Bespin Escape

[Jess]

OOC: Like I said, I will be back. Now lets post.

 

IC:

 

Afton woke with a start, her whole body acking. She lay there for a moment then opened her eyes. Splitting pain ran down her body once again. She lay there trying to think of where she was, soon the days events came flooding back. They were trying to escape from some planet but the name evaded her.

 

Slowly she stood up, using the walls as support. When she was upright she put her hand on her head and found it slick with blood. She looked at her hand which confermed that it was indeed blood.

 

Whipping her hand on her pants, she stumbled about trying to find Karn or Ulic or someone of a friendly face. She was getting up from a second fall when she hear Karns voice ring out orders. She did not pick up what he was saying but it sounded desperate. Slowly she made her way towards the voice.

 

She entered the bridge where Karn stood, eyes glood to the screen. She could see many light flashing but she was still in a dase so she did not register to the problem. She stumbled up to Karn put a hand on his shoulder then calapsed unconsious in a heap in the floor....

 

OOC: Sorry I cant save you yet, still thinking so in the mean time I'll keep the story moving. Your turn Kry.

[Krytos]

Karn saw Afton out of the corner of his eye drop to the floor. Spinning around, Karn instinctivally yelled out. "Afton!"

Quickly running to her side, Karn checked her pulse still alive, thank the force. With his mind racing, Karn jumped to the closest communit to call for help.

"Medic to the bridge, personal down!"

Karn quickly returned to check on Afton and tried to talk to her, "Afton, Afton can you hear me? What happened?"

Though Karn didn't get the chance to wait for a responce as the bridge's lights dimmed to an eary red and the warning klaxons began to blare again.

"A pair of bombers are launching torpedoes. We've got incoming."

Getting back to his feet, Karn prayed that his gunners would be able to knock out most of the torpedos before they hit . . .

[UlicHorn]

The Nova Dream roared through space past some of the fighters and deeper into the fray. Ulic didn't stray to far from the ship since he wasn't sure how long he'd last out here. He noticed a squadron of Bombers making a straffing run at the cruiser and decided to intervene. He got on an intercept point and Sib fired away in the gun well, the bombers broke off but not before launching a small payload. Ulic pushed the ship as hard as he could trying to catch up with the small missles and attempted to blast them.

[Jess]

Afton lay there daised for who nows how long. She was poked and prodded, moved and moved again. She could just remember Karn calling her name untill everything when totally black.

 

Moments later she woke with a bandage around her head and her arm in a sling. There was a thermomiter in her mouth and she felt terrible. When she come round fully she ripped the thermomiter out of her mouth and grabbed the medic. Pulling her close she seethed, "what are you doing! I am fine thankyou." Pushing the medic away she got up and made her way back to the bridge, to Karn.

 

He was in a frenzy and the control pannel showed her why.

"Ok," she said taking a deep breathe to calm the nerves.

"Heres the plan. We get the friendly Fighter to cover the left side where most of the damage is then we move all our gunmen to the right where the missiles are coming from. There are many spare guns and we need to fight them off in that way. That way we wont risk hitting a friend and we can cover both sides of the ship."

 

She smiled and with a laugh said, "what do you say my friend?"

[Krytos]

Karn almost cried out in joy to see Afton no the bridge. After the last attack run, a Concussion missile by passed the ships shields and colided with the port of the ship. The shockwave had knocked Kre'nel to the ground and kcocked her out. Now Karn was running the entire ship by himself withou anyone to interpret orders or help make them while someone was busy.

Now there was a second hand back on the bridge, and a fighting chance.

 

The grim look on Karn's face faded away as he replied, "I think we should kick some Imperial ass."

Without needing to ask, the bridges gun command quickly relaid the orders to bolster the starboard defence.

Quickly turning back to Afton, Karn's nerves began to show again. "That will only hold them off for so long. After one pass those bombers will start coming at different angels and what's left of our defences wont hold that off for long.

"My idea is to keep Ulic and those fighters still on our port until those bombers pass and then get them to jump them. Fighters and a heavily armed freighter versus some TIE Bombers should be a quick fight and then we only have to deal with anyone else who wants to kill us."

Realising he was rambling on, Karn stopped an waited to hear if Afton had any sugestions.

[Krytos]

OOC:

 

Hate to double post, but I think we'll tie this RP thread up in a few posts.

 

All we have to do is get past the TIEs, jump to hyperspace and rejoyce over surving

[UlicHorn]

Ulic's ship was getting fairly well battered by the TIE's, but he wasn't helpless that was for sure. "You know Karn, I'm not gonna say that getting the heck outta here isn't a bad idea about now!" he shouted into the comm as another Star Destroyer excited hyperspace...

[UlicHorn]

OOC: Yeah, I think we can wrap this with a big climatic conclusion...then of course always start another one.

[Krytos]

OOC: Ok, how do you want to finish it? A running battle, a big climatic battle between the Imps, rebs and pirates or something else?

[UlicHorn]

Ill leave that up to you, but Im pretty much open for anything.

[Krytos]

OOC: ME! ! Famous last words . . . .

 

Umm, yeah - well a nice battle could be fun, so you reckon we go to jump and get held up by an interdictor? Then get mixed into the raging battle between the pirates and Empire, whilst so Reb capitals come to help.

 

Or

 

We deal with the fighters that are currently ripping us a new one and jump out of here?

[UlicHorn]

OOC: The Interdictor sounds like a good idea, good for it.

[Krytos]

OOC: Ok, I'll get onto posting tomorrow - my brain has frozen when it comes to RPing after those other two posts. Back to work then . . .

[Krytos]

Karn's heart began to pound heavier and heavier as the got closer to the nav point.

"Alright Ulic, you've had enough punishment for now - bring your ship into the hangar so we can jump out of . . . "

"Sir, an Imperial cruiser has dropped out of hyperspace infront of us."

Karn turned to the sensor pannel to see what the new contact was, and when he did - his heart stopped all together.

Looming infront of them was a new Star Destroyer - though this was not an Imperial class, nor a Victory. For Karn right now, it was far worse - and Immobiliser Cruiser. It's 4 gravity well generators were already powered and would stay powered until the ship was taken out. And with those 4 gravity well generators up and running, anyship in its field would be pulled out of hyperspace - or stoppped from jumping into hyperspace at all.

"Helm, chance course immediately and begin evasive manouvres. Things have just got a whole lot worse."

 

*****

 

Kre'nel stood at the front of the bridge constantly giving course corrections to keep the Immobilisers fire off them.

"Sirs, the ISD is now in range to fire."

"Exellent, at least that has worked out well. Get the techinicians down to the cargo hold to prep the equipment down there." Karn ordered.

Kre'nel turned to him down founded, "What?"

"Well, you know all that jamming gear we're haulling around for the Rebellion? Well, there's more than enough to screw up the targetting systems of both those Imp ships. If we continue manouvring between their fields of fire, they'll have to take the risk of hitting each other - which will hopefully make them think twice about letting go with all their firepower."

Kre'nel nodded, and also hoped it would work. The low manouvrebility of the Imperials vessels compared to the frigate's would allow them to keep positioning themselves between the enemy ships for a long peroid of time. Though that would only be delaying the enivitable.

"Currently the Rebel fighters are holding off their Imperial counterparts and aren't sustaining damage. At the same token, they're not inflicting damage.

"Unless something upsets the balance soon we wont be able to do much except get ripped apart by that ISD or the Imobiliser."

Karn closed his eyes for his relpy, a sign Kre'nel knew wasn't good.

"Keep as much distance between us and those cruisers so we can survive. We need to draw the Imperial fighters away from our own so we can engage them.

"With out the Imperial fighters, we can get the X and Y-wings to take out that Inderdictor.

Oh, and Kre'nel, you might want to inform Ulic of what's just happened."

"At once."

[Jess]

Afton stood dumb founded for what seemed like minutes but in reality it was only about 0.1 of a second. Then at the words techinicians and jamming gear her mind came back to the present.

Jamming gear, she thought. She jumped up literally.

 

"I'll go with the technicians and help my drowd can help with the repears and I know alot about nothing but it may help." She chuckled at her later comment to try and lighten the mood.

 

"Ok I'll take these techis to the hold and see what we can come up with," and with that she ran off with the techis close behind.

 

When they reached the hold she went straight to the thing she was most familier with, the computor. Her hands flew over the keys untill she was estabished.

 

"Ok guy here's the plan," and with that she started handing out orders.

[Krytos]

As Afton ran out of the bridge and towards the cargo hold, Karn hoped that she could bring the jamming equipment online. If she can't get it working, we're as good as dead.

 

Looking back to the sensor screen, for what felt like the hundreth time since getting back on baord his frigte, Karn looked at how his ship was faring against the Imperial monstrosities.

His crew were mangaging to keep the figate inbetween both Imperial vessels, which resulted in them firing a lot less than they were capable of. Though the ISD was baring around on a straight run that would bring it up on their port soon. The Imobiliser was heading for the same postion as well, which meant neither would have to worry about hitting each other very soon.

Sweat continued to dripdown his face, and his stress levels began to rise. They couldn't continue this game of cat and mouse much longer, they needed a plan.

 

"Kre'nel - what's happening with those pirates?"

"The fighters that struck at us were wiped out by the TIEs, though they were able to take a few with them.

"The rest of the pirate force is being attacked by a pair of ISDs. They appear to be holding their own for now - though, they too will be over run in a few minutes."

"Well, we don't have much of a choice.

"Helm, change course and head straight for the pirates location."

[Jess]

Afton's fingers ran over the keys of the computor faster than they had ever gone before. They were starting to slip over the keys because of the sweat that was starting to slid down her hands. She paused momenteraly to instruce some of the electicians then went back to the computor screen. Soon the jamming device started to chern to life. The screen started to light up and show good reading with in another few minutes it was up and running as well as Afton could get it, which was pretty much the whole thing.

 

Afton jumped up and ran back up to the bridge to share the good news.

"The jamming devise is up and running but I don't know how long it will last so we best make the most of it while we can."

 

She looked at the sensor screen and her face turned pail. She gulped, "ah Karn... I think we have a problem."

 

OOC. Hey Kry I'll leave it open for you to work out what the problem is coz I have no real idea of how this kinda fight works so you make something up.

[Krytos]

OOC: Well, I had a rough idea of what I wanted - but my last post kinda screwed that over and gave it a "Star Trek" feel

 

IC: The Wreckless Wonderer violently shuddered as a Heavy Turbolaser blast caught the unshielded hull of the ship ripping into the decks behind the bulkheads and robbing the lives of any crew members stationed there.

The ship's bridge constantly flashed from red to green never ending cross of weapon's fire flooded the space around Karn's ship. Seconds had turned to minutes and time had lost all meaning to Karn. He was now concerned soley about the present, and the present was trying to stay alive while manouvering between the pirate and imperial fleets.

 

"Karn, shields have had it - that last blast overloaded the generator and blew it."

 

This was news Karn had already known. From now on, everytime a blast hit the ship, it would damage the hull and eat its way towards the lives that occupied the vessel.

Now, the only the keeping them alive was the work of Afton and a group of technicians by jamming everyship around them. The effect hadn't been instantious, though when it came it was worth the trouble.

With out sensors to tell the ships who was who, how far the target was and more, the battle had degraded to a point blank slug fest with an enormous amount of shots missing their marks or accidently hitting friendlies.

During this time, the relatively small frigate had hurtled through the barrage and made its way to the edge of the battle.

 

Sweat dripped from Karn's chin and splashed on the console infront of him. The bridge was filled with tension, as everyone knew the predicament they were in. Karn's clenched fists lay by his side as his mind raced with thoughts on the battle.

Karn knew they were as good as dead, though he wasn't prepared to give up without a fight.

"Karn, there is no way that we can get past either fleet. What are we going to do?"

Karn didn't respond to Kre'nel. Karn wanted to attack the Imperial Interdictor - but that was holding back behind the Imperial line.

The Rebel fighters had been whitled away to just a few survivers that were either just trying to stay alive or docked with the frigate and the pirates were being slowly pounded into slag.

 

Karn swolled hard, trying to speak. Then pressing the comm channel to the entire ship, Karn spoke the words he'd dreaded to say all during the battle.

"All hands, prepare to abondon ship. I repeat prepare to abondon ship."

All the paniced chatter on the bridge stopped at once as he muttered those words, and slowly but surely they all began to leave their posts and head to escape pods or transport craft stored in the hangar.

Turing to Kre'nel, Karn quickly gave her orders before she could protest.

"Make sure that everyone takes equipment from the armoury. We'll be stranded on a pirate world, with them hunting us down as well as an Imperial invasion to prepare for."

 

As Kre'nel turned and began heading for the armoury a massive flash engulfed the forward view port of the frigate and for a split second Karn thought they he had just made his last command.

Though as the brilliant flare died away, he saw it was from an Imperial ship far away from the battle.

 

"Sir!!! The Interdictor has been destroyed!" was cried out by one of the only people left on the bridge.

"What? How?"

 

Before he could answer that, the comm station lit up with a communication from a Rebel Cruiser.

"Well, we were just in the neighbour hood looking for survivers from Hoth and thought you guys might want a hand?

We'll hold the back door open for as long as we can, I suggest you make a run for it."

Karn was already reacting, ordering everyone back to their posts and getting the frigate to start heading towards the nearest jump point.

The Rebel incursion had not only destroyed the Interdictor, though had also gotten the attension of one of the ISDs, which was now leaving the battle to attack the rebels.

We might still have a chance now, we might still have a chance

[UlicHorn]

Ulic watched as explosions ripped apart the Interdictor. "Yahoo! Did you see that thing go up, Sib?" he said into the headset. "Hey Karn, this is Ulic, are we getting outta here or what? Even now they could be sending reinforcements and we aren't exactly a match in a straight fight." He started to program a jump. "Where are we going?"

[Krytos]

Karn almost laughed at Ulic's suggestion, rather he gave an over saracastic responce.

"Well, Ulic - I was planning on leading an attack against that lead ISD. But, your suggestion sounds a little better."

 

Karn looked over at Kre'nel, and grinned. She simply grinned back, then turned to face the bridge and spoke up.

"Change heading for the alliance fleet, engines full forward and angle shields to deflect any inbound shots. We've got a clear path to freedom, lets use."

[Krytos]

The Wreckless Wonderer's drives were at full power, pushing the craft through the vast emptiness of space and past her enemies. Karn's heart lept from its chest as a turbolaser blast shattered the armour on the starboard side of his ship.

"Helm, roll the ship and get the damage side of the ship out of harm's way!"

 

They were cutting it close. Surrounded by enemies, the only way out came when a near by Rebel task force had jumped in system. Now it was a race against time to reach that task force and safety.

Though that was easier said than done, Karn's frigate was in extremely bad shape. With the battering the frigate had recieved, the shield generator had overloaded, the armour on the hull had been all but ripped apart and the ship was now pocketed with hull breaches and many dead.

The fighters that had come to help the frigate earlier where now a shadow of their former self.

 

Sweat continued to bead down his face as the ship continued to run for freedom. Kre'nel had barely moved in the last few minutes since they had begun their run for freedom.

When the sensors on the sip worked, Karn could see that Ulic was flying his heart out in an attempt to keep his much smaller freighter in one peice.

 

"Hang in their Ulic, two minutes until we're safe . . . two minutes."

 

Karn felt sick at the words. 2 minutes! He didn't know if the ship would survive even half that

[UlicHorn]

Ulic switched the off the comm for a moment. "Two minutes! Hope we can last that long." He flipped it back on as Sib's voice came over the headseat. "Ulic, we're shaking up pretty badly!" he had something spark. "I'm not sure we can hold this thing together long enough! The guns are overheating! Blast it!" Ulic tried to keep his cool as he pushed the ship harder. "Don't worry, she'll hold together," he flipped comm channels again. "Hear me,baby, hold together."

[Krytos]

The two rickety crafts tumbled through space, towards the small Rebel armada ailing to help them.

One a badly damaged frigate, with it's hull covered in burns and several gapping breaches into the craft.

The other, a small frigate weaving with an unorthodox elegance and with shields near collapsed.

Sitting at the commander's chair of the Frigate was Karn Macen, and Afton in the ships cargo hold. Earlier in the day he'd been on Bespin working for the Rebellion. And then, within minutes he was running for his life through the twisting alleys and coridors of the cloud city.

Now the same hunters had followed him to his ship, and through hyperspace to another world. The Empire was relentless like that. And now, not only were they hounding Karn and his friends though also the pirate occupants of the planet they'd come to.

Piloting the freighter was Ulic and gunning for him was Sib. Both of which he'd met on this journey

 

Karn was stressed out. His mind was tired, as was his body. They had so little left to go, yet it would seem like an eterntiy to pass the monstorous creatures that blocked their direct paths.

And all it would take is several good, direct hits and he'd by no more. He'd manouvred his ship as far away from the Imperial cruisers as he could, while also still manouvring to stop either of the two Imperials vessesl from getting their for or full broadsides on him.

 

A wave of dispare washed over Karn, and he began to regreat. Regreat all he'd miss, all he hadn't done, all he wanted to do. Deep down, he had a sinking feeling that he wouldn't live through this.

His stomache jumped a little as the ship's inertia dampners stopped the majority of the effect of the tight manouvre the ship just dove into - Narrowly being missed by the Imperial vessel.

 

Karn then jumped to his feet in dibelief. No, they couldn't be. Kre'nel turned to him, and could read the shock in his face.

"What is it Karn?"

"Those . . . Havn't you noticed? They're playing with us! The batteries are firing in short burst, and those massive anti-capital batteries have been following us for the past . . . I don't know how long, without firing. That ISD could have turned us to space debris in a matter of seconds but has chosen not to."

"Perhaps they want us alive?"

"Maybe," Karn muttered as he walked to the forward viewport. That, or with the Rebel ships near they wont to lour them into a trap

 

"No, no - they're using us bait for the Rebel capitals over there. And the Alliance can't afford to loose ships like that. . . we . . . we might have to to something overly noble Kre'nel"

Kre'nel just stared back at him in slight disbelief, and then nodded.

 

It's not over yet Karn, I've almost got this running a voice said in his head.

"What? Did you hear that?"

"What Karn?"

Confused, Karn responded. "It sounded like Afton!"

 

Almost as soon as he'd uttered her name, all the screens and instruments on the his ship flikcered with static and a long whine bled over the speakers before stopping.

The jammer! Afon got the jammer going!

"Go, go, go!!! Straight for the jump zone! We're clear for a few minutes!" Karn yelled as he litterally jumped in the air.

The ISD fell quiet as it's instruments jammed. A little while later several eratic bolts screamed out of the ships guns, though no wear near their intended target.

"See that Ulic, they can't hit a thing!"

Before Ulic could respond the Rebel ships opened a line of communication.

"What the hell was that? Our equipment just shut down or something?"

"Don't worry, we'll explain later - just keep that window open, we're on the way now."

Karn was impressed Afton had managed to stop the jammer from effecting his ship, Ulic's and the Rebels. He'd be forever in her debt now.

 

 

In under a minute, both battered crafts made it to the jump point un-hindered. And with their Rebel allies, jumped into hyperspace and away from danger.

Karn fell back in his chair, a relief almost dripped out of his body. He opened a line to his ships crew.

"Good work everybody, good work. It's over now."

 

OOC: We could leave it there, or meet up for one last time in this thread to say our goodbyes? I vote for the goodbye post.

[UlicHorn]

OOC: Since this hasn't been touched for awhile I just wanted to bump it and see if anyone was still in it, otherwise I'll end it.

[Krytos]

OOC: Did you read my last post? And that was only a week ago.

I've already more or less rapped it up. I figured we could have one or two last posts each to tie up any loose ends and say our goodbyes.