Homebound
Quo’s fingers danced across the controls, swerving the vessel left and right, up and down. His rolling and diving maneuvers were making the rest of the crew queasy, but he needed to avoid the shots that were arrowing towards the ship.
“Got any options to lose these lot?” Quo enquired of Pelgo Bratte, the navigator, who was busy studying the chart of the sector, looking for a place to hide.
“Nothing yet,” came her short reply
“Sleenko, do you think you could actually try hitting something with those cannons?” The question was barked down the comm
“I’m doing my flarging best!” came the reply.
Rolling to the left, inverting the ship he pulled back hard on the control sticks.
“Put the deflectors on double front,” Quo ordered Bratte. The ship looped, tighter than she’d ever been designed to do, the bulkheads groaning in dipute to their punishment. Emerging in one piece at the bottom of the roll the view screen was filled with an ever growing mass of Tie Fighter. It smashed into a million pieces as the deflectors tore through the fabric of the ship, it’s engines and fuel exploding an eye watering flash of brilliance. “There are two more of them out there Sleenko, see what you can do, I’ll try and keep them on your side of the ship,” a flick to the right on the stick, and the ship rolled, discarding bits of destroyed fighter in her wake.
Laser shots cut across the bow as Quo attempted to avoid the voracious rate of fire that the Tie Fighters were raining down on the cargo runner. An explosion blasted through the ship as one of the shots found their mark. “Damage report,” barked Quo.
Another explosion rocked the ship, although this one didn’t feel like it came from the ageing vessel. “Got one!!” Shouted Sleenko, the jubilation evident from his tone of voice.
“Good shooting Sleenko,” Pelgo spoke calmly over the comm, ”Deflector array down to fifty six percent, and the damper system has take a little damage.”
Quo just nodded, grappling with the ship as she bucked and tossed under the onslaught. A half roll to the left, and a full roll to the right, Quo pushed forward on the sticks, keeping the remaining Tie above them, in the arc of fire of the cannons mounted top side of the vessel.
“Take us down near that moon,” Pelgo pointed through the view screen.
Tearing down towards the surface Quo flew with a sublime precision, entering the thin atmosphere, leaving a streak of fire and steam as the ship dived towards the surface. Taking it all in and processing his observations in a split second Quo rolled the ship towards a crevice in the moon’s surface. The remaining Tie Fighter streaked downwards, closing on it’s prey as it gained speed. Pulling out at the last second the Corellian ship skimmed the canyon’s floor, missing the impact by a fraction of a meter.
The Tie fighter followed into the canyon, engines screaming as the pilot pulled up, barely missing both the floor and canyon wall. It’s laser cannons erupted in an explosion of fire, the impacts making a trace towards the cargo runner, kicking up dirt and rocks as it continued its track. Within seconds the rounds were hammering into the upper hull of Quo’s ship, shaking it to its core.
“Eject the maintenance pack,” Quo shouted.
Pelgo rotated her seat to the engineering panel, flicking a couple of switches, and pressing a sequence of four buttons in quick succession.
A compartment at the rear of the ship flipped open, releasing a palette filled with tools and spare parts. Too late, the Tie pilot attempted to climb and roll out of the way of the incoming deluge of metalware. The palette impacted with one of the solar sails knocking the fighter nose up and right, sending the ship careening into the side of the canyon. The impact tore free the right hand sail, crushing the stansion that supported it, sheer momentum driving it into the rock. Parts of the the ship began breaking free of the superstructure even before the cockpit section launched itself into the face of the cliff, erupting in a ball of superheated gas and fuel, the pilot being incinerated before he even realised what had happened. The left sail and stansion gained velocity with the whipping motion of the ship slewing to the right, sailing towards the Corellian cargo runner, the impact was inevitable. Tearing into the rear of the ship it created a massive gouge along the upper surface, tearing the cannons from the upper side, and smashing the deflector dish as it continued its path of destruction. The energy dissipated as parts of the sail flew away in all directions, taking parts of the Quo’s ship with it, before it finally seperated itself, and careened into the canyon wall.
Quo heaved backwards on the sticks as Pelgo attempted to prevent a hull breach. Sleenko appeared in the cockpit door, looking dishevelled, bruised and battered from the impact. He was inside the aiming pod for the cannons when the Tie fighter had impacted the wall. The plexiglass dome had shattered with the impact from the solar sail, splinters of the dome thudding into his face, leaving a few cuts and bruises to his front. He still didn’t understand why he hadn’t become a nasty stain on the canyon, only realising he was alive when the control hatch had locked behind him. “The back end is torn up pretty good,” he reported.
Quo’s ship vaulted over the lip of the canyon. Getting her to a safe height was Quo’s first priority, then they could check the systems to see what they had left. “Autopilot?” he asked Pelgo
“Nominal”
“Life Support?”
“Holding in the forward compartments, I’ve sealed off the rear ones”
“Hull integrity?”
“Seventy two percent, if you disregard the aft parts, ninety three”
“Navicomp?”
“Nominal, although the deflector is shot, and the comms system has taken a battering. We still have light speed....... I think,” her glance across the cockpit didn’t look reassuring.
“Ok, let’s find somewhere to put this crate down, and do whatever repairs we can,” Quo glanced across at the Captain, and navigator, trying to gauge how bad it was from her expression. He didn’t like what he saw.
“There’s Brannigan’s,” she said, finger moving over the navichart, “we could put in there and see what we can do, it’s close enough, less than a parsec”
“Brannigan’s?” Quo wasn’t familiar with that system.
“It’s a shipyard.... of sorts....... and Brannigan is a Pirate, but he may be able to help us. I’ll lay in the co-ords,” a flurry of fingers inputting the data that was needed, ”OK, punch it”
The autopilot kicked in, the ship limping towards the only place that they could make in their current situation.
Sixteen hours later they were approaching the ship yard. Ship yard? It looked more like a scrap yard! Easy enough to get into though, Quo letting the ship coast into the yard under it’s own momentum, all the systems apart from essentials powered down in order not to attract attention. Drifting toward the one of the densest concentrations of debris Quo attached the ship to the remains of a large hulk, hopefully away from prying eyes.
Donning their suits Pelgo and Quo were going out into the field to retrieve any parts that they could easily get to, and close by. Panelling would be a priority, in order to seal the gashes to the outer skin of the ship. Their comms channel crackled a bit, they were running at the minimum power to prevent detection. Several trips were carried out in silence, amassing a plethora of parts and panels that they would require for repairs.
“Where did those Tie’s come from?” Pelgo said into her helmet microphone.
“How the flarg do I know?” replied the Zabrak, shooting her a look that said ‘I don’t know everything’.
“No, I mean, they’re short range, even these days. And they were carrying Imperial insignia, the Empire has been gone for over thirty years. They had to have come from somewhere close by”
He had to conceded that she had a point. Making their way back towards the ship again with another load he began to ponder the problem. How did they know that they were there? He had followed order 33 to the letter, even reducing emissions from the scanners and deflectors. How had they known where to find them?
Entering the air lock for the final time he could already feel the difference. Nab and Siem had worked from the inside securing the hull from the inside. They had worked well, with only one area left to secure, and then the ship could be pressurised again. Unfortunately she would be unarmed, but the hatch to the control dome had been sealed, making the inner compartment useable again.
“Let’s set the route in the navicomp Captain, that way we can be ready to leave as soon as the repairs are complete,” said Quo, removing the cumbersome EVA suit, “I just need to do something”
“No problems,” replied Pelgo, divesting herself of her own spacial attire.
Making his way to the comms computer. Keying in the access code he set the system to scan for close by transmissions. He wouldn’t be sending any messages, obeying the order of his Master, but you could learn a lot from listening. Static crackled into the headset that he was using to listen, white noise. Tweaking the squelch control he set it just above the constant fizzling, knowing that next time he heard something it was likely to be a transmission.
“fzzzzzzzz, grrrrkz,” the display clocking upwards in frequency a lot slower than a couple of minutes before, “Has anyone heard from the patrol we sent out?”
“Nothing Boss, not since they went out towards Theggid” Quo had never heard of Theggid, but he was guessing that the planet they had been ambushed around was it.
“We sent a Scav Crew out that way to see if they could make contact, Boss”
“Keep me informed when we hear anything, there’s a lot of money riding on the bounty for that ship”
“Captain Brannigan from Sierra Charlie two three.”
“Go ahead two three.”
“Sir, we’ve found wreckage of one of our ships on the third moon, or at least what’s left of it. No sign of the other two, but this one is definately ours, sir.”
”Any sign of any other ships?”
“None sir, they must have either been vapourised, or they got away. There’s plenty of panels down there, sir, from preliminary scans it looks as though there is substantial damage to more than one ship here”
“Come back in, they can’t have got far” Quo locked the comms computer again, and replaced the headset. So now he knew they were being hunted, and someone had put a price on their heads, and Captain Brannigan was the man trying to get it. Not just a pirate, but a bounty hunter as well. That made getting away from here without detection even more important. He strode meaningfully towards the cockpit. Time to ensure that the crew realised the importance of not being detected.