Hull 721, plot arc the second

[Vianca]

Mmmm, looks like a whole lot of fun.
Not a lot of people to trust, could they use the tender in this little ops?
Better yet, can they keep her?

Do check the opponents that toke out that twin, in the link I pm'ed you, might be something there.
At the very least, there is enough criminal groups around, besides the rebels and the renegade Imps, that it should give them and you enough targets.
They should be able to find something funny in such a big transshipment point, so a raid is easy to explain in reports, atleast.

[Crazedwraith]

I think the Executor thing is not something that was necessary. If your view of Star Wars doesn't match up with the films then you should alter your opinion to match the film not make up the idea that the Executor's designers were somehow forced into being morons.

Maybe SW just doesn't throw down so many gigatons as you think? Would that be so bad?

Regardless, you worked into the plot and it does make me wonder where this will go, with the minor conspiracy taking place. People turning to Lennart and crew instead of the appropriate authority. If that continues he's got the makings of his own little warlord state by the time Endor rolls around.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I'm not a movie purist; never claimed to be, or for that matter set out to be. If anything I'm a WEGonian, and I go with "foggy window theory"- the idea that the reality (choose your own punctuation marks for that one) of the SW universe as we see it is filtered through the strengths and limitations of the medium, distorted in the retelling, spun, blithered, misinterpreted both accidentally and deliberately, scattered with mistakes, myths and inconvenient truths.

I find this also a good way to read real- world news, which is one of the reasons I hardly ever comment in N&P.

Anyway, of the numerous command ships built, which of them do not come to an ignominious end? Executor herself- try doing a launchester regression on that one. Aggressor lost a fight with a barely mobile weapons platform. Annihilator, blown to bits by a granted peer- competitor, but one with an utterly green crew. Losing to a baby. Guardian- crippled and forced into retreat by vastly inferior opposition. The whole Brawl/Iron Fist/Razor's Kiss debacle? Apart from, again, losing to minnows, it seems they're hardly worth not self- destructing. Night Hammer- again, boom, but at least that was a security fuckup. Lusankya- commissioned as a prison hulk, hardly appropriate for a new first rate warship. Subsequent fate, cheap kill to a trick indicating her crew were barely more than half awake. Reaper? Again shredded by comparative minnows. Vengeance- again, cheap kill by minnows.

Spotting a pattern here? You may be on to something though, the circle of people blamable as incompetent for being iinvolved in the existence of a stained- glass elephant as expensive and pointless as the Executor class should really be much larger than that.

Their functional survivability really is freakishly low, and if you look closely what I'm actually suggesting it is that their defensive systems are optimised for a peer competitor- a mistake sentient beings might in fact make, given the thing was supposed to have escorts- and in doing so sacrificed rather too much ability to cope with what they actually did routinely face. (The alternative is to assume that with all large ships, functional resistance to damage rises as the cube root of the vessel's mass; hm.)

If you'd typed "jiggatons" it would have been more obvious that was a dog whistle, you know.

[Crazedwraith]

*spits foot out of mouth* Sorry ECR. I didn't mean to offend. That last comment was over the line and poorly expressed.

I'd forgotten so many EU Executors went down like a bitch. Though I think the X-Wing novels sort of justified it. Lusankya was captured mainly through brinkmanship, iirc and because it assumed ISD Virulence was friendly. Isard's industrial base of one planet was not exactly keeping it in top shape anyway. Razor's Kiss was unmanned aside from a bridge crew and Iron Fist had a task force dedicated to destroying it but would have come off fine if not for the internal sabotage via mouse droids that had been going on. But I'm not familiar with its final destruction nor with the other ships you mention.

Anyway, what I mean to express was the Executor spiel strikes me as something included for its own sake 'my explanation for executor's poor performance' rather than something that was necessarily required for the story. But hey your story, your rules, you like infodumps go for it. And like I said, it did also contain the germs of some interesting stuff vis a vis Lennart's reputation with the fleet as a whole and as alternative to making complaints through official channels. Which in the EU can be very counter productive. There was that one EU stormtrooper who was only a grunt because he dared to point out the tow cable trick could be used against walkers.

[Captain Seafort]

But I'm not familiar with its final destruction

Iron Fist's destruction adds to the habit of providing decent excuses for the ships going down to light forces - she was in dry dock, and the Falcon jammed a couple of concussion missiles into her bridge.

And like I said, it did also contain the germs of some interesting stuff vis a vis Lennart's reputation with the fleet as a whole and as alternative to making complaints through official channels. Which in the EU can be very counter productive. There was that one EU stormtrooper who was only a grunt because he dared to point out the tow cable trick could be used against walkers.

Pointing out technical problems through official channels can cause problems in the films as well as the EU - remember Tarkin's reaction to being told the rebels' attack posed a threat at Yavin.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Don't worry about it, I'm just having a bad day myself- "where do I go from here" post new year blues. I'm not overly happy with myself for staying out of that debate actually, but that's another story.

Speaking of other stories, I'm also trying to justify a particular bad design choice dragging the Executor class down so I can point to other classes where that decision wasn't made, and do more with and to them- specifically the Bellator class, there's more to be done there.

[Raesene]

The Bellators are coming ? Looking forward to that...

[Vianca]

Most SSD's went down after Endor, so costum alterations could have been made by the persons owning them.
If Lusy didn't get this from Isard, then the NR gave it to her in her rebuild/reconstruction.
Same for Guardian, she defended Mon Cal(what ever the name was), during the Vong Wars.

A SD could have a smaller hull or a stronger punch, if you believe certain ship backstories.

[Andras]

Iron Fist's destruction adds to the habit of providing decent excuses for the ships going down to light forces - she was in dry dock, and the Falcon jammed a couple of concussion missiles into her bridge.

Iron Fist was destroyed in COPL in a battle above Drathomir, not in drydock.

[Captain Seafort]

A SD could have a smaller hull or a stronger punch, if you believe certain ship backstories.

The Nebs are a bit of a different case, given that they've got much smaller troop and support ship complements than the ISD, and have much shorter endurance. It's therefore wouldn't be all that surprising if they could match or outgun one.

[Vianca]

As for SSD's dying fast, inluding the Eclipse class, is that were the Sovereign class SSD comes in?

[Andras]

Speaking of Iron Fist and SSDs, wasn't she retconned from a regular ISD in COPL (1994) to a SSD in the Wraith Sqdrn series (1999)? I just reviewed COPL quickly and there is nothing that indicates it is anything other then a regular ISD.

[Vianca]

That was his first fist, he names the SSD after her.
It's in the book were Second Death was in.

[Andras]

Nope. The first Fist was a VSD.

The Iron Fist (SSD version) escapes in Solo Command and is destroyed in COPL (ISD version).

Solo Command concludes -'The story of Han Solo and Warlod Zsinj continues in COPL'

[Captain Seafort]

Speaking of Iron Fist and SSDs, wasn't she retconned from a regular ISD in COPL (1994) to a SSD in the Wraith Sqdrn series (1999)? I just reviewed COPL quickly and there is nothing that indicates it is anything other then a regular ISD.

From memory, I think it was fixing an internal bog up rather than retconning it. As I recall, Iron Fist was described as an SSD in Han's internal monologue at the start of the book (where he she'd been destroyed), but in the finale Luke had to tell Han that the ship they were attacking was Iron Fist, which implies that she's indistinguishable from a typical destroyer (and created the contradiction that Allston had to fix with the Razor's Kiss/Second Death).

That was his first fist, he names the SSD after her.

No, the first Iron First was a VicStar, not an ISD.

[Andras]

COPL opens with Han noting the SSD Iron Fist had been destroyed after a 5 month hunt and it would cripple Zsinj's operations. The ship destroyed in the end of COPL is a normal ISD. The only thing that messed up the timeline is the stupid Second Death fake out. If the IF was truly destroyed in Solo Command everything would proceed from there as written.

[Captain Seafort]

The ship destroyed in the end of COPL is a normal ISD.

About which Luke specifically stated, when asked who was on it, "Zsinj. That's the Iron Fist." Without any indication that this was a different ship to the one Han thought he'd destroyed.

[Andras]

How about the fact that it looked like every other ISD and Han could not tell the difference, that it was one of two 'slate grey Vs of twin Star Destroyers', that it was besieged by 2 Hapan Battle Dragons and had two more SDs vectoring in for support. You think the an SSD require support against two HBD's?

You think Han wouldn't know that the only SSD in the area was the IF if there actually was an SSD in orbit? Zsinj renamed a ISD the IF once the SSD was destroyed. He's renamed his ship before.

(ECR- sorry for the side track)

[Captain Seafort]

How about the fact that it looked like every other ISD and Han could not tell the difference

Obviously Han was still suffering the side effects of being beaten up by a woman who made Palpatine nervous.

You think the an SSD require support against two HBD's?

If it's in dock being patched up, and is therefore in far from optimum condition, yes.

You think Han wouldn't know that the only SSD in the area was the IF if there actually was an SSD in orbit?

There was - it was mentioned as being in dock, and being attacked, when Isolder and Luke arrived.

Zsinj renamed a ISD the IF once the SSD was destroyed. He's renamed his ship before.

Possibly, but the presence of an SSD in dock, combined with the ship attacked being identified by Luke as the Iron Fist, suggests that it was the same ship and that a) Han was wrong about it being destroyed (IU) and either b) Wolverton and his editor forgot that it had been described as destroyed or c) he intended Han to have been mistaken and didn't make the point obvious enough (OOU).

(ECR- sorry for the side track)

Seconded.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

There I was, just thinking this morning that the views were high and rising but I wish I got more comments; and look what happened...

I'm not a fan of the Anaxes War College system- it throws together at the top end what I reckon are three separate weight classes, and I haven't really put definite effort into sorting out what is and isn't now canon and accepted for names and shapes at the upper end of the list. I had my own fleet lists, of course, and reckoned the Mandators as fourteen kilometre, 6.4E26 W ships, and the hunchbacks as a separate type entirely; now all of that's been officially changed, although how much I'll change is an open question.

How much damage to do to the timeline, though- I haven't really got very far with post Endor plotting, although there has been some. Grant the people involved their supposed talents- they are supposed to be in many ways, and I'm talking about the canon characters here, the class of the galaxy. I couldn't really justify doing horrible things to Vader, although for instance Wrenga Jixton might be fair game.

[Vianca]

Heh, you can partly blame me for that Remnant, I usealy pm you with the bigger things and post the small ones here.

[Andras]

Just for yucks, I designed the modified 721 with the WOTC Starships of the Galaxy design system for the RPG, costs about 450million Cr if built new.

Hull721

I use the Space station rules to make star destroyers. Much more impressive (and expensive).

A note about battery fire in the RPG. If you combine a number of like weapons into a battery, they get a bonus to hit but do the same damage as one weapon. So for example, if the 320s all fired on the same target, they could take 3 individual shots @ +4 to hit and do normal damage on each hit, or fire as a battery at +6 to hit, but only do damage once.

Some of the lighter weapons were grouped into sets via fire-links. Fire links increase damage but not the to hit modifier.

Autofire and Multifire weapons get to take multiple shots if they use a much lower to hit modifier. Auto fire gets 3 shots at a -6 penalty, and Multifire weapons get 2 shots at -4.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Next bit. Some insanity and a little shooting.



Target lists were drawn up, contingencies drafted, assets allocated, and quadrupeds traded. As usual it got out of hand; there was the part that was officially supposed and sanctioned to happen, then there were the private deals at high level between supposedly responsible parties, things that had paperwork, then there were the unofficial deals usually at senior- noncom level, which were at least usually deals.

Then there were the scams, and the theft, and the pranks. Some of which Lennart didn't actually object to at all, just pretended to do officially. Others he was actually annoyed by, and one of those resulted in several members of the Com-Scan department on the carpet in the ready room off the bridge.

'I just got a call from Acting Captain Mmphlephoophenemph Squongelleberk of the tender.' Most of them giggled, but none of them looked particularly guilty, which was odd. 'He's quite annoyed about the fact that that wasn't actually his name until 0439, when someone sliced into the tender's SCAP access and diddled the personnel files. Changed his name, changed his authorised access, changed his birth certificate, changed those of most of the crew in fact.

The personnel of that ship are now faced with hopeless ridicule for the rest of their lives, possible loss of actual pension rights, the ire of their families, and some of the most ridiculous names I have ever seen outside of a movie script. A more inappropriate move at a more inappropriate time would be hard to comprehend- I thought I had let you get it out of your systems on Corellia. You know that the zone of tolerance ends when you endanger the rest of the crew, when you endanger the ship.

If we had time I'd wire you to an obizedrine drip and have you do it all, each and every one of the five billion lines of code we still need urgently before any of our enemies, foreign and domestic, come to try their luck. In fact we obviously do have time, how the stang you found the energy to do it-' the collective penny fell.


Most of the assembled usual suspects said 'But we didn't, fourteen hours, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen hours a day, we may be crazy but we're not mad.'

Cormall was one of the usual suspects; as usual. 'We know there's a time and a place. Maybe once we were done, but they're taking a lot of our load off, we need them. We're not plugged into anything either, it's not like there's a local system network.'

'Unless they are, they must be on milnet, and they've been screwed with to slow us down- we're not taking responsibility for their external security, a hack job could account for it.' Finbar pointed out.

'They're not; on EMCON, nothing out- maybe somebody made a mistake?' Orlande Garin wondered. He was recently promoted form obscurity to Chief, and still thought like a responsibility-less hacker. 'We still receive on emcon, a krellian horse, command to activate long range comms and accept a mynock program?'

'Or we're missing a trick.' Lennart said, grumpily- even if they were innocent they had still missed something that should have been right there in front of them. 'Something that should have been glaringly bloody obvious and I'm going to start doubting your competence if you don't come up with it as well in the next few moments.'

They looked at each other for a second, then Cormall got it. 'Kriff.' He said, putting his head in his hands. 'Not the shavving Mouse Droid Collective.'


Most of them were reacting the same way. Finbar put it like this; 'They're not an untapped well of programming resources. More like an undrained poo pond. Most of them have about as much knowledge of machine code as we do of medicine- they code about as well as people do DIY surgery.'

Tennor Ulic pointed out 'They write code like things with perfect memories- they don't leave documentation. They don't debug intensively, they avoid the errors they understand- which means fewer small mistakes but more big ones and they never admit to them, they don't write interfaces worth a damn, they don't look for elegance, they take brute force, computationally intense solutions that are the easy way for them and the hard way for us. And they beep.' He said that like it was a major problem.

'Would you say that they know they're not wanted?' Lennart asked. They mostly nodded, made grunting noises, generally answered in the affirmative. He carried on 'So who put them up to acting up like this now?'

'I'd prefer it if we had been hacked.' Cormall pointed out. 'Easier to deal with. I'd actually trust the legion's efforts before I'd trust theirs- at least the whiteskulls aren't too up themselves to follow the manual. Who set them up to it- who works with droids day in day out and is essentially a crazy person?'


'You reckon it was probably Chief Mirannon.' Lennart said, identifying the number one prime suspect for most of the odder things on board. He could see the logic of it. In fact, it seemed very likely.

'I'd rather not say that out loud, skipper.' Cormall confirmed.

'You don't trust his sense of humour? Well, after this you may have reason.' Lennart said, wondering if he had actually meant it or if this was something getting out of hand.

'Mainly I don't trust his sense of plumbing.'

Would the chief abuse his position for petty revenge like that? If it was sufficiently entertaining, yes, of course he would. 'Working assumption; this is basically our astromechs' attempt to volunteer, by doing something that makes us decide they're worth more inside the pressure-dome pissing out. Which is typical slicer behaviour as you all well know.

We're getting damn all out of the tender until this is fixed, so priority one, fix it- and if their style is that distinct confirm that it actually was them. Then we either take them up on it or start shooting and memory wiping.

Can you come up with a division of labour that gets them to do something useful and minimises the style problems- and also doesn't reward them for being dangerous idiots, the way most slicers usually expect to be?' Lennart asked.

They all looked confused at that. Consequences? Actually holding a computer cracker responsible for their actions as they affected the real world? That was culture shock. 'We'll need thinking time on this one, couple of hours to figure it out?' Cormall asked.

It wasn't an unreasonable request. It wasn't a very reasonable situation. 'Provided you can sort it out at the same time. Get your backsides over to the tender, progress report in a hundred and fifty minutes. Move.'


They saluted and bolted to get their gear together and get a personnel pod over to the tender; most of the Imperial Starfleet, Lennart thought looking up at the deckhead, has nothing but days like this, days of grind, mistake, failure and misadventure, mind destroying routine broken only by outbreaks of petty tyranny and abuse and mechanical disaster.

We have made enemies of half our own fleet and are scrambling to finish putting the ship back together before having to fight for our lives- on top of the usual catalogue of cockup and cocking about. At least it's not dull.

'Ground forces- tell the firing squad to switch to DEMP, the current theory for the Sleazebaggano Incident is renegade droids.' The automatic message router should be working again, hopefully.

'Engineering, captain. One of the slicers just made a very strange comment to me. Basically that stormtroopers made better emergency backup bit-flippers than the droid contingent, because they were willing to learn and do things the straightforward way instead of trying to flange it and show off every time. Does there strike you as being logic to that?'

It was Mirannon, and there was some beeping in the background. 'Second and Third Watch astromech detachments have just handed a printed statement to me saying that it wasn't their fault and they didn't do it. I was preparing the presentation for the tech-rep from Cygnus, have they gone and done something stupid?'

How seriously to take that, Lennart wondered. 'Engage visitor SCAP access to the tender.' There was the sound of tapping keyboard, and the next sound after that was Mirannon laughing.


After a few moments he said 'You really need somebody permanent in the job of executive officer.'

'I am finding it harder than usual,' Lennart admitted, 'to see the funny side of this. Having to do my own yelling and screaming and jumping up and down in an official capacity is tiring work. How much did you have to do with their decision making process?'

'I told the droid delegation that if they wanted to be useful, they should do something to that end- that actions would be more important than words. That they should find some way that they could help. This wasn't what I had in mind.' Mirannon admitted. 'How it turned into what they decided to do is going to be worth investigating, but the droid repair station hasn't been put back together yet.'

'Why was it ever taken apart? Don't tell me. Done by the droids. Instead tell me how this doesn't justify condition two, internal security alert?' Lennart asked.

'It was scheduled,' Mirannon said, 'it was always a lash up and the plan was to rationalise and move to spaces that weren't a cluttered shambles, convert the old droidworks to training and workshop rooms and go to a new facility in the space left by the flight groups for the secondary bay, aft of the new B reactor. Haven't moved in yet. Maybe they took advantage of that, but I don't think they set it up. Other workshops- I doubt they'd get a fair hearing on the tender at the moment.'

'From someone who has been forcibly renamed Grafflepwungitt Sloogonnimer? I should think not, I imagine almost anyone in that situation would be feeling remarkably merciless. Raesene's Nerveless has a large droid crew, doesn't it- feature of the class. That means large droid workshops and robopsychology labs, so there's that option.

Before anything positive happens to them, I want the damage undone- there's a team on their way now anyway- and an explanation, in their own beeps, of what the kriff they thought they were doing. I'll make a decision as to what to use them as based on that.' Lennart stated. The option of "moving targets" was still open.


For that matter there was the comment that the white- hats made better coders. Few had any real talent for it, to many it was gibberish, but there was something to it overall- how many non- Marine jobs did they do around the ship, how much help were they in Engineering for a start?

It was part of the cultural conditioning, the unstoppable determination, the gung ho, can do attitude- they took to things outside their supposed specialty without fuss, usually without much subtlety as well, they had the willpower to batter through even when they had no clue what they were doing, and usually got there in the end.

Which was upside down, because battering on through in the infantry was actually a good way to get zapped. A lot of the cockiness, the arrogance that backed that can- do approach came from the fact that they did a monstrously dangerous job- which Lennart had actually backed away from committing them to on several occasions when the manual said go, because they were too useful around the ship.

Ideally I'd have the Marines transferred to ship's crew and bolt guns on to the droids and let them go and get blasted, but neither party would welcome that and command would go completely spare. The droids might deserve it though.


There had been another thing. 'This tech rep from Cygnus is here to look at what we've done with the PulsarWing, yes? Why does he need a presentation from the chief engineer- all right, what have you designed that you want to show them?'

'This.' The file routing worked; it was the skeleton a lot of the data- shuffling was being done on so it had better, it was one of the first things put back together. Lennart opened the file; looked it over, thought about it.

'The scream allowance on this thing is?'

'Within the error bars of proportional.' Mirannon stated, and an unlikely statement it was. What he had done was assume that the development of the Starwing was going to follow the usual course, diversion, speciation, specialisation, and leap directly to the final term in the series- the second generation multirole that tried to pull as many as possible of the variants together.

There was one major problem in calling it a Starwing, which was that it didn't have wings, not really. Short stubby things, neutrino radiators, and only three instead of five. Cockpit module more like a LAAT's, tandem, narrow, and a definite improvement over the greenhouse Cygnus had saddled the alpha version with- nose not changed much in shape, the two man cockpit actually left more avionics space than the single pilot setup at the moment.

Broader bodied, large fighter reactor at the centrepoint, sublight engines aft- four groups of nozzles- and hyperdrive forward, fuel and life support pods for extended duration, heavy shielding for a fighter; ball sockets for turrets beneath the cockpit in what would be a chin position if it was further forward, another dorsal aft behind the upper heatsink hump.


Why did those support ribs stick out like- oh. Modular main guns? Removable conformal weapon pods, probably wouldn't be swapped out on the actual examples but could be used to adjust the thing to any of the existing configurations. Two missile and two medium gun pods and you had better than the standard configuration- more warheads and two more energy weapons. Two heavy gun pods and you had a Pulsarwing, with two pods to spare. Four turret pods and you had a superb escort fighter.

Turrets themselves were modular and remote, like the ball on the Geonosian territorial- defence fighters, Nantex type; fixed pair could be swapped out for additional sensors, jamming gear, tractor beams, decoy pod, in addition to the obvious items of zap.

Fast, somewhere between TIE/Ln and Interceptor for raw speed and close to Interceptor agility, but it got that by putting a lot of power through big engines, which meant Mirannon was being optimistic about the maintenance scream quotient again. Those multiple- chamber engines ate a lot of fuel, too- they would be hungry and expensive beasts.

All good- but a moment. 'We're tactical and under emission control. The tech rep isn't going to be able to find us unless they head for the Veren Porphyr system and get retrieved by one of the boats, and they're not going to be aware they need to do that until one of the boats is insystem and able to use civil loop relays. A few days , and we need to move faster than that- have to sort the droids out on the way.'


When the actual move was able to take place then, the process of robot herding was still ongoing and it was still doubtful whether any of the three ships would actually move the way they were supposed to. What was supposed to happen was that they would jump to a new hide position, off the trade lanes but in sensor sweep radius of a direct path from VP to Hoth, and send the wave of transports and fighters in on an indirect, doglegged path again.

Transition, transit, emergence, scramble- the tender did have a small craft park that had turned out to be adequate to the task, Black Prince sortied fifty transports and as many of the hundred and forty- four fighters as could be persuaded to leave the ground. In practise the TIE series had set the bar very high, there were civilian groundcars that broke down more often than the TIE fighter, and while the higher- energy models in the series were usually crankier, everyone made it this time.

Briefing had not been optimistic- relatively little fighter opposition and that mostly obsolete and flabby, but a lot of armed freighters flown on tight schedules by cranky, grumpy, violence prone free traders who usually disliked the Empire on principle. The random violence risk was high and the deadline too short to trickle in a handful at a time, so there was going to be a splash, and somebody was probably going to start shooting.

Rules of engagement were optimistic, at least in assuming it wasn't going to descend into a total shambles almost instantly; verbal warnings first, give challenges before opening fire. Return if fired upon of course, that was automatic, but the truckers and miners were likely to be enough trouble without going looking for it.

First job was escort, full wing, then first tac wing- Alpha, Beta and Gamma- would remain insystem on watch, intercepting and scanning new arrivals and covering the grounded transports as far as possible, while the rest of the wing charted the system, did proper reconnaissance mapping and established a baseline to monitor; then it would be a one in four rotation, each tac wing taking its' turn. That was the skeleton of the plan, anyway.


Nobody got lost on the way, the system was easy enough to find, well beaconed and much com chatter; most of the transports went to slight compromise positions, close enough that they could divert as the priority list changed. It was provisional at the moment, further details would depend on what the scanners revealed.

Almost two hundred Imperial ID transponders popping into the system drew attention, certainly. The system was a riot of com chatter, and one of the nicest things about the YT-1930M series was that they had so much room for electronic warfare and sigint/comint gear in addition to the obvious things like guns and stuff.

The channels in that first minute were very full indeed, everyone asking everyone else what it was all about, much confusion and some panic. Intercepted, filtered, first- cut decrypt and analysis on board, beamed back to Black Prince (via an off- axis probe/drone) for deeper scrutiny. Who reacted as if they had something to hide? They moved up the target priority list.

Target one was, unsurprisingly, system traffic control- a holding company with shares divided among the insystem presences. Two was the largest single mining firm, Splundig Diggers, which was a subdivision of MinerAll which was part of Iyol Autonetics which- three more companies up the food chain you got to Arakyd.

Third on the basis of their reaction was actually another public corporation, Search and Rescue; targeting them sounded cannibalistic but made sense in the invisible war. They had small fast ships with a ready- made excuse for being anywhere at all, operated to no fixed schedule, could turn up with strange, dishevelled people with no documentation without any fuss being raised, and they were likely to be offended by the Empire and what it stood for.


So much for the fixed targets. Several of the free traders contracted to haul for the smaller mining companies did have records shady enough to have their engine prints in the system, and some of them were daft enough or fast enough to activate weapons and combat shields and start calculating for jump. They would be worth arresting and interrogating, that was what the fighter wing was for. Flight groups peeled off to intercept the dubious.

Aron Jandras' squadron got one of the jobs. He had a bit of a double take when the raid leader- Shulmar was doing this one himself- commed him; took him a moment to recognise that in the new reformed wing he was now Iota One. Managed to cover his hesitation- he thought. Could just about keep track of who was who in the squadron, but only through the cheat- sheet he had laminated to the port bulkhead of the cockpit.

Easier to remember them by performance; they had spent some time throwing their Hunters around, and surprisingly in this moderation was important. In moderation. You wouldn't trust a fighter pilot who didn't fly to their limits, after all, who didn't push themselves and their craft to maximum performance- who hadn't bent their bird at least once. They might not be there when you needed them.

On the other hand you wouldn't trust a Black Ace, someone who goosed it repeatedly, who didn't know where the edge was and strayed across it too often and brought back a string of cracked- up craft, overstressed and falling apart- when they were brought back at all.

It was important to go all the way out to the jagged edge where you nearly lost it, where you were terrifying yourself every moment that you were running out the limits of man and machine- but, and this was where the moderation came in, not too often.


We were strung out and starting to lose it before the refit, Aron recognised; before Corellia I was starting to push the upper edge of the envelope, weigh the risks too lightly and go too far. Of my Hutt's dozen (one less because you never got full value from one of them), most of them are grumpy because I put them where I thought they belonged and not where they did.

Two don't go far enough, three go too far. I have one maniac who's almost as competent as he thinks he is, who's flying Iota Two because when one of the rest gets into trouble who has to go after them? Me- and my wingman.

Two more on the upper edge of the envelope but not really good enough to be there, and one of them might learn- that's Iota Three, second element leader lead flight, and Six, B flight lead's wingman is the one who probably won't. I don't want him directly under me but I might as well put him somewhere in case miracles do happen.

There are two nervous nellies who don't go far enough, and to be fair (which was hard work for a fighter jock), with one of them it is over- experience; a recent replacement who had a very raw time in the tour on TIE fighters he had served to get here, and whom Aron thought shouldn't have been deployed again at all, or without a much longer rest. Eleven, C flight second element lead.

Eight was his only girl pilot, and Aron thought she had been basically misassigned in being sent to fighters at all. Easy to see how, though. She had joined to fly, not to kill- a superb acrobatic pilot, went through the standard moves and manoeuvres like a dancer, but too precise, too controlled, not willing to thrash it. Not bloodthirsty enough.


The rest were more or less normal, if that had any meaning at all in this profession and on this ship. Normal did equate to slightly grumpy at the moment though, because there had been a lot of simulator games between the alarums and misadventures, and the new airgroup commander had made the fundamental leadership error of compiling a set of official rankings out of them.

Olleyri would have done exactly the same, but he would have had the sense to keep it on the low- down and not let the pilots find out exactly where they stood, which could have avoided the general cracking sound all over the ship's flight facilities as fighter pilot egos splintered under the news.

Aron's lot were, overall, middling- one good non- combat and two or three good combat pilots among them, the official terms were precision and performance flying but everyone knew what they really meant; but most didn't break out of the pack, median above average in combat but more sloppy and slapdash out of it.

Alpha and Delta squadrons, the two original Avenger units, thought of themselves as the best and unfortunately they appeared to be right; of the top thirty "performance" scores there were only eight that didn't come from one of those two. Aron's was one of them.


Shooting was divided into energy and warhead, and there he was better off- the absolute energy gun scores of the entire group were well above average, but this wasn't about the rest of the universe, this was internal, and level- everyone was a contender in this; and he was an excellent shot, in the top five of all of them. Which was an ego- soothing way of admitting he had come fifth.

Quarrin Vattiera, Alpha One, had come second, and was finding it hard to suppress incandescent rage. He had joked about it- losing to a bomber pilot- but they all knew he had really meant it. The best shot on board was Epsilon One.

(At least in the fighter wing. There were actually a zeroth and a minus-oneth, but even Shulmar had the sense to leave their scores out of it, using the rationale that they weren't pilots- the ship's chief gunnery officer and chief gunnery maniac had decided to come down and have a go, just to get their eyes back in, and the results were obscene.)

Rocketry, some intensive training was due for the entire wing and my lot in particular, Aron thought; he was the best missile-man among them by a large margin, and not just because he was that good. The best there were the bomber pilots, to no great surprise- there was good, and then there was being current, and to be at the top you needed to be both.

Beta Five had topped the lists there, but Epsilon One was second there and most dangerous overall- which news Squadron Leader Rahandravell had taken with nothing more than a frozen- faced nod.


Aron worried about her; they still hadn't more than half figured out what they were doing, only knew that both of them seemed a bit lost- well, she thinks I am he added to himself- and were only really able to talk about it with each other, backed down from the idea of letting anyone else in.

'What are you worried about?' His wingman, the talented maniac, had asked. 'Scores, kriff, kills; she's on what, eighty, nearer ninety? She's an icewoman, a void- cold killer. Only thing you've got to be worried about is if she decides she doesn't like you.'

If only it was that simple, Aron had thought- laughing it off at the time of course- but it isn't, and that's what's getting to her. I might be able to cope- who'm I kidding, of course I could- with being the bad guy; could hack it as an oppressor and a tyrant's lackey as long as they pay me on time and don't overload me with too much crap to put up with.

Which considering who we're working with on this one, loosely attached to Vader's lot, is just as well although approaching margins on the bullshit front. She can't. Floating free without moral orientation, scum in a universe of scum, is beyond- or beneath- her. Kill for a cause, protector, defender, crusader, but she needed to believe she was on the side of something resembling right; pay, or praise, or animal pride, wasn't enough.

She has more principles than I do, Aron thought; perhaps too many, enough to slow her down. Probably have defected years ago if she wasn't on Lennart's ship. Then again, so would the Skipper.


The bomb wing's contingency role in this part of the plan was as surface attack, if any of the facilities decided to raise shields and resist. Space intercept and arrest was multirole's pigeon; that meant him, and within ten seconds of emergence there was a running freighter in his zone of responsibility. what class? An old Surronian hauler- medium difficulty, and probably not the only one.

'B flight, yours. Intercept course is,' figure it out, '330 negative 2, ionise and disable.' One of the transports would have to divert to actually capture it, but there were some warned for that job too. One of the assault transports already diverting after it in fact- a backup if my guys screw up Aron thought, which would be embarrassing.

'Lead, why not us?' His wingman of course.

Couldn't admit that he would rather have them get into trouble, maybe, and have to go and get them out than maybe get into trouble himself and have to depend on them for help. Two should have known better. 'Their turn; there'll be more later.'

As he was saying it Aron realised he was probably right, though. Once someone kicked it off, the shooting would spread. Couldn't be helped, there were bound to be some of them with Alliance sympathies. Now if the whole system rose in revolt, things could get interesting.


Switch to map display, see what was happening in the rest of the oparea- four more runners. One of them about to be chased into his zone, bend a scanner on it and- YT. Hard target. Who was after it at the moment? Nu. 'A and C flights, follow me- told you there'd be one in a minute. Nu One, Iota One- you reckon you have a better chance in a tail chase than we have in a head on?'

The logic was clear, by the time Nu could catch the runner even at an acceleration advantage of twelve kilometres a second every second, he'd be most of the way to hyperspace if not there already. Being reasonable about it was also the most infuriating thing Aron could do and both of them knew it. he didn't expect graceful acknowledgement, which was just as well. 'Your lot need the practise.'

Well and good but now the runner knows you've left him to somebody else, he can read a scanner too, and the eight on the port-bow collision course are probably going to be fairly obvious. Can't have everything. Go in as a pack, instead of splitting vectors? Probably best- the amount of punishment one of those things can soak up, we want to hit it all together.

'Open out to fighting distance, keep formation. Keep an eye on me, I'll be steering to intercept. Take your finger off the trigger if another TIE passes in front of you; do not forget that bit. Selectors to ions only. Let's go.' Didn't exactly sound as if he had total confidence in them, did it? Maybe it was best to keep them a bit hungry.

When he had taken this lot over at first- when they had been designated Gamma- they hadn't been all that good, certainly hadn't been a team. They had come together when the heat was on over Ord Corban, but oddly- and disgruntlingly- they hadn't stayed together. It was as if they had only got it right for that brief period just to annoy him before reverting to their usual form.


Well, pull them onwards after him and see how that worked. Who was this idiot in the freighter, anyway? Why did they want to pick a fight with the Empire, why did they think they had no choice- were they running interference for someone else? The transports had the room for scanner operator- interpreters to figure that out, not him. Find out from the interrogators afterwards anyway. First catch your rebel.

Angled away, but the Hunters had the thrust and Aron had the eye- had anticipated the intercept course before the Rebel was on it. Closer look on the way- there were turrets, dorsal and ventral. Aron took a very close look at the paint job; fortunately nothing like Solo's- far too neat and clean.

He could do without a repeat of that experience, thank you very much. Whose exclamation marks had he had to amputate after that?
That particular pilot was flying Iota Seven now- and there was an override filter in the com circuits of his fighter to cut him off if he got overexcited.

Closing on a tangent. Shooting time. All other things being equal (and they so very rarely were) ion cannon had the range of lasers, not because the bolt held together better than a laser's or was more accurate- it didn't and it wasn't- but because they didn't need to; a more or less splatter was good enough. No reason not to open fire early and often.

Finger tightened on the trigger- not quite to full pressure, back off just before, count one, two, let everyone else get into range too, squeeze; get everyone shooting together.


Eight streams of blue bolts then, everyone firing together- and as expected the YT tried to run for it, breaking into the line of fire, rolling away and spraying fire back from dorsal and ventral turrets. Big sprays of bright orange fire- a multiple lashup of multiples, tree or four triple- blasters on each turret mount- a setup designed to drown the sky in fire. For a moment it looked quite like a movie poster.

Those shooting scores don't reflect reality, Aron thought. We're terrible. The streams of blue were mostly missing, at best tracking across the thing, seesawing as all seven of the rest of them porpoised above and below the line of bearing, trying not to fly straight at it and into the hail of blaster bolts.

That gun system could eat TIE Fighters for breakfast- huge, dense cones of fire, nowhere to dodge, no way to close. Anything with only navigation shields would be very crispy very fast. Things like that were why the Hunter was shielded, but all of theirs were abrading fast and they couldn't afford hit and run. By the time they had broken off, recharged and were ready to go in again the thing'd have jumped.

Nothing else for it. 'The rest of you cease fire- you're achieving nothing. Just cover my back.' Aron said, with his toes crossed- didn't have time for fingers- and charged in on a high aspect trajectory, trying to get them to shoot him and hoping his lot would be sufficiently annoyed and offended that they did keep firing.

A few did obey him, but the rest were slow to do so, washing bolt- streams across it and taking some of the fire off him so he could turn to bear direct and finish the job, closing almost to point blank before zooming past the sparkling, crackling, tumbling and now fully ionised YT.


'That could have been better. Were you all blinded by my magnificence or something? Come on, ego up. Five, how's B flight doing?'

Quite well, it turned out. The Surronian ship had less defensive firepower and less ability to soak fire, despite being a minor modification of a military type, than the YT- it had been zorched out a good ten seconds faster.

Flip back to the system map. Only half a dozen red blips, and they had all been taken care of or were in the process; orange blips, potential hostiles evaluated by the same sensor operators, on the basis of who was going to support the runners, who had heated their guns and shaped their courses accordingly- there were too many for this to be a smooth, trouble- free operation, but not yet- nowhere near too many to deal with.

Many of them thought better of it. Which left Aron feeling obscurely disappointed. Only half a dozen kills out of a system this full of potential trouble? Space trucking fraternity's not what it used to be.

He was wrong; evidently there had been some rallying of the dubious, because there was a stream of fresh blips coming up from V-i, the innermost and largest moon- and most of them were red. A lot of the oranges flickered back to red, too. Half a dozen? Nothing. Hundred or so- that's more like it.

[sropike]

Brilliant piece, ECR!

Black Prince was in for some insanity, they haven't got their quota yet.
A possible suggestion for how to [sarcasm]"reward"[/sarcasm] the astromech droids:
They go undercover. To the rebels.
But I get the feeling my thinking lacks a few dozen twists to keep up with Lennart
Will be interesting to see the developments with the fighter wing and the transports.
I think Lennart should drop off the map (which he already plans to) and deploy several decoys (which he should do) till the ship is in fighting condition.
I've got a feeling things are about to get ugly.

[Vianca]

Ad things are heating up again, looks like it never gets really cool with them.