you bear."

The plating concealing the torpedo tubes irised back, and two tubes launched their deadly cargo. The mass drivers hurled the sixty ton projectiles forward, and their High Drives lit.

They wouldn't have enough time to reach their full velocity before they hit the frigates, but they would have time to reach half of it.

Sixty tons of Iridium moving at .3c was still something to be very, very, afraid of.

The Moonsabre continued to accelerate, and its Heavy Mass Drivers began to track. However, the frigates were little more than pests, the real goal was that freighter.

Jaime snapped a second order.

"Prepare the Blastboats for launch, and ready the slice ships. I want to be in and out as quickly as possible. I fear we may have...other...company."

Jaime's eyes burned. One red, one silver. The Devileye.

OOC:

How can I join.....

OOC: however you like.

OCC: 15 miles long????? :shock: Well, I've got one ship about that tall.....but its only one and pretty old.

OOC: 20.5 miles, actually. But its fairly simple to produce, since about half the ship is made up of generators geared to the main cannons ;)

IC
The DGNT ships finally came into visual range.
"Sir, its pirates. Three ships are under attack by a singel pirate, the pirate appears to be quite fast, and we cant get it on sensors."
"Right, all guns go to Opitical Recognition targetting, signal the ships under attack that we intend to help. Launch all fighters."
Soon space around the ship was full of tiny drone fighters and larger Revenge manned fighters, a cloud of heavily armed steel knifing through the darkness.
"Ships to red alert, main guns charged, target pirate. Fire!"

Space shimmered briefly as the Piledriver opened the batteries for the main guns. Then Four thin beams appeared, one out of each cannon, they stayed that way just long enough for people to think nothing more was going to happen, then the guns seemed to explode, huge beams of energy, each as wide as a normal capital ship lanced out, tearing space up, ripping through almost anything in their paths.

The torpedoes, fixed on a straight tragectory from the prow of one ship to another, were easy targets for the frigate's defense turrets, designed specifically for shooting down incoming slow ordnance.

As the levaithan of the pirate ship powered forwards on full engines, the frigates simply dropped away beneath it and angled the guns upwards as it passed overhead, raking the belly of the ship with plasma fire.

Jaime's reflexes were the stuff of legend, and the minute that mammoth ship showed up and opened fire, he had hit his ace in the whole.

The Moonsabre seemed to explode in a burst of multi-colored light, dazzling sensors and fusing un-prepared electronics. As the preparation process was very difficult, and generally required a knowledge of exactly what one was preparing against...

The display ended, and there was nothing left where it had been.


Jaime Starr gasped for air.


Safe.

He was safe.

His ship was safe in drivespace, safe where he was completely untouchable. For the next five days, he was untouchable.

Then, he would make Star-rise into a far-off star system, unexplored and unknown, by all but him.

That system was valuable only in that it was a short hop away from his home port. It was also an excellent place to rest up and analyze.

He was very angry. Next to nothing should have been able to stop a torpedo, merely divert it. Sixty Tons of Iridium, moving as fast as his torpedoes did, were death itself.

They were also very expensive, and though two wouldn't hurt him much, his resources were limited.

He had made a mistake. Next time, he would make no such mistake.

His shields had performed as expected, had held perfectly. Barely even a scratch on the sensor-fooling coating on the hull. Regardless, next time, there would be less room for such niceties.

"The pirate is gone sir, looks like he jumpped."
"Damn, signal the frigates, ask if they need any repair assistance. Recover the fighters."
Damn. Well, I have something to do now. Though the captain.

And now a little OOC Commentary from the player.

Couple of things I'd like to address, right now. I spent a lot of time on these characters and this ship, and I'm not willing to kill them off right now. Furthermore, I'm not particularly pleased with the way this turned out.

I don't believe in retconns or starting over, so this doesn't change anything, and yes, this RP is over for me.

Two pages. Thats it. Pathetic. Way to go.

Alright, now, sixty tonnes of Iridium isn't gonna be stopped by much of flaming anything. You might be able to -deflect- it, but its not gonna just -disappear-

I'll live with that.

And, furthermore, I'm even more annoyed with this planet killer thingy.

Really, all I can think of to justify that is you having some personal problem with me and wanting to ruin my roleplay. If you've got a problem with me, say it to my face. Don't ruin my fun.

Maybe I'm just blowing at ghosts, but I really wanted to have fun with this. Maybe you guys did, and if you did, then I at least accomplished something.

I'm not happy with the way I got out, and it was cheap as hell. I know somebody is gonna complain, so I'm gonna state my position first of all.

I like these characters too much to kill them off without some serious RP. Having them die from an unbeatable planet-killing supership is not serious RP.

Sorry guys, I could have done something else, sure. I could have fought it out, but thats not what Jaime would have done. Jaime also wouldn't have gone after a light freighter with two frigates for escorts.

As for Mr. Dontgonearthere, You deserve some kind of award for wanking and plain out cruelty. If your idea of fun is destroying someone's fantasy and dreams outright...well, maybe I'm in the wrong here.

You guys have just as much of a right to kill my characters as I do yours. I'm sorry, I just can't seem to be able to write the deaths of my characters like that.

-Jaime's Player.

http://www.shipschematics.net/bsg/images/colonial/destroyer_tiger.jpg
XSS-01 Class Space Cruiser
SCSS Colonial Tiger

Length:
875 ft.
Width:
284 ft.
Height:
122 ft.

Displacement:
On-Planet: 48,942 tons
Cargo Capacity:
12,525 tons

Power-Plant:
x4 Experimental Hydrogen Reactors - 70,000 kW each - 280,000 kW overall
x8 Hydrogen Plasmatic Boosters - 20,000 Thrust each - 160,000 Thrust overall
x2 Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Secondary Reactors - 40,000 kW each - 80,000 kW overall
x4 Electro-Magnetic Turbine Generators - 20,000 kW each - 80,000 kW overall
x4 Electro-Magnetic Anti-Gravity Generation Systems
Armor:
Experimental Ionic Titanium
Life Support Systems:
x20 Oxygen Regeneration Turbine Filtering Generators
x5 Plasmatic Fusion Coolent Temperature Control Generators
x10 Electro-Magnetic Enviromental Stabilizer Generators
x40 Electro-Magentic Graviton Type Gravity Stabilizer Generators

Armament:
x6 280mm Experimental Main Ion Cannons - Location: Two on each "Wing", two on Front Mounts
x12 Main Ionic Coolent Systems
x48 100mm Rail-Gun Turret Cannons - Location: Universal
x24 24mm Pulse-Laser Cannons - Location: Universal
x24 Pulse-Laser Coolent Systems
x8 Hidden 220mm Main Platform Cannons - Location: One Universal
Missile Systems:
x80 Space Viper Missile Launching Platforms - Location: Universal
x24 Space Torpedo Launchers - Location: Twelve on each side
Missile and Torpedo Load-outs:
x800 Type II Space Viper Tracking Rockets
x200 Type I Nuclear Space Torpedoes
x400 Type II High-Yield Space Torpedoes

Fighters:
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/aircraft/jets/f-86/sabre_info/3view.gif
x24 XSF-02 Star Sabre - Armament: x8 Gatling Cannon
Shuttles:
http://k26.com/buran/assets/images/jsize.jpg
x2 Modified Buran Space Shuttle
x4 Energia Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLLV)

Crew:
Officers: 24
Crewmen: 248
Overall: 272
Endurence:
Five Years/Max is Twelve Years with Resupplies

The SCSS Colonial Tiger shows up on the scene, the only True Star Ship of the USSNR!

Two places at once, oh well, this is a different rp, so has nothing to do with reality and all....

OOC:
Wow.
First thing.
Its not unbeatable, you could fly circles around it in that ship thingy of yours and pick it to pieces, the thing moves like lots and lots of lead, and has relativly few guns outside of its main cannons, the fighters are mostly simple drones that rely on visual tracking and are quite easy to fool, and the human-manned fighters are slow.
And again, your charecter hardly has to DIE, even if I blow your ship up, he can quite easily get into a suit or fighter and fly off to fight another day, or he can be caputured and escape in some Star Warsish way, blowing up several important looking things on the way.
THis is OPEN RP.

Further OOC:

Indeed, quite possibly true. Yes, I over-reacted. I admit it, and I'm sorry. It really wasn't you, so much as the way SW shrugged off my attack like nothing else...

Then he had the nerve to call something moving at thirty percent of the speed of light 'slow.'

That really ticked me off.

thirty percent of the speed of light is ninety thousand kilometers per SECOND

we were -less- than light second apart, probably no more than one half of one. So, you had exactly one and two thirds of a second to respond.
Sorry, but thats a little messed up.

Yes, I am still peeved about the über-ship, but, on that I admit I over-reacted. I guess it was my worst fears coming true. I feared that somebody would just decide to kill my guys outright, when all I wanted to do was some raiding.

I'll stick to the fringes from now on...sorry about the over-reaction, I'm just kinda sensitive about this stuff, and when you try and take somebody down like that, I take it kinda personal.

You gotta understand, Jaime is this nation, and I created it for Jaime. If the Moonsabre dies, Jaime dies with it, and the nation dies, and then I just wrote a whole bunch of stuff for more or less nothing.

But that's not your fault. It's mine. I shoulda known better. Totally my bad. Sorry guys.

-Jaime's Player

Um........Ok....... :shock:

OOC: I already said the frigates had anti missile and fighter countermeasures. I was perfectly willing to have the frigates destroyed/disabled but if your guys is such a hotshot superpilot then I was expecting something a little clevered than "I fire torpedoes, you can't stop them, you blow up." Look at it from my point of view, you're moaning cause you lost two torpedoes instead of me losing two frigates. I'm not gonna throw my characters on your guns for no reason other than you claim to have a little bit of backstory.

And by the way, "Slow Ordnance" is a collective term for any incoming fire going slower than the speed of light. Missiles/Torps/Fighters as opposed to lasers and big beams.

OOC:
Meh, s'alright.
Anyway, remember. Its freeform RP, nobody can do ANYTHING that you dont LET happen. If you REALLY dont want your guy to die, just say so and most people will accept little godmods or coincidences that happen to keep him alive. Im sure I would be willing to lose ten or so guards to a daring escape or something, I have about fiftey million more ;)
Or you could just happen to have a clone of some sort with a little memory dohicky that automaticaly updates every nanosecond and activates the clone when he dies.

And, not to be rude but...%30 of the speed of light IS slow in space, there is NO friction, so things move VERY quickly, distance makes things seem to move quite slowly to. Most engagements in space would likely take place at hundreds of miles, you need about that much manuevering/braking room.