NationStates Jolt Archive

Merchant Prince Vak Dhykler was humming quietly to himself as his ship, the Crystal Song sped through space, carrying a valuable load of minerals that he had to carry to Theao, as there seemed to be a minor shortage, and he could make a huge profit.

The Crystal Song was escorted by two interceptors, and two fighters, the finest money could buy. Custom-made, these craft were something the military couldn't afford, equipped with cloaking devices, self-recharging engines, and powerful shielding devices as well as accurate weapons.

He sat back on his comfortable recliner, and barked an order down to the Engineering section of the ship. "Orun! Scan the surrounding area. I have a bad feeling about cutting through this nebula, especially as we can't make FTL speeds safely here."

A dry voice came back up, speaking slowly and measured. "Boss, we'll be fine. This area's been scanned several times already. Just because you were robbed in an nebula once doesn't mean going through this one is unsafe. Besides, if we try to bypass it, it'll be impossible to arrive at Theao before the shortage ends."

Vak Dhykler sighed, and sat back again, unable to shake the constant feeling of uneasiness that weighed heavily upon him...

Captain Valk smiled a sadistic smile. If his informant was right, and he usually was, a merchant with only a fighter escort was comming throught his favorite raiding spot. As he waited he began humming a few cords from the Ride of the Valkyries, his piratical trademark.

"Captain, the merchant is comming into sensor range, appears to have a fighter escort, four of them."
Order the men to stations, but remain in down mode, also prep the Banditus and Corsarius."
"Roger Captain."

On board the Raider, the men moved into thier positions and awaited the time to strike.

ooc: the Raider is a corvette, the Banditus/Corsarius are fighters.

Van Dhykler tapped a few buttons, and read a small display. "Damn!", he exclaimed. "The area of protection we can expect is only 5 light minutes out from the station.

The freighter slowed, and turned 90*, and the four fighter craft dropped inconspicuously behind it, preparing for a fight. The merchant prince was known to be erratic, but his instinct generally lead him right, so he did what his gut thought was a good idea.

Suddenly, a brief flare of energy showed up on his ship's priceless sensors. (This would be you starting the fighters up). He yelled frantically, and the shields and weapon systems went online. A few seconds later, he realized nothing was happening, and even the best of sensors were not completely accurate in a nebula. He sat back uneasily, and told his fighters and gunners to prepare for a fight, even if it appeared none was forthcoming...

(Van has a mild form of ESP, and he relys on his gut feeling alot.)

The Crystal Song, moving erratically to avoid any fire, would look rather strange to anyone viewing it, but from a tactical standpoint, it was a marvellous move.
(OOC: I want to make this fight more equal, so the ship is actually boarded, and the tension rises)

"Damn, they may have spotted us, no matter, wait until they get closer. Eng."
"YA Captain."
"Is every thing ready?"
"Yes."
"Good."

Once the Crystal Song entered strike range, the Raider opened fire, lasers directed at the engines, while ion pulses were sent against the shields. As the Raider went after the prize, the two fighters disconnected and streaked forward, laser cannons firing upon the escorts.

The Crystal Song was hit with an ion pulse, something the sophisticated shields had very little protection against. The ship rocked violently, and the engineer, attempting to transfer auxiliary power to the weapons, shut down the gravity generator.

The escorts wheeled off, an interceptor and fighter attacking each pirate fighter visciously with lasers and missiles. The interceptors moved extraordinarily fast, leaping into position almost instantly.

The Crystal Song fired four torpedoes at the pirate corvette, as the self-contained power supply was not affected by the ion blast.

Van Dhykler swore, and slammed his fists down on the viewscreen, and yelled at his pilot. "Damnit! Get the engineer to transfer all the power to engines, luckily they seem to be unharmed. If we can get within that station, we'll be safe!

The ship gave a mighty roar, and began turtling towards the station, hoping against hope that the pirates would either be distracted by the fighters or leave them alone....

The two fighters began dogfighting it out with the four escorts, and while numerically out-numbered, had been customised and upgraded far beyond factory standards.

The Raider surged forward after the C.S. with it's ion cannon firing again, while the primary laser cannons firing at the engines again. The four torpedos were noted and the PDLs fired, elimating one, one missed and two impacted the sheilds. The EG crew began shunting power from the non-essential power systems into the combat systems. The secondary laser guns fired at the fighters.

The fighters easily wove around the fire directed at them, as the advanced sensors, now activated, could easily detect the direction the lasers were about to fire in, and moved quickly to an unassailable position.

Although a few glancing hits were taken, the fighters, continually firing on the pirate fighters, were undamaged.

The Crystal Song rocked back and forth, and the ship began take heavy damage in many sections. The engines were immediately sealed off and discarded, but the cunning engineer had managed to activate the ion deflector shields, blocking the second ion blast.

As Van Dhykler sat in his seat, worrying, he noticed two fighters dogfighting around his ship. He pulled a lever, and a joystick popped out, on the side of his seat. He began manoeuvering with the secondary engines (The ones used mainly for sub-light travel, not for HS travel), while firing twin short-ranged plasma guns at the fighters.

(OOC: Just so you know, I'm assuming I'll win the fighter war, you'll board my ship, and 1 of my remaining fighters will escape. It seems a fairly equal way to end the battle.)

The fighters activated the ECMs and continued to hunt thier counterparts. The plasma cannon managed to hit one of the two, and did a number on the shields, but didn't overload them, at least not yet.

The Raider continued to fire on the fighters with it's secondary laser grid, while beginning to targetting the auxillery engines of the freighter.

Van Dhykler ran to a pod, and began jettisoning his cargo. If he could distract the pirates, he could probably escape in a disguised escape pod. He pressed the button, and hundreds of cargo pods flew out.

He ran towards his personal escape pod, leaving the engineer and crew to their fate, whatever it may be.

Meanwhile, the fighters were weaving around the released cargo pods, easily dodging whatever was aimed at them. One pilot made a slight miscalculation, and hit a pod, exploding in a mass of fire.

While the Raider continued to try and take the freighter, if nothing else it could be sold on either the open or black market, it began focusing on getting all the cargo-pods into a nice neat cluster for scanning and value/bulk ratio calculations.

To avoid hitting one of the cargo pods, one of the pirates fighters, the Corsarius, had to pull a serious turn, leaving it wide open and quite vunerable to an attack.

ooc: sorry for not replying sooner, I missed the thread

The interceptors swerved easily towards the open fighter, blasting all the while. It should fall in a couple of seconds.

The [i]Crystal Song[i/] began to rip itself apart, and a few small pods blasted out the back. Somehow, Dhykler had escaped the rounding up, and was a few hours away from the station, in an near-undetectable pod.

The cargo was mostly valuable industrial crystals, used to power ships. Unsurprisingly, there was a large quantity of illegal drugs and powerful weaponry, as well.

The secondary engines on the freighter gave a mighty roar, and the ship began to explode...

The Corsarius was torn apart from the weapons fire. When the freighter blew it destroyed the Banditus was destroyed as well.
The Raider switched to try and nail the remaining hostile fighters. Meanwhile the automated tractor beams began taking the cargo with the highest value and lowest bulk and guiding it into the cargobay where it was neatly arranged into piles.

The remaining fighters peeled away in different directions, their in-built sensors would let them pick up Dhykler, and take him to the starbase, where he could order another ship from home.

Upon leaving, a laser blast hit the engine of a fighter, and it began to spiral towards an asteroid. Desperately grappling for control, the pilot swung the fighter around, into the pirate's tractor beam.

He gasped with effort, and shut down his engines, hoping they didn't fire upon him. Maybe he could get a job with them, he knew pirates paid well...

The Raider let the fleeing ships go, it had to deal with the cargo, the tractored fighter as well as battle-damage. It continued to sort and store cargo.

The fighter was tractored to the fighter bay. They weren't taking and thus the boarding crew was assembled. "Pilot of the captured fighter, exit with your hands on your head."

The man did as he was instructed, carefully moving out, trying not to make any sharp, sudden movements. He knew from personal experience how vicious pirates could be...

Once the pilot was out of the fighter, one of the pirates said, "Right this way." He was escorted to the brig. A few minutes later Valk entered and pulled up a chair just outside the bars. "So what's your name, nationality and anything else you'd care to share?"