Fwurg

[T'Sal]

When T'sal is finished with the preparation for the boarding party she takes a look outside to see how the battle is going. She sees that Darones is drawing too much attention and it beeing chased by the Mandalorians. T´sal goes back to the long range canons to help him. She goes to one of the gunner seats of one of the smaller Preatorians. She taps him on the shoulder hand and holds her light saber up.

`Could you move out, I want to shoot some Mandolarions.`

With that she takes the gunners seat quickly adjusts the seat. As she is already familiar with the long range canons system it does not take long before she is used to the targeting. She first takes some test shots at random Mandalorians fighters. T´sal starts looking for Darones and his chasers. With guidance of the Force T´sal focuses and aims for bomber wings. She waits for the right angle and then shoots them. Hopefully destroying the chasers of Darones tail.

((Check: 12 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition -- Aiming with help of the Force and shooting the bomber wings chasing Darones.))

[Shebi Ajava]

Ajava calmly watched the battle unfold, noting how the Shaksii 3 was trying for a clean get-away while the other two vessels tried to shield it. With Darones botching the plan, it will be very hard to have the bombers break through, as Ajava had been counting on Darones to bring them an advantage in the fighter brawl.

Ajava quickly determined the plan.

"Commander, set a course to intercept Shaksii-3." She told the captain of the Ready in Eight Directions. "I will distribute the orders and guide the fight while in trance. Have someone prepare my Onyx-5 suit for me and have a fighter stand by for boarding. Notify me once we are within boarding range of the Shaksii-3."

She picked up her communicator. "This is Jedi Knight Shebi Ajava to the fleet. Prepare to board Shaksii-1 and Shaksii-2. The Titan Centurion Diamond will lead the charge, launching boarding platforms when a corridor has been cleared. Fighter wings, fall back to the cruisers and clear a corridor for the boarding platforms. Cruisers and Destroyers should ready their point-defence cannons to engage the enemy fighters regardless of friendly-fire chance. Let the Titan soak up their first attack wave on the shields."

She then quickly communicated short instructions to Darones and T'Sal. "Padawan Darones, clear your tail by luring them into the asteroid field with superior manoeuvring. Padawan T'Sal, launch in a fighter, and assist with clearing a corridor for the boarding platforms. Once the platforms have launched, join with Darones to clear his remaining tail and to jointly board and capture the mining/communications vessel."

Ajava sat down on the floor of the bridge and deeply inhaled. As she exhaled, she let her consciousness expand to all fighter pilots on her side. One by one she made them aware of the point-defence patterns that would be employed, and made sure she could guide them through the assault with minimal casualties, though she was prepared to sacrifice fighter wings to reach their objective.

((Check: 15 = 8 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Military Command + 1 Battle Meditation -- Take control of the fighters during the assault, to allow capital ship point-defence fire into the fight.))

[Darones Rei]

Noticing that his weapons were less effective then he hoped, Darones toyed with the idea of launching a torpedo at Shaksii-1. It would cause considerable damage now that the shields were failing, but possible more then the ship itself could take, with would go further then their initial objective. Before he could decide however, he noticed that he had gotten himself in rather difficult position with a fighter wing, some bombers and several missiles at his tail. His master's warning was just about at the same time.

"My apologies Master, I thought I'd show some initiative, I see now that it was wrong."

In order to dodge his tails, he needed to be fast and swift, so he diverted as much power to the engines and rear shielding as he could, sacrificing fire power for speed and protection. He also needed to lose the missiles on his tail. To resolve this Darones dove in between the cruisers and launched some countermeasures, hoping that the countermeasures and the large heat from the cruisers engines would offset missiles. Once clear for the cruisers, he went back into the asteroid field, as he picked up speed. With force to guide him, he hoped that he could quickly lose his pursuers and circle back into the fight either to rejoin the dogfight or to clear a space corridor for the boarding crews.


((Check: 12 = 5 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 2 Pilot -- reroute power, dodge missile and escape through the asteroid field))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: I don't think Star Wars fighters have counter-measures, I haven't seen them at least. The closest think I am aware of is tossing the spare parts, but fighters don't have those either, not the one Darones is flying in anyway. Nevertheless, he can use his excellent flying skills to compensate :).))


Darones:

The all-round fighter Darones was flying in was less manoeuvrable than the space superiority fighters of the Mandalorians, however, manoeuvrability alone isn't everything and Darones his flying skills outmatched the ones of the Mandalorians. His manoeuvre to fly through the heat wash of the Mandalorian cruiser engines appeared to serve it's purpose. Even though it severely harmed his shields, the missiles on his tail overheated and exploded in space just when they were about to hit Darones. He had to recharge his shields for a moment though, so he couldn't shoot yet for a while. It was a good thing that the padawan diverted power to the shields otherwise he would have been toast. Before the bombers had another lock on the padawan, he flew around the cruiser, both dodging the turbolasers of the cruiser and escaping the bomberwings for now.

He then quickly flew behind a nearby asteroid while the bomber wings were still flying around the cruiser trying to locate Darones. One bomberwing noticed Darones and followed him. Right when he heard the beeping of a missile lock, a large laser barrage came from the Titan Centurion Diamond, effectively wiping away the bomber squadron. The Mandalorian fighters were still on his tail though. Darones increased his speed and was reaching ridiculously dangerous velocities for flying trough an asteroid field. However due to his superior flying skills he was able to dodge the asteroids while his pursuers one by one clapped on the asteroids with a large explosion. Now free of chasers Darones was able to join the dogfight again with power back to weapons.

At the same time, he noticed something, a pull from the force towards the mining vessel. As like the force was trying to warn Darones for the ship.


T'sal

Just a moment before that, on the Praetorian destroyer, T'sal was claiming a gunners seat. Seeing the lightsaber, the Praetorian quickly stepped out of the chair and helped T'sal adjusting the seat to her likings. With the test shots, she made herself familiar with the canon. Sadly, the canon was meant to be used against capital ships and thus not very fast with changing angles, luckily Darones was relative far away so the canon only had to make small changes in angles. Darones his fancy flying around the cruiser made it very hard for T'sal to aim at his pursuers. She was able to hit the cruiser a few times, but only when Darones was making his move into the asteroid field T'sal saw her chance: One bomber wing tried to follow Darones, while it was flying in a straight line, T'sal aimed and fired the gun. With a barrage of laser fire, she hit the bomber wing and destroyed it before they could fire any more missiles on Darones. After which Darones flew further into the Asteroid field trying to shake his other opponents.

While T'sal was sitting in the chair, her intuition let her look at the mining vessel. She saw the vessel only as a miniature ship through the window, but she had the feeling that the force was trying to push her attention towards that ship.


Ajava

Meanwhile on the Ready in Eight Directions an officer quickly relaid Ajava's order about the suit to a soldier who made haste to prepare a suit for the jedi knight.

While she was meditating, she felt why the other ships were reluctant to use their short range point defence to its fullest: The crew of the ships felt overconfident with their superior numbers at one hand, while at the other hand they were afraid to start a political conflict by accidentally shooting an ally of the other faction. With her expanding mind she comforted the pilots and the gunners of the point defence guns not to worry.

The Titan Centurion Diamond went full force forwards towards the Shaksii 1, flanked by the six cruisers of the Union. A cloud of plasma explosions from the point defence guns kept the Mandalorian fighters away. The two Mandalorian cruisers were now 5 kilometres away from the edge of the Asteroid field but their way was blocked by the 7 Union ships which were 3 kilometres away from the Mandalorians. The heavy fire of the vessels prove to be too much for the shield of the Shaksii 1 and 2 and within a short time their shields failed completely.

The Titan Centurion Diamond launched the boarding platforms for the two squads. To both Mandalorian cruiser one squad. The Union fighters tried their best to keep the Mandalorian fighters at bay, and it seemed to work with help of the point defence of the cruisers and Destroyer. Darones then joined the fight again and was able to help shooting a way clear for the boarding squadron.

At the same time, the Ready in Eight Directions flew around the asteroid field. As it didn't had hinder of the asteroids, it was much faster than the Shaksii 3 and had an interception course without much effort. "Admiral, we are now in range to safely board the Shaksii 3, it is still 12 kilometres away, but we are remote enough from the battle to deploy a fighter without hinder or chance of interception." An officer announced to Ajava. "Wait, there is new development, the two bomber squadrons of the Mandalorians have noticed us and are closing in." Indeed, Ajava could see on the strategic holomap that the two remaining Mandalorian bomber wings flew towards the Ready in Eight Directions. The ship would probably survive, but not without sustaining heavy damage if the bombers would deploy heavy ordnance. There was still time to divert fighters to the bombers or to move the Ready in Eight Directions back and let it be covered by the other Union ships.

At the same time there was some other development as well: Large power peaks emerged from the Miner/Communcations vessel. The ship started to move power to shields, but more importantly, to the hyperdrive as well. The vessel started its first phase of rising from the asteroid, and the way it looked now, it would turn towards the majority of the Union ships. Ajava had the nagging feeling that something was off with the mining ship, it was as if the force was telling her that she might forget something important, or that she might regret something dearly. In any case, it felt like it was hard to place but it was trying to pull Ajava her attention towards the mining vessel.

There was still time to send one or both boarding squadrons to the mining vessel, or to send the bomber teams. Sending the cruisers would be possible as well, but was a lot harder because of the asteroids.

((OOC: I know there is a lot happening at the same time. Please don't hesitate to ask for clarifications if something is not clear.))

[Darones Rei]

Darones made sure that the boarding squadrons arrived safely and could deploy at both the Shaksii-1 en Shaksii-2 before he contacted T'Sal aboard the Titan Centurion Diamond.

"I guess I have you to thank for that salvo, you saved my ass there. Now lets go, and make sure that we board that Communication vessel as soon as possible, I have a feeling something is seriously wrong there."

He then waited for T'Sal to board a fighter and reach him and he partook in the dog fight for a little while, before they made their approach towards the Communication vessel, using the asteroids to keep their approach as covert as possible, and remain shielded from enemy fire and prying eyes as much as possible.

Once there, he looked for ways to gain entry into the mining-vessel, preferring a stealthy approach via a docking port over forcefully creating his own entrance by launching 1 or more torpedo's.

((Check: 12 = 5 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 2 Pilot -- making a covert approach and gain entry to the communications vessel))

[T'Sal]

T'sal smiles as she hits the bomber wings. She thanks the Preatorian and runs off. She grabs her Zero G suits and puts it on. While changing she puts information about fighters on her datapad. She runs to the fighter deck and reads on the ways.

"I am on my way, but I will need some instruction before piloting a ship. Miss Shebi there is something on that mining ship, but we have to wait and see."

T'sal goes report to one of the commanders and tells that commander Shebi has ordered her to fly a fighter and she needs one and some instructions on how to fly. It takes some time to get prepared, but T'sal does not want her first pilot experience be her last. T'sal then takes off and joins the others in creating a corridor for the boarding platforms.

((Check: 12 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition -- Flying a figther and making a corridor.))

Afterwards T'sal flies to the mining ship.

[Shebi Ajava]

Ajava's temper flares as she receives the message from T'Sal. 'Really, why do these children still get assigned to these jobs.', she thinks to herself. She remains silent and lets the girl fail or succeed on her own accord.

"Commander, I want you to turn around the moment my fighter launches. Rejoin our forces and let those Mandalorian bombers fly to and fro without purpose. Neutralize the cruisers there before sending backup here."

With those words she quickly strides from the bridge to the fighter bays, letting herself be guided by an officer. Not caring who saw her change, she doesn't wait for her escort to leave the room while she changes. Taking her lightsabers and bow with her, she checks the fresh air seals as she walks towards the readied fighter.

After racing through the pre-flight check she takes off towards the Shaksii 3 as fast as possible. Her plan was rather simple: she would just fly into their hangar bay to board, and make her way to the hyperdrive controls to disable them. If she couldn't board that way, she'd just land anywhere on the ship and make her own entrance through a window or airlock.

((Check: 13 = 8 Force Level + 5 Intuition -- Evading defensive fire and boarding/setting down on the hull))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

Darones and T'Sal:

His short moment of joining the dogfight is a great help for the fighters. Even though he is alone and not part of a wing, he manages to take out two fighter wings of the Mandalorians and clear the teals of a Veolian Fighter wing with his action.

The dogfight is now clearly in favour of the Union side and one Praetorian boarding party enters the Shaksii 1 without too much trouble, while the second party enters the Skahsii 2.


As all fighters are in the dogfight, there is not a real fighter ready for T'Sal. The shuttle she took to get on board the Titan Centurion Diamond has some guns though, so T'Sal has to it with that ship.

The moment she said to one of the commanders that she needs a fighter, and some instructions on how to fly it, the commander didn't look to happy, and mumbled something like "the way's of jedi" and "inconceivable". "Look," he said, "this is a Veolian shuttle, so I don't know too much about it. You can fly it with this: the steering stick, push is nose down, pull is nose up. Left is nose left and right is nose right. With this handle here you can adjust your speed, and with these buttons on the stick you shoot. When you want to land on one of our ships, just call in with this regular radio and we pull you in with our tractor beam. Just don't touch any of these buttons here, I don't know what they'll do, but they will probably crash your ship if you use them without knowing what they'll do."

By the time T'Sal finally took of, the two boarding parties of the Praetorian Empire already had boarded the Mandalorian ships. With not much left to do, T'Sal makes her way to the Mandalorian miner/communications vessel.

A Mandalorian fighter wing spotted her and thought to see an easy pray in the shuttle. They opened fire on the shuttle. Without much experience, T'Sal has a hard time to keep the ship flying, but the shields are holding of the first shots.

The Hiocan padawan accelerates and steers heavily, trying to shake he pursuers. Miraculously she survives the way towards the mining vessel while the laser shots flew around her left and right.

There, Darones sees T'Sal in troubles and steers his fighter towards T'Sal her shuttle. Two well aimed shots makes the Mandalorian fighters to break off their assault, and within two minutes he finishes off the entire wing.

Not really knowing if the mining vessel have spotted them, they still tried to reach the ship unnoticed. Bellow, at the belly of the ship they spotted an entrance. It looks like an entrance point for raw materials, but it is large enough for the two ships. They decided that this is the fasted and stealthiest way of entering the ship. There are some hatches as well, but those are probably not much more stealthy than the material entrance point at this moment, and entering that way takes much more effort.

They fly inside through a force field meant to keep the air inside and landing seemed actually pretty easy for T'Sal: Just push the speed handle all the way back, press a button with an icon of some landing gear, and push the nose down till a soft shock tells her she is landed.

So a few moments later, the two Padawan find themselves in an open storage space. The air is breathable, the ships are safely landed. There are pretty pig rocks lying around, and a little higher, but easily to reach, is a shaft with gravity cranes. They look like they normally grab the stones, and transported them deeper in the ship through the shaft, but they are deactivated at the moment. There are some normal doors as well, probably for maintenance and working personnel. But at this moment, they are alone.

There was one very distinctive thing what them both told that there are people on board: They sensed an unusually high amount of fear on the ship.


Ajava:

Shebi Ajava flew away and the Ready in Eight Directions turns around to rejoin the other forces. For a second the bomber wings appeared to break of to follow Ajava, but they actually changed course towards the Aurora and the Pulsar from the Sundarion Federation. With only the Praetorian mine sweeper to guard them, the sensor vessels seems to be an easy prey for the bombers.

The hangar bay of the Shaksii 3 is wide open, they probably didn't expect a single fighter to come all the way here and land, and why should they? If it landed there were enough Mandalorians with guns to stop a single fighter pilot. Of course they didn't expected a Jedi. Ajava evaded the point defence fire of the Mandalorian Cruiser without too much trouble and went straight for the fighter bay. There, she immediately exits her ship and deflected the first shot fired at her without trouble.

Seeing the lightsaber, the Mandalorians fired a bit more panicked, but this gave Ajava only more shots to deflect back to the soldiers. A moment later she was almost alone in the hanger bay, smoking bodies lying around. A few wounded soldiers are struggling towards a large door, clearly trying to escape.


Meanwhile the Sensor vessels of the Sundarians picked up some important development: "Master Jedi's, our scanning picked up high peaks in the hyperdrive of the mining and scanning vessel of the Mandalorians. Our estimation is that they have charged the hyperdrive long before they actually have reached a safe jumping point. But you have enough time for a bomber strike on the ship.

Also, the ship is turning towards our small fleet.

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: In the interested of saving precious posts I have included some generic approaches in this post. These are not meant as conditionals, but more as 'This is Ajava's global approach'. If you need me to make some choices, the fastests way would be to clearly present a few of them in a single post so I can decided on them in a single go.))

Ajava walks over to the large door, ignoring the wounded soldiers unless they try to attack or hinder her. If they do, she just kills them where they are and continues onwards.

She makes her way to the engineering section of the vessel, intent on disabling the hyperdrive and the self-destruct. Any soldiers or obstacles such as doors in her way are met with her twin lightsabers. If by her estimateion the lightsaber approach takes to much time, she'll try to ignore the soldiers or obstacle and rush by with her supernatural speed and acrobatics.

Ajava has no compunctions against killing anyone who stands in her way, but if at all convenient she tries to kill mostly soldiers and others who seem capable of actually threatening her. She is in a hurry, and doesn't want to waste time killing non-threats. If too many living threats pose a problem, she'll cut open an airlock to keep them busy while she continues on in her envirosuit.

If the engineering section isn't feasible for some reason, she will head to the bridge instead. Either way, she will try to prevent the ship from jumping to hyperspace or self-destructing, with stopping a self-destruct prioritized over stopping a hyperspace jump.

((Check: 11 = 8 Force Level + 3 Reason -- finding the way in the vessel based on boarding data))

((Check: 15 = 8 Force Level + 4 Fitness + 2 Athletics + 1 Force Speed -- getting through the ship))

[T'Sal]

T'sal is glad that the Force is with her as is able to get past the obstacles without problems. She parks the shuttle safely away and takes a good look around. The people on this ship fear something and T'sal wants to know what it is. With her engineering insight she looks for a communication console. She hacks into it to find some information about the ship like the lay-out, damage/status report (weapons/shields/engine), people on board etc.

((Check: 11 = 7 Force Level + 3 Vision + 1 Mechanical Engineer -- Looking for a communication console))
((Check: 13 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Slicing -- Hacking into computer system to get information about the ship.))

[Darones Rei]

With T'Sal looking for more information on the ships layout, Darones didn't feel like waiting that long, the ship could jump into Hyperspace any moment now, or threaten the fleet in some other way.

"T'Sal, once you find some more reliable data, let me know, right I feel I need to trust on the data already provided for us and my own intuition, I'll try getting to the engine room and disable the drive or cut power as a whole."

Darones thought about taking the shaft up for a moment, then the doors were easier. He makes his way to the engineering section of the vessel, intent on disabling the hyperdrive, the self-destruct and cutting the power. He trusted that with his lightsaber, and the current rain of fear he got from the ship, the crew would probably leave him be; but if they dared to stand in his way, were a threat and it wouldn't delay him to much, he had no problem with killing them.

His first priority was to prevent the ship from threatening their fleet, by arming a weapon of by means of a self destruct. Secondly he was seeks to disable the hyperdrive or kill power to the ship altogether.

((Check: 10 = 5 Force Level + 5 Reason -- finding his away around based on boarding data))

((Check: 11 = 5 Force Level + 4 Fitness + 1 Athletics + 1 Force Speed -- making his way around the ship))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

Ajava

Having a jedi on board seriously confused the Mandalorians, and caused to spread some panic around. Ajava quickly makes her way through the Mandalorian soldiers towards the hyperdrive engine while ignoring the engineering and other personnel. So far, it appeared that the Mandalorians thought they could still escape as so far Ajava didn't notice any kind of self-destruct procedure... yet.

By the time she reached the engine room, the blast doors were closed. It was possible to get through with her lightsabers, but this would take time. By the time she was half way through, red lights start to flicker, behind her in the hallway Mandalorians started to run towards the escape pods, ignoring the jedi knight, and over the speakers sounded: "Warning, hyperdrive overheating imminent, cooling systems manual override, evacuate ship immediately." As she already estimated, the time it would take to jump is longer than it takes for Ajava to cut through the door. So apparently the Mandalorians decided to overheat the drive instead, undoubtedly cause the ship to be destroyed, starting with the engines.

She estimated that she could cut through the door before the whole system is overheated, but she would still have to cool the hyperdrive. She would probably be able to run to the bridge in time and try to activate the cooling there, and with the Mandalorians running to the escape pods she expected little resistance. She also could take an escape pod or her fighter and abandon ship, but in the rate the Mandalorians were running, she has to decide now if she would indeed run.

So Ajava her options were for as far she could tell so far: Cut through the door and hope that she can cool the hyperdrive there somehow.
Haste to the bridge and hope that she can undo the manual cooling override from there.
Abandon ship.

In all cases, her time is limited.


T'sal and Darones

There was no console of any kind in the large bay they landed in, but in the hallway T'sal located a map console. The hallway seemed empty so there was not a high risk of being caught at the moment as it seems. Without much effort she hacked into it to gain access to basic ship data such as the map, accessible areas and crew manifest.

While T'sal was hacking the terminal, Darones is making his way through to engines. With some guidance of T'sal at some crossings, Darones neared the engine room very fast. So far everything went smoothly. Actually, the complete lack of people so far was strange. Darones clearly felt the fear around him increasing, but so far he saw nobody. Then, when he ran around the corner a big surprise was waiting for him. A large firing squad of Mandalorian soldiers were blocking the door to the engine room. The surprising part however was that none of them had aimed their weapons on the jedi. Before the squad, existing of roughly 30 men, sat up to 100 people kneeled, with their hands on their head, faced turned to the ground.

Meanwhile, oblivious to the situation Darones just encountered, T'sal saw in the people manifest that there were around 700 people on board, of which 150 were soldiers. The rest was listed as 'volunteer workers,' but something told her that these 550 people were not here as free as the manifest told her. while looking further, she was able to determine three groups of people: One cluster at the engine room where Darones was now, on group near the bridge and a group near the centre of the ship, by the looks of it the power generator.

Darones didn't had really time to look at the scenario before him, as one of the soldiers, a lieutenant by the looks of it, shouted: "Hold it right there jedi, or these civilians die. You wouldn't have the deaths of 550 innocents on your mind would you?" From what he saw and felt, Darones' instincts told him that these people were indeed innocent, and forced to do labour here. "I have a proposal," the lieutenant continued, "you and your little fleet leave this area and our ships, and we will let these people live."

"Master Jedi," sounded over the headsets of Darones, T'sal and Ajava. From the sound of it, it came from the Sundarian shipe Aurora, "the miner vessel's hyperdrive engine has reached critical levels, this way they will jump right right into our fleet!"

Darones had a problem, if he acted, the soldiers would surely kill these hundred people, and by the looks of the grenades on their belts, he couldn't stop them in time once they started killing. At the other hand, if this ship would indeed jump into their fleet, this would cause massive damage and the loss of many lives. He could trust the soldier his words, then these people would live, but maybe the soldier was lying. In any case, Darones had to make a decision of life or death for many, many people here and the people here felt very, very scared.

[T'Sal]

"Darones there are 150 soldiers and 550 civilians on board. There are 3 groups, one near the bridge, one near the power generator and one near the engine room.

One tip: Mandalorians soldiers use all means to accomplish their goal. They will not surrender and rather kill themselves.

I will sneak to the generator and cut off the power before they blow up everything."

T'sal takes a good look on the map and searches for the best way to approach the power generator without being noticed. She needs to be careful and quick.

((Check: 14 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Mechanical Engineer + 1 Stealth -- Finding the best sneak-route toward the power generator.))
((Check: 12 = 7 Force Level + 4 Fitness + 1 Stealth -- Sneak past the Mandalorians towards the power generator.))

Once she is there she goes to the control panel and takes a look at how this power generator works. T'sal looks for a way to shut down the power by destroying some crucial parts and not blow up. She installs some orders with a timer so she can sneak to the group of people and take down some soldiers before the power will fail.

((Check: 13 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Mechanical Engineer -- Determining how the generator works.))

((OOC: Trying to post as much as possible as to make progress.))

[Shebi Ajava]

Having little experience with hacking computer systems, let alone military grade command consoles, Ajava did not wish to make a run for the bridge. Instead, she continues to cut through the door.

If she gets past the door in time, she'll have to somehow stop the overload. Her plan was to find the cooling systems and flip the manual override the other way around: from not-cooling to cooling. She hopes that the system is actually mechanical, as she understands that. If that doesn't work or would take too long, she will have to eject the hyperdrive core to safe the ship... Better to have a stranded vessel than no vessel at all.

And if she has no other options left, she could always hightail it out of the engineering section and try to get to her fighter, or any other place she could quickly get off the soon-to-be-fireball.

((OOC: What follows are the checks that could be needed.))
((Check: 12 = 8 Force Level + 4 Vision -- Looking for options to enable cooling or eject hyperdrive; Mechanical Engieer can be done untrained.))
((Check: 12 = 8 Force Level + 4 Strength -- Physical manipulation of overrides or other things that need a shove))
((Check: 14 = 8 Force Level + 5 Energy + 1 Force Lightning -- Optional: disable an electrical device. Can be used once per day...))
((Check: 15 = 8 Force Level + 4 Fitness + 2 Athletics + 1 Force Speed -- Hightailing it out of there))

[Darones Rei]

" Well Sir, that isn't much of a choice now is it. "

Darones stated rather plainly as called the soldiers bluff,

"Either I let you continue and you blow up this ship right in the middle of our fleet, or I rush past and these unfortunate people die. Note that in either options these people are death... an unfortunate consequence of war. Now if you don't mind.. I'm rather short on time"

And with that he took out his lightsabers and rushed for the engine room, killing every soldier that stood in his way. The death of those people didn't rest easy with him, but as war let to loss life, Darones felt he couldn't make any other choice. Sacrifice a few, to save many. He simply could not risk the lives of all the people onboard their small fleet as well.

Once he got to the engine room, Darones quickly looked around and took a short moment to familirize himself with the engine systems before he started his attend to shut down the engine. If there were any control consoles, he would attempt to hack into them and use the emergency shutdown protocols or an ejection system, if none were present he would quickly write his own and execute it.

If there were no consoles present or they couldn't assist him in shutting down the hyperdrive, he would attempt to disable the drive manually, by using his knowledge and perhaps, if needed, his saber to cut the power couplings, forcing a cold turkey. He knew this could cause a serious overload, but he trusted that if he caused enough damage to the engine, safety protocols would kick in preventing a critical overload and shutting down the drive entirely.


((OOC: checks as needed))
((Check: 11 = 5 Force Level + 4 Fitness + 1 Athletics + 1 Force Speed -- getting past to soldiers and to the engine room asap))
((Check: 11 = 5 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Mechanical Engineer -- shutting down the hyperdrive engine))
((Check: 13 = 5 Force Level + 5 Reason + 1 Mechanical Engineer + 1 Programming + 1 Slicing -- hacking into a console and writing an emergency shutdown protocol if needed))
((Check: 9 = 5 Force Level + 3 Strength + 1 Mechanical Engineer -- shutting down the engine by force))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: T'sal, your use of mechanical engineer is denied, mechanical engineer is not for finding your way through a ship so I'm not using that one in the check.

For the rest, the checks are approved. I used a combination of the results of your checks, depending on the best fitting for the situation, so I'm not stating which check when and where exactly how is used.))

Ajava

When she entered the engine room there were two Mandalorian guys looking like soldiers waiting for her. They fired a few useless shots at her,trying to stall her. Ajava had no issues dealing with them however and they both fell down quickly. Now alone in the room, Ajava had a quick look around to see what she could do. The hyperdrive engine looked rather complicated though with all kinds of wires, glowing lights and screws. There were some pipes going to the hyperdrive. As these were the only pipes, these should be for cooling. There were some large metal fins as well. Ajava thought to remember that she had seen those before on other mechanical devices to cool down by means of heath radiation.

She couldn't do anything anything about the passive cooling, so she looked at the active cooling. Some kind of cooling liquid should probably flow through it, but this was the issue, there didn't seem to flow anything through it. There wasn't a mechanical valve either, so apparently this was done via the computer console. Ajava looked at one of the consoles but quickly determined that she had not the skills to use it, as it was protected with security software.

What she did find out was how a hyperdrive overload would cause the entire ship to blow: The sublight drive engines were located close to the hyperdrive engine. The hyperdrive would ignite the fuel lines to the sublight engine, and these lines would then ignite the fuel tanks deeper in the ship. It was safe to assume that there were safety methods preventing this from happening, and it was also safe to assume that these methods were deactivated.

With little time left Ajava did the one thing left she knew she could do: Delay the heating of the hyperdrive and prevent the ship from being destroyed. She pondered to zap the hyperdrive, but decided this was too risky. Instead she used her force lightning on something what looked like a power supply of the hyperdrive. This slowed down the process of the hyperdrive enough for Ajava to have some extra time.

There was something what looked like a large hatch underneath the hyperdrive, with some more looking it indeed was a mechanism to dump the hyperdrive in case of emergency, and this certainly was an emergency for her. She located a big red lever which looked like it would drop the hyperdrive. She pulled the lever and a few loud *clunks* underneath the hyperdrive confirmed that it was the right lever. With a few well places slashes of her lightsaber Ajava cut the hinges, and as a result, the hyperdrive dropped a down something like 10 meters. Ajava didn't had time to look into what the hyperdrive dropped as at the moment it fell down the hyperdrive exploded! Ajava was blown away by the shock wave, and for a moment she couldn't see or hear anything aside a peep in her ears and her own breathing. At least she was still breathing and she was lying on something uncomfortable, that means that she was still alive and thus that the ship wasn't exploded.

Oh, she saw, she was lying on one of the soldiers.


T'sal

T'sal had little troubles going to the power generator. As she expected, the soldier were gathered around the key elements of the ship. T'sal used her mirror to look around the last corner to see roughly 30 soldiers with 200 hostages. The hostages were sitting on their knees, hands on their heads and looking at the ground. The soldiers were looking around like they were expecting someone.

T'sal walked back to enter a maintenance shaft. She crawled through it and used her lightsaber to cut a hole to the engine room. The doors were closed so she was relative safe here. She looked at the power generator. It was a relative simple power generator: fuel went in, was converted to power, and power and remainings of the fuel went out. T'sal entered the console and without much troubles she passed the security. There she tried to find a shut down system of the power generator. There was a automated script to do so, but there was no timer. T'sal quickly programmed a timer to give her the time she needed.

Then she opened the door to the outside. The Mandalorians not expecting this turned around, to see what that was. T'sal cut down the first five soldiers before they actually reacted. Most of them started to shoot hostages which started screaming and shouting and running and making a lot of chaos, some other of the soldiers started to shoot the jedi. T'sal had a hard time to protect the hostages, and some of them fell down. But right when T'sal was half way cutting here way through the Mandalorians, the power went down. T'sal expected this, they didn't.


Darones

The moment Darones moved forward, the first Mandalorian soldier shot a hostage, right through the head. The other hostages started screaming, and wanted to run away, but the soldiers shot them one by one. Darones ran past them into the engine room, hearing the blasters shots and the following screams of the falling hostages. The smell of burned flesh entered his nose and slowly the screams started to become less, as there were less people to scream. A sour taste entered his mouth and a nasty feeling crawled over his back as one by one he felt the presence of the people fade away. Why would they do this, why slaughter these people and not going after him? He was a jedi, he was dangerous. Those people were no thread to them so why?

Inside the Engine room, Darones quickly accessed the console at the hyperdrive engine. There he entered the system without too much trouble. A bigger issue was shutting down the hyperdrive. This had to be phased out in several steps in order to be done safely. Darones quickly coded a simple script that would run the hyperdrive deactivation scripts. The hyperdrive started to power done, and all seemed to go well, aside the one hundred and fifty corpses outside the door.

When the hyperdrive was half way powered down, laser shots from the Mandalorian soldiers were shot against Darones. He could barely dodge the first ones before activating his lightsaber. He quickly counted 25 soldiers, but before he could finish his counting, all power went down and the lights went dark.

[Shebi Ajava]

Stepping out of the engine room through the hole she cut in the blast doors, she remembers the size of the vessel. A cruiser of this size would easily feature a crew of 1000 to 2000. 'Good. They won't have enough escape pods for everyone.', she thinks to herself, 'That will make things more lively.'

Reasoning that the Mandalorians would have activated an actual self-destruct if they had one, Ajava concluded that the danger of a self-destruct had been averted. Next on her list was taking control of the ship, which she plans on doing by going to the bridge and thereby denying the Mandalorians access.

As she is feeling happy with her small victory, Ajava is in a good mood. Instead of outright killing opposition, she puts in some extra effort to kill only uninteresting opposition. She takes a moment to separate a minor part of her conscious that will evaluate anyone she encounters and determine if the are interesting in some way.

Then, she sets off for the bridge with a smooth stride.

[T'Sal]

T'sal plans works nicely. She manages to turn off the power generator and surprises the Mandalorian soldiers. T'sal is trying to free the hostages and fighting the Mandalorians as the power goes off. T'sal is prepared and has taken a good look around before everything turns dark. The only thing visible is her green lightsaber. The hostages could now escape while she finishes the fight.

With her telekinetic power T'sal launches various objects to the soldiers. With the Force guiding her T'sal moves quickly in the dark and kills all the Mandalorian soldiers.

((Check: 13 = 7 Force Level + 4 Energy + 2 Telekinesis -- Using various object to attack the Mandalorians))
((Check: 13 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Athletics -- Let the Force guide her to manoeuvre around))

"Darones as you can see I got the generator off-line. There are about 30 soldiers and 200 hostages here. I will could them to make sure. How are you doing?

After the combat is over T'sal tries to calm down all the hostages and get an overview.

"You can come out. I killed the soldiers. I am here to help you. Please come and help me clean this up here. The wounded need help and dead put down to rest."

((Check: 12 = 7 Force Level + 4 Energy + 1 Mind Trick -- Calming down the hostages and get them to cooperate.))

She tries to help the wounded hostages and count all the people here (dead and alive). T'sal also tries to get some information from the hostages of the situation here on the ship.

[Darones Rei]

" Normally I would welcome your timing, but this might just be a bit unfortunate. Oh.. and the hostages, they are probably all dead.. Just make sure the power doesn't come back online again, we should be alright then."

Darones responded, as he quickly got out his lightsabers to deal with the Mandalorians. Eventhough they made him a larger target in the dark, they would enable him to finish of the soldiers much quicker and enact some sort of revenge for the innocents they killed only moments ago.

" Lets play.." He dared the soldiers

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

Ajava

On her way, Ajava killed quite some Mandalorians who she evaluated as soldiers. A few she encountered were actually interesting enough to spare, some Mandalorians who looked like mechanics, a few sexy female cooks and some masculine soldiers who had to be very handsome without armour. The cooks and mechanics were no threat, and a simple Mind Trick was sufficient enough for the soldiers to stop attacking Ajava for the moment.

Finally at the bridge, Ajava had little to fear that the ship would go anywhere or blow up by surprise.

She opened the door to the bridge with her lightsabers and a moment later she stood in the door opening. 3 soldiers held her at gunpoint, left and right and in front of her were various controls and behind some of them were more mandalorians seated. In the middle in the front before the large windows which provided a beautiful sight of the asteroids and the stars stood a Mandalorian with his back to Ajava, not paying her any attention. But from the cape and the decorations on the shoulders, Ajava determined that this should be the captain of the ship.


T'sal

There were no objects in the hall besides her, the Mandalorians and the hostages to throw at the Mandalorians. T'Sal reached out with the force and felt only one small heavy object very suitable to throw at the Mandalorians. With a small tug she shot the thing to a soldier who instantly lost his footing by the impact. In the dark only the flashing lightsaber and the flashing laser shots were visible. It all was a very intense sight, especially how the lightsaber was sending the laser shot back into unseen objects who then fell on the floor.

Just as T'Sal finished the last Mandalorian warrior the emergency lighting went on and the entire hallway bathe in red light. Roughly 30 soldiers and 20 hostages lay dead on the floor.

With the emergency light on, T'Sal actually saw what she threw at one of the soldiers, it was the buckle of the belt from one of the hostages, a skinny one, who was now standing with his pants on the floor.

T'Sal tried to calm down the hostages, but her efforts were not very effective. In fact, most hostages ran away from her. Her mind trick helped for an individual, but it was impossible to mind trick over 150 scared and panicking people. So moments later she was standing there in the hallway with the hostages fled to other parts of the ship. Some hostages were wounded so T'Sal started to help them. By seeing that T'Sal was giving care to the wounded, the other wounded people stopped trying to get away and waited for care.

"Warning, hyperdrive becomes unstable, evacuate immediately! ...Warning, hyperdrive becomes unstable, evacuate immediately! ...Warning, hyperdrive becomes unstable, evacuate immediately! ..."
Something went wrong!


Darones

The fight in the engine room went rather identical as the one near the power room: everything was dark, the room was only lit by laser shots fired against and deflected by lightsabers. Red lines from molten armour and burning flesh appeared in a high rate as they were cut by the lightsaber. Darones was nearly done when the red emergency lighting went on.

He felt a disturbance in the force, with emergency power kicking in, the hyperdrive had power again. But worse, the engine was not powered down properly so the system now began to turn unstable, and five Mandalorians were standing between Darones and the control panel.

"Warning, hyperdrive becomes unstable, evacuate immediately! ...Warning, hyperdrive becomes unstable, evacuate immediately! ...Warning, hyperdrive becomes unstable, evacuate immediately! ..."

[Shebi Ajava]

Standing in the opening, lightsabers shining bright red. Knowing that by now the soldiers knew that they would only die if they opened fire, Ajava took a moment to look over the situation. When she was done looking around, she bursts forward. A few haphazard shots and a moment later one was decapitated, one struck in the heart, and one with a pierced neck. The three soldiers slump to the ground synchronously.

Extinguishing her blades, she calmly walked over to stand next to the captain, looking out through the window. She made sure to have her hand remain on the hilt of her regular blade, should she need to deflect a surprise shot.

Standing in silence next to the captain, she looked out of the window. As the two stood there in silence, she actually felt a slight hint of regret -- not over the soldiers she killed, but over the fact that she just crashed a smoothly running military vessel.

After a while, she spoke: "Surrender yourself and your ship to me, captain, and live to fight another day. Or, if you prefer, I can offer you summary execution. Either way, I will be taking command of this vessel."

[T'Sal]

T'sal tries to help as much people as she can. Then comes the warning, this does not bode well. She asks the people stay here as she will take care of the situation..

"What did you do to the hyperdrive Darones?

I will shut down the emergency power and then go the bridge."

T'sal quickly goes back into the power generator room. she hacks into the system again at the console. She disables all power except for life support system (and maybe other necessary system to survive). T'sal makes sure that others cannot get the system back online, she destroys a few key components if she has to.

((Check: 13 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Slicing -- Disabling all power except life support.))

After that T'sal makes her way towards the bridge. On her way she looks for some emergency gear. Some extra light could be useful to light the way and also use as distraction. When T'sal is close she turns off the light and sneaks the last part. Using the Force she analyses the situation and devices a plan to kill the soldiers and savings as much hostages if they were alive.

((Check: 12 = 7 Force Level + 4 Fitness + 1 Stealth -- Sneaking to the bridge))
((Check: 12 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition -- Using the Force to sense the situation, how many people are there and where.))

[Darones Rei]

"Well.. "

Darones said, while he cleaned up the last five mandalorian soldiers that stood between him and the hyperdrive as efficient as possible.

"I was in the middle of shutting down the drive, when the power failed. As a result the drive has become unstable, so if you could hold off on cutting emergency power for a little while, perhaps I can resolve this problem so that the ship doesn't blow up in our faces. I'll contact you again once I'm ready."

Then Darones quickly turned his attention back to the hyperdrive, he didn't have much time to spare, nor did he have many options. The sudden loss of power and the kick-in of emergency power had result in an unstable core, likely due the fact that the shut down protocol he had written hadn't completely finished yet.

He felt confident that he could still fix the problem, but only if T'Sal waited with shutting down all power, and only when he could succeed in stabilizing the core first. This problem couldn't be solved by damaging the drive, as this would surely result in an overload, nor dared Darones fiddle with the emergency protocol that had triggered the warning.

Instead he took some time to study the drive's systems further and look for ways to stabilise the core and prevent a critical power surge, once that was done he made some last minute correction to the shut down protocol and ran it once more.

Once finished and the drive had powered down, he contact T'Sal again:

"you can shut down emergency power now.."

((Check: 13 = 5 Force Level + 5 Reason + 1 Mechanical Engineer + 1 Slicing + 1 Programming -- resetting and rewriting shutdown protocol to stabilise and shut down the hyperdrive on emergency power.))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: T'Sal, you need force vision to get accurate numbers of people. Force vision 2 to see through walls. Your action to disable the power has failed. The other two checks are approved, with removing of the 'how many people and where' part.
Darones, you were already in the system, so slicing is no longer required. However, your effort in trying to safely shut down an already overloading and unstable hyperdrive has still failed.))


Ajava

"I believe an honourable duel would be pointless wouldn't it?" the captain spoke calmly, "you know, after serving one lord, who has been killed by the next lord to serve, what's the point in the end?" His voice sounded a bit tired, the voice of a man who served too many leaders and had fought too many battles. "I've seen one leader step up, been killed in honourable duel and be replaced by the other for many times now. I've defended this ship and its crew against many rivals who though to be better captains. But in the end most of the crew prefers to fight to the death instead of consider any of the other options and to regain decent glory in the future." He turned to Ajava and looked straight at her: "I surrender. The ship is yours."


T'Sal

Again T'Sal gained access to the control panel, but the emergency power was not accessible from here. Instead, every part of the ship had its own emergency energy supply providing power to the necessary life support systems. A quick calculation by head gave a simple picture of the situation: over 30 decks... 3 sectors per deck at least... several utility areas... thousands kilometres of maintenance shafts, it was quicker to remove the hyperdrive by hand than to single handedly shut down all the separate emergency energy supplies. At least nobody else could quickly enter the main power supply anymore. So the ship wouldn't jump away. Only explode the most. The Hiocan padawan sliced an interface cable to make sure that indeed nobody else would have access to the power generator.

On her way, she found a broom closet with a vibro-broom, hoverbucket and a flashlight.

Near the bridge, T'sal felt the presence of many people and she felt multiple hostile presences. Looking with her little mirror again, she saw roughly 200 people on the ground like before, and roughly 50 Mandalorians. Though it was hard to count these larger numbers quickly with only a little mirror.

Using the same trick as she did before wouldn't work. Not only were there too many soldiers, they were no prepared for these kind of surprises. Sneaking to the bridge was difficult. At least she couldn't find a shaft leading to the bridge. She could make one, but it was likely that the Mandalorians would notice this. So she had to think of something if she wanted to safe 200 people. Of course, there was the option of simply rushing in. She would win the fight in all likely hood, and once the soldiers were dispatched, she could claim the bridge and the ship would be theirs. It would only cost the lives of 200 slaves. If the ship wasn't blown up by then.

Suddenly the alarm message stopped. A moment later it was getting rather warm, but not so much to be afraid yet.


Darones

It seemed that by the time T'Sal could shut down the power, the war would be over, as a figure of speech. Shutting down power again would result in an immediate power feedback burst making the already unstable core to explode. Rewriting the power down script was not working as well with the unstable core. So in the end Darones saw only one option: He opened the emergency venting systems, redirected the system to only the rear end of the ship, and ran away to a shielded area. The next moment the hyperdrive collapsed, but instead of causing a large explosion destroying the ship, it created a sea of fire which was sucked away by the venting system. From his area, Darones felt the walls getting incredibly hot, but the emergency shielding was holding. After a lot of noise and very uncomfortable heat the shields went down and the Sundarian Padawan was able to enter back at the hallway. Now it was also clear why the ship needed to be evacuated, the hallways were totally black. With some metal still read glowing. The hyperdrive area was still way to hot to enter, but at least the ship wasn't exploded.

[T'Sal]

Taking out all systems one by one would take too long. T'sal counts on Darones to take care of the hyperdrive as she continues to the bridge.

On the way T'sal takes everything that she can get with her, she even fills the bucket with water. She takes a look around and it would be hard to surprise these guards, but she needs to think of something if she wants to save the hostages. T'sal goes to seek the emergency generator of this sector. She hacks in just like the power generator and set a timer for a power out. On here datapad she sets an vibration alarm 10 second before the power out.

T'sal goes back and sets up a trap for the Mandalorians in the few minutes she has. In one direction she puts the broom set up straigh in the bucket with the ON flashlight fixed on top ready around the corner and atthe other side she hides. She focuses on the Force and closes her eyes as to prepare for moving in the dark. When the power fails T'sal uses her telekinetic power to get the bucket with the broom and flashlight moving towards the Mandalorians. As the Mandalorians soldiers are now focused on the light moving there way, T'sal sneaks in from the other end. Hopefully it would take them some time before the notices and start firing at a moving bucket and people.

By making a big jump T'sal lands next to a soldier and quickly and quietly disables him with the Tal-shaya move. She uses her suus mahna martial arts to take out the soldiers silently until she gets noticed. Then she switches to her ligth saber and use her telekinetic power to hit more soldiers in the dark to quickly disable them and save as much people.

((Check: 13 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Slicing/Programming -- Hacking into system and disabling the emergency power supply.))
((Check: 12 = 7 Force Level + 5 Intuition -- Using the Force for guidance in the dark.))
((Check: 14 = 7 Force Level + 4 Fitness + 1 Athletics + 1 Force Jump + 1 Stealth -- Making a big jump towards the Mandalorians soldiers (so they can not hear her coming)))
((Check: 13 = 7 Force Level + 4 Energy + 2 Telekinesis -- Moving the bucket and later attack the soldiers.))
((Check: 13 = 7 Force Level + 4 Fitness + 1 Stealth + 1 Athletics -- Take down the Mandalorians first down as silent as possible.))

After T'sal has the majority of the soldiers down or find the one who looks like the captain.

"Surrender!"