NationStates Jolt Archive

Data Encryption - Coordinates - Grid Five Five Three, Sector two one, Section C, Galactic Quadrant H. Coredian battleship rendezvous with unknown species.

Transcript Uploaded..........Evacuation Procedures Underway. Immediate Prosecution Necessary. Fleet Presence Required - Heavy.

Confirmation Code - 3J34J45K35H3O56HO7O247OI2PH1B1B1B5N34L346J0

"Is it genuine?" Thrawn leered forward.

"The codes are all current and authorised admiral. It is highly improbable that the Coredians have been able to locate any of our agents, not in the midst's of this chaos."

"They are ingenious are they not commander?"

"Ingenious?"

"The rebels of course." Thrawns gaze turned to Jurai, the glistening orb slowly being blanketed by the dark shroud of the empire. "They love beauty, yet relish war. They are a strange species commander, far more dangerous than any that we've ever encountered."

"Yes sir."

"They compose music, write literature, art and religion; their culture is a vast composite of peace, yet it shows so little of war, the horrors they have committed and continue to ignore."

"Ignore?"

"Oh yes." Thrawn took to his feet and moved towards his holo projector, flicking the small metallic switch the grand admiral called up images of several planets. "What do you see here commander?"

"Several worlds that appear to have undergone stringent security measures admiral."

Thrawn turned his head. "Yes, very stringent. They underwent Base Delta Zero operations for over twenty two hours each, enough to melt the upper crust. I know what you're thinking, another planet punished for disobedience, but this wasn't done by us, this was conducted by the rebellion, the Masakis to be exact. They are a people in denial commander, they remove any reference to these atrocities from their libraries, hide the truth from their people and mask the tyranny of their leaders."

Commander Anders took a closer look at the burning embers of civilisations ruined and torn asunder. "How many in total?"

"The records count seven worlds, but we can't be too sure, the rebellions reach extends into other Galaxies." The white gloved hand of Thrawn flicked the switch once more. "In contrast, we have the Ederis Finil." The projectors displayed a painting, depicting a slender, noble woman smiling at the viewer. "This is how they portray themselves, they delude their people to peace, while casting doubts on their purpose." Anders looked lost, his hands grasping the pile of pads he carried. "They are lost with themselves, they don't know who they are anymore."

"I don't understand admiral."

Thrawn managed a smile. "I don't expect you to. But you do understand betrayal, deceit and violence commande; at least thanks to the emperor you and I know our purpose in this life; they do not. There will come the day when they look at each other and see a lie. The rebellion is not running from us, they are fleeing from themselves, they don't know how to stop, they are afraid."

"Can we use this fear?"

Thrawn offered a small round of applause. "All fear can be used commander, all we have to do is let it destroy the enemy for us."

"How?"

"From within." Thrawn turned the projector off. "First, let us begin by removing their illusion of safety.

"Admiral." Anders stood to attention and left the ready room by Thrawns side.

"I want us in Grid Five Five Three as soon as possible, plot a projectory course and extrapolate the cruisers most likely position. I advise systems with habitable planets, a normal sun, but one that is also dense in asteroids and clouds. Remember they always leave an avenue to flee commander, always. The rebels are always afraid."

"Yes Admiral." Thrawn moved off towards his command chair, his hands once more toying with the glittering console on the rests; formally the property of Admiral Blathe, now resident in the Executors morgue. "Commscan report."

"Hyperdrive is fully powered and co-ordinates are being uploaded by Navigation, we will be go for jump in thirteen seconds. Cruisers Munificent and Treesha are standing by."

"Admiral?"

"You may jump commander." Thrawn said quietly, his commanding voice taking a more profound tone.

"Jump!" The stars transfigured into starlines......

Two Hours Later

"Well." The commander pondered the star charts. "We know the enemy has to be within this sector, our agent has given us the location, they are either here, here or here." Anders pointed to three systems. "Admiral?"

"Thrawn viewed the technical readouts on all three, one in particular stood out beyond all others. "They're here, in SY 653X." His red eyes glared at the solar nebula in the distance. "They will choose beauty over defeat. Alert the launch fighters and order the Munificent to charge her prow guns, we're going to deal with this threat."

Hanger Bay

"All hands Action Stations! Action Stations! This is a priority alert, attention this is a priority alert." The speakers boomed consistently rousing those below on gantries and walkways to proceed directly to their ships. Pilots and crewmen, technicians and ground crews each rushed to action stations. As the blue atmospheric shield flickered, the fleet had descended out of Hyperspace.

Command

"In system Admiral, commsacn searching for enemy units."

"Launch fighters, deploy bomber wings Alpha through Omega and prepare all Turbolasers for firing solutions." The Chiss clasped his hands.

"Commscan reports no contact admiral, Coredian vessel not on sensors."

"They're here." Thrawn looked more focused, his rigid facial feature tightened. "Commander, take us into the shadow of..." Thrawn glazed over the holomap of the system. "This Asteroid cloud here, launch probe droids and maintain position in the system. I suspect, they're behind one of these planets. Let us begin our game of cat and mouse....."

Hidden in the crater of a moon near the fourth planet...

Sensor bouys are the Battlestar's main weapons in the game of cat and mouse the Empire wishes to play with it. So, when sensor bouy #12 detected the presence of Imperial craft, the Battlestar's sensor operators were quick to respond.

"Sir. Imperial forces are in the system. Sensor bouy twelve just detected TIE bombers and at least three Imperial capital ships, one Executor-sized. Further scans shows it's the Executor herself!" Gidget, the senior sensor operator exclaimed.

"We can take the other two ships, but Executor?" Lieutenant Kengo asked.

"Fighter patrols are responding to bomber forces." The XO reported.

A team of X-wings raised their S-foils into attack position and attacked the bombers from the direction of the fourth planet itself, a preplanned attack that would ensure the Battlestar's crew would have the time to decide whether to flee or fight. More agile than the bombers, they waded relatively easily through the masses of TIEs and made short work of them, flitting in and out like dragonflies in a swarm of mosquitos.

"So what now?" Commander Talho asked.

"For now, they believe us to be hidden around the fourth planet." Captain Holland smiled. "I hope the Battlestar's signature is enough for the probe droids to handle."

"Might as well be." The Chief AI groused. "There's enough sensor power stuffed in them to let the Imperial know that 'we're' around."

The probe droids in question, combined with the fighter squadrons, led the Imperials know that the Battlestar is in the area of the fourth planet, perhaps behind it hiding from the Imperials in hopes of making a hit-and-run break for it. But in reality, the Battlestar was elsewhere.

"Rig the ship for silent. Let's see if we can get that Munificent cruiser on its own..." Captain Holland suggested. Aside from the Executor, it was the bigger threat with it's turbolaser prow.

The real Battlestar proved to be as silent as the empty vacuum surrounding when it wants to be, just another part of the expanses of space watching and waiting...

Battlestar - C deck.

The lights dimmed inside the battlestar as the ship went to condition one. Aden, along with countless other refugees was trapped in C deck under constant guard by the Coredian marines, who passively prevented any exit from the long civilian strewn corridors. Apparantly according to rumour there was a battle raging outside, the terrors of space, conflict and psychological warfare tearing at the rebellions latest hope.

Sitting on the cold floor, back against the Durastell bulkhead, Aden studied his environment. One main corridor with adjacent rooms for pretty much the entire length. Over seven hundred civilians crampt into bunks and other areas, and one lone Imperial agent trapped amongst this mess.

"What to do?" He thought, his head looking up in despair. Catching the silver glimmer of an O2 line Adens computerised training instantly took command; he had to inspect it further... There could be great potential here.....

Rising slowly as if enduring back pain the Imperial agent subtly followed the metal pipe as it winded and twisted its way across the deck; his head always kept down, eyes and smile focused on the crowd. As far as they knew, he was simply one of them. The pipe took a sharp left into the bathrooms, the gents toilet oddly enough and it was vacant? several blocked toilets soon told him why.

"Now where do you go?" He continued to walk along the wet floor, stopping where the pipe disappeared behind a panel "Hmmmm" Lifting it away slowly and quietly Aden crept into the small corridor beyond, turning he grasped the black board and replaced it insuring his secrecy. The room, was apparently an Oxygen junction for the entire deck. "Now, where is the terminal?" He moved towards the Scrubber console finding a link into environmental controls.

"I really hate this part." He said squeamishly. Pulling off a finger nail a small data junctor opened up allowing him into the battlestars environmental controls. With a click and turn, he was connected. Aden moved through command protocols and subroutines until of course he found what he needed. "Vent atmosphere." His mind flickered through the data base. The computers weren't networked the AI was isolated. Ingenious he smiled, the battlestar was all but invulnerable from attacks from without, especially by those from communications based Viri, but from within..... From here, he could vent the entire ship.

Starting with engineering. Smiling in that snide Imperial way, Aden issued the command. ENGINEERING: - VENT ALL ATMOSPHERE

Thrawn

"The know we're here." The Chiss said relaxed. "To be expected; I had hoped they would have failed to launch buoys."

"Unfortunately, it's not our lucky day admiral."

"Apparently so." Thrawn said as the fighters made contact. "How long until we enter the field?"

"Two more minutes until we can deploy the generator."

"Excellent." Thrawns happy face smiled as the Imperial task force slowly slipped through the sensor capability of the Battlestar, the vast hulk of the Executor disappearing through the residue of a systems stellar creation. The field, hosted some form of unusual ore, including dark matter shadows, the radiation from both phenomenon scrambling both Imperial as well as rebel sensors, affording Thrawn some time to collect his thoughts. Yet, the Executor was not completely defenceless, deploying several large spheres, the system slowly fell to the Empires vast and distorting gravity wells and dimensional inhibitors.

Battlestar - C deck.

The lights dimmed inside the battlestar as the ship went to condition one. Aden, along with countless other refugees was trapped in C deck under constant guard by the Coredian marines, who passively prevented any exit from the long civilian strewn corridors. Apparantly according to rumour there was a battle raging outside, the terrors of space, conflict and psychological warfare tearing at the rebellions latest hope.

Sitting on the cold floor, back against the Durastell bulkhead, Aden studied his environment. One main corridor with adjacent rooms for pretty much the entire length. Over seven hundred civilians crampt into bunks and other areas, and one lone Imperial agent trapped amongst this mess.

"What to do?" He thought, his head looking up in despair. Catching the silver glimmer of an O2 line Adens computerised training instantly took command; he had to inspect it further... There could be great potential here.....

Rising slowly as if enduring back pain the Imperial agent subtly followed the metal pipe as it winded and twisted its way across the deck; his head always kept down, eyes and smile focused on the crowd. As far as they knew, he was simply one of them. The pipe took a sharp left into the bathrooms, the gents toilet oddly enough and it was vacant? several blocked toilets soon told him why.

"Now where do you go?" He continued to walk along the wet floor, stopping where the pipe disappeared behind a panel "Hmmmm" Lifting it away slowly and quietly Aden crept into the small corridor beyond, turning he grasped the black board and replaced it insuring his secrecy. The room, was apparently an Oxygen junction for the entire deck. "Now, where is the terminal?" He moved towards the Scrubber console finding a link into environmental controls.

"I really hate this part." He said squeamishly. Pulling off a finger nail a small data junctor opened up allowing him into the battlestars environmental controls. With a click and turn, he was connected. Aden moved through command protocols and subroutines until of course he found what he needed. "Vent atmosphere." His mind flickered through the data base. The computers weren't networked the AI was isolated. Ingenious he smiled, the battlestar was all but invulnerable from attacks from without, especially by those from communications based Viri, but from within..... From here, he could vent the entire ship.

Starting with engineering. Smiling in that snide Imperial way, Aden issued the command. ENGINEERING: - VENT ALL ATMOSPHERE
Klaxons suddenly rang out as hatches exposed themselves to space, leaking air by the second. In the microseconds that the false order was given out, the Chief noticed that something was amiss. His 'mind' if one could call it that, raced at nearly the speed of light, detecting the order, analyzing the problem, noting a momentary drop in atmosphere and linked up to the mainframe, using his very considerable processing power to take control of Engineering and reverse the order.

Another microsecond later, he appeared at the bridge. "Somebody's hacked into Engineering. Fixed it, but we lost 2% of atmosphere in the process."

"Recoverable. Can you find out where the hack is coming from, Chief?" Holland asked.

"Yes sir!" The Chief spread his powers outward, reaching into every corner of the ship for the culprit, sending forth a number of small bugs (literally) into the system...

As the Chief did his work, Holland made a decision. "Master at Arms, this is Captain Holland."

"Sir!" Came the answer of Marine Colonel Quinlan Alchak, head of security for the ship.

"Muster the troops and erect patrols for any suspicious persons. This ship is under lockdown until further notice." The Captain ordered.

"Yes, sir." The colonel nodded.

"I'm going to look too." Jacob Masaki said.

"Very well." The captain nodded. Surely the Jedi Alchemist could help!

"Uh, Captain? The Executor..." Gidget nearly freaked out.

"Calm down, girl. What is it?"

"It's gone!"

Thrawn

"The know we're here." The Chiss said relaxed. "To be expected; I had hoped they would have failed to launch buoys."

"Unfortunately, it's not our lucky day admiral."

"Apparently so." Thrawn said as the fighters made contact. "How long until we enter the field?"

"Two more minutes until we can deploy the generator."

"Excellent." Thrawns happy face smiled as the Imperial task force slowly slipped through the sensor capability of the Battlestar, the vast hulk of the Executor disappearing through the residue of a systems stellar creation. The field, hosted some form of unusual ore, including dark matter shadows, the radiation from both phenomenon scrambling both Imperial as well as rebel sensors, affording Thrawn some time to collect his thoughts. Yet, the Executor was not completely defenceless, deploying several large spheres, the system slowly fell to the Empires vast and distorting gravity wells and dimensional inhibitors.
'Hyperdrive's red too!" Talho moaned as the red light began beeping.

Holland growled. "Cloaked and trapped. This isn't turning out to be a good day."

"Should we move?" Someone asked.

"No. Stay silent. Gidget, see if the bouys can burn through the interference." Holland ordered.

"I can try." Gidget said, pressing some buttons.

The bouys began to boost their power output around the star system, trying to burn through the Empire's jamming. It helped that the Defender was nearby, adding weight to the sensor capabilities.

Meanwhile, the fighter squadrons continued to fight the enemy's bomber units with some success...

((OOC: CW, you have that datapad. Who you gonna call? *nudgenudgepokepokeprodprodthrottlethrottle*))

"Commscan; plot a projection analysis, I want to know if we can enter Hyperspace." Thrawn looked over the holotable his mind fixed upon one of his more unconventional tactics.

"What do you propose admiral?" Commander Anders asked curiously.

"That we leave the system and double back.." Thrawn pointed his finger to a lumbering gas giant on the holo table. "The rebel commander will believe us to be hiding within this gas cloud, expecting us to wait on reinforcements from the fleet. They will be anxious, concerned, and nervous about our sudden disappearance from sensors."

"We will need a distraction from their grid admiral, commscan believes the rebels to be using multiple units similar to our Viper droids."

"Hmmm." Thrawn mused for a moment. "The Munificent here, will exit the gas cloud for a few moments and fire upon this moon here. The resulting radiation and debris should be enough to scramble their sensors."

"Ours as well admiral." Commander Anders pointed out.

"Quite right, which is why we will be deploying our entire fighter contingents within the cloud. Upon the moons destruction our squadrons will attempt to drive the battlestar from behind the fourth planet. Once we have a position fix, we will jump in and finish her off."

Anders loved the simplicity of the plan. "Of course this is depending upon our ability to jump."

"Naturally." Thrawn tilted towards commscan. "Well ensign?"

"We are a go for a low acceleration jump admiral."

"Excellent, see to it commander."

Munificent

"Sensors report escorts in position."

"Roger Roger" 0oom 15 acknowledged. "Helm, bring us around. Bearing one two three."

"I despise droids." Colonel Stroder said passively. "They're inhuman, I don't see what the emperor wants with damn walking toasters."

"Careful colonel, that sounds very close to treason." Captain Yida smiled as he looked at the bulky marine. "Droids my friend are immensely superior to our clone counterparts, they don't require food or sleep. They don't tire and they certainly don't have moral qualms."

"I still don't like them."

"Captain, we've cleared the cloud. Main battery charged and ready to fire." The synthesised voice echoed for a second.

"See to it Fifteen."

"Main battery. Open fire."

"Roger Roger."

Battlestar

Aden smashed his fist on the damp deck wall. Their computers were networked, not normally, but with a back door protocol; highly unconventional and highly dangerous. The flip gate meant that an AI's attention was drawn from certain ships systems at any one time, preventing it from obtaining complete control of the warship, which also meant, while it was dealing with environmental control, weapons, sensors, tactical; other sections were without its flickering attention.

"Lets have some chaos." Aden mumbled as he pulled his finger from the primary data socket. Clenching his fist once more he grasped the O2 sensor below smashing it in two. As far as the computer would be able to tell, deck C was quickly starving itself of Oxygen. As if to glorify his efforts the yellow lights above quickly dulled an emergency red. "Time to join the rampage." Aden said as screams of panic erupted from outside.

"O2 levels failing on Deck C." A mechanical voice intoned.

"Damn." Jacob breathed. He could sense the civilians begin to panic on the deck. He meandered his way through the winding corridors and to the deck, where people are beginning to file out. But once he reached Deck C, he felt...no different. If there was a loss of oxygen, he'd start feeling lightheaded. Odd. There's definitely someone trying to make trouble around here. Better find the saboteur fast!

"Sergeant. Tell the civilians to grab their emergency air packs." Jacob ordered a trooper by his side. "As soon as people start feeling lightheaded, have them put them on."

"Yes, sir." The sergeant replied and went to the intercom. "Attention passengers on Deck C. Please go to your nearest emergency stations and pick up an emergency air pack. A soldier will be available to help you with that. Should you feel lightheadedness and shortness of breath, put them on immediately. Thank you."

Now, to find the culprit. Jacob thought, silently moving through the crowd, reaching out into the Force, reaching past the minds of anxious civilians heading towards their stations, guided by troopers...

Meanwhile, the bridge was equally hectic as the Muunificent fired upon the moon, shattering it and sending molten sprays everywhere. The shockwave would hit the Battlestar, unless...

"Diverting power to shields!" Gidget reported.

"Thrusters online!" Talho cried.

"We'll ride the wave. Move!" Captain Holland ordered. The ship then shuddered as rocks plinked against its shields. "Activate tractor beams!"

The ship rose with the wave, using its tractor beams to forcibly knock away heavy rocks while its shields handled smaller amounts of ordinance. The great thing about "riding the wave" is that you're basically travelling in the speed range as the rocks, so they won't hit you as much. Plus, having so many rocks around you keeps sensors from accurately detecting the Battlestar. And the vector thrusters helped alot in avoiding the even larger rocks.

The rumblings soon diminished. Upon Holland's next order, every tractor beam now juggled several asteroids in their clutches, swirling around the ship like small moons. Another weapon and another defense for the Battlestar...

ooc: is this open? and is it Star Wars?

ooc: is this open? and is it Star Wars?

Currently closed for now. Yup, Star Wars all the way!