The Romulan Republic wrote:Freedom’s Hope dropped out of Hyperspace ahead of the group of ten transports, which were encircled by a flotilla of two CR90 Corvettes and two Corillean Gunships as escorts. A few seconds later a Bulk Cruiser dropped out of Hyperspace at the rear of the fleet, completing the formation.
Captain Janson knew almost immediately that something was wrong. The tactical officer signalled an alert.
“Four unidentified ships off our starboard bow. Looks like a VSD-I, a Dreadnought, and two Interceptor Frigates Sir.” A pause. “They’re launching fighters.”
“Increase power to deflector shields and turbolaser batteries. Prepare to launch fighters. Ask the Honor of Bakura to send some fighter cover our way, or we’re going to get swamped.” Up ahead, the captain could see the Remanant destroyer moving to engage the enemy VSD. Which meant the frigates and the Dreadnought were all his. Wonderful.
Quickly he considered the situation. They were outnumbered. The priority was to protect the transports. He could engage the Dreadnought and hold it off, while the freighters made a run for it. The frigates might attempt to pursue, but some of the freighters carried decent armaments, and those coupled with the escorting corvettes and Bulk Cruiser could probably handle the frigates well enough. He considered briefly weather he should have the freighters split into two groups, but decided against it. He didn’t have enough ships to cover two groups properly. They would stand a better chance of getting out together.
“Communications, tell the freighters and escorts to run for it and get into Hyperspace as quickly as possible, then call for back up. Tactical, maximum power to forward shields, have turbolaser batteries target the Dreadnought but hold their fire until I give the order. Laser and quad laser canons may fire at will. Helm, close with the enemy Dreadnought. We’ve got to hold them while the convoy gets clear.”
The question now was weather the pirates would split up to pursue the transports, or concentrate on him. If the former, he was fairly confident he could take the Dreadnought on his own, but he would just have to hope the other escorts were up to protecting the convoy. If the latter, then he wasn’t so confident about his own chances, but he could hold them a while, maybe long enough for reinforcements to arrive or too convince the pirates it wasn’t worth the trouble.
* * *
Kyp was jolted awake by the sound of an alarm calling personel to battle stations. He scrambled out of his bunk along with the other three pilots who shared their small room, then hurried down the hall toward the hangers. As he arrived, the squadron commander was waiting, already dressed in his flight suit. The squadron of 12 Z95-Headhunters was being prepped for launch, and Kyp hastily clambered into his flight suit and then into the cockpit of Fighter Number 6. Alarms sounded again, warning that the hanger force fields were about to be dropped, then one by one the fighters began to move out of the hanger. Kyp followed the first few out, accelerating as he left the shadow of Freedom's Hope. The squadron commander’s voice sounded harshly inside his helmet.
“Alright, we’ve got eight, maybe nine enemy squadrons. Fighters 1-6, take the bombers. Fighters 7-12 fly cover for them. Let’s go!”
Kyp sent his Headhunter spinning ‘round, falling in behind one of the squadrons of bombers. He accelerated again, quickly overtaking the rearmost craft, then felt a surge of adrenaline as he blew it apart in a precise burst of blaster fire. He sensed a volley of enemy blaster fire heading towards him and altered course, swerving back and forth in an effort to stay out of the enemy fighter’s line of fire. Then the other fighter was gone, leaving only tiny fragments of debris.
“That’s some nice flying, kid.” The commander’s voice sounded in his ear again. Kyp had no time to reply as he sent his Z-95 rolling to one side to avoid another burst of laser fire, then locked onto a second bomber and obliterated it.
At this point in the battle, the pirate captain recognized that his original plan had failed. The presence of the Remnant VSD had complicated matters already. This new progression meant that he would have to modify the plan if he still could destroy the enemy freighters. Therefore, he chose a most un-piratelike tactic. "Concentrate all forces on the enemy flagship. Fighters, punch a hole through the enemy formation. Bombers, bombing run. Interceptor frigates, try and flank. Full spead ahead, let them have it."
The pirate forces moved to execute.
Now he has to fight just for his survival....
If the pirates could take the dreadnought out fast enough, maybe the objective still could be completed.
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Norade wrote:Mining Convoy, Mid Route
A disturbance in hyperspace was detected by the lead escort, TCAF Task Master, the Carrack cruiser assigned as the command vessel for the escort mission. It's Captain warns the rest of the fleet to be alert, and his fears were confirmed when they were pulled out of hyperspace right next to an Interdictor cruiser displaying an unknown IFF. He was in the process of sending them a warning message but the ship jumped shortly after tugging them from hyperspace leaving them a few precious moments to get the freighters formed into a tight group to make them easy to cover.
Giving his orders in a hurried but calm fashion Captain Wesz Byron said, “Our first priority is to get those freighters in a group so we can cover them easier. Next is getting into hyperspace. I don't want any fighters going out unless it looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while.”
The orders were carried out swiftly, with even the most stubborn pilot unwilling to risk his ship for his pride. As swiftly as everything came together the slowest and least maneuverable of the freighters were still moving into position the Assassin class vessels dropped out of hyperspace and gained locks on the single craft most out of formation. The Carrack, TCAF Sheppard, which was in the rear of the convoy was already turning to line up her broadside to them but the enemy was attacking easy prey and a volley of missiles put the fleet back on her heels from the start.
Being offered the Sheppard and advantage, though only half of hers guns could fire at the missiles as they approached, it offered her the best field of fire and a better angle than forward and gave a second chance at anything attempting to sneak by. They also had support from the Marauders, TCAF Tender, and TCAF Keeper, who moved over to intercept. Soon space was filled with laser and light turbolaser blasts reaching into the missile streams and heavy turbolasers blasts aimed and fired at the aft quarter of the enemy ships with the intent to score some quick damage and knock the enemy out of the fight.
Meanwhile up front the lead ship was scanning for any late arrivals and using her nav computer to plot a jump for the freighter's that couldn't calculate a jump fast enough. Her utmost priority was jumping first and finding out what happened later. That was of course if one of the flock wasn't knocked dead in space before that could happen.
Using overlapping shields, the Assassin class corvettes moved forward at high speed. The mining convoy captain had made one crucial mistake - without having deployed Bombers, he had no missile capacity, which at this velocity meant he had deprived himself of the best method to destroy fast ships. In the attempt to outflank the corvettes, the mining escort had also forgotten to place his corvettes into the path of the assassin class corvettes. Using their speed and high velocity, the Assassins surged past the Marauders and the
Sheppard. Only the enemy flagship could still catch them at this point, but without any fighters, it could not launch missiles either. In any case, the fighters would have to come from the Marauders - who were at this point behind the corvettes, who now used their weapons to fire at the freighters at close range.
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Master_Baerne wrote:HIMMS Retriever
Nebulon-B Frigate, Captain Rafael Cardones commanding
Flagship, Task Force EF-1207 Alpha
Manticoran-Havenite Trade Route
Captain Cardones had spent much of the past week enjoying a holonovel from the unusual locale of Retriever's command deck - After all, there was very little for a captain to do on convoy escort. However, he was still a Manticoran officer, and when his com/scan officer shouted out a report, he was ready.
"Action aft starboard ventral, Captain! Reading... two Tartan-class light cruisers and two squadrons of TIEs!" the man's voice was an odd mixture of trepidation and excitement. Much like my own reflected Cardones. And isn't it a bad sign when we're relieved to be attacked? Escort duty does not agree with me.
"Acknowledged. Move Retriever and Harrier towards them, along with a Lancer...Make it Bulwark of Carida. Standard assault formation, and task our fighters to attack - Bulwark and our own PD can cover our backs." Cardones had a nagging feeling that something wasn't right, but two Nebulon-Bs and a Lancer ought to be able to deal with a pair of obsolete light cruisers while still leaving him enough to respond to other developments...
"Aye, sir. Tracker is reporting a sensor ghost, nothing to worry about, but under the circumstances..." said the com/scan Lieutenant Commander, tapping commands into his console. "It's in the aft port dorsal quadrant, here." he continued, highloghting a region of space behind and slightly above the convoy.
"Call Seagrace, tell her we could use her wing here. I've got a bad feeling about this..." the captain muttered, rubbing his clean-shaven chin. Pirates came in two categories, the petty, who usually couldn't scrape up even a pair of obsolete cruisers, and the professional, to whom such an exlenditure was small change. There was more going on here than met the eye. "Guns, fire when ready. Flight Ops, concentrate on the second Tartan, I want to reduce their strength as soon as possible."
EDIT: Oops, forgot that Thanas got to play the pirates.
Seeing that the Manticoreans were not going to take the bait, the pirates chose to committ fully to the assualt. Soon, the two Tartan light cruisers were joined by an old Dreadnought, a Munificent frigate and four Hardcell corvettes. The two pirate squadrons were now joined by the third squadron, all flying close escort. The pirate ships continued to move towards the - now outgunned - frigates.
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Results: Pirate action continues.
