Chapter 9: Orbital Operations

[Muskrat]

Anneela looks with pity on the droid. "Yeah, let's take it along. If our reprogramming of it switched its loyalties, we can hardly leave it behind." After they strap in, she calls out, "Hey droid, what's your designation? What should we call you?"

As they take off, Anneela reaches out with the Force to see if she can sense trouble coming their way.

Display

Use the Force check--Sense Surroundings or Search Feelings, whichevr is more appropriate.

[Bo]

The droid answers. "my designation is now CW-258, says the droid.it shuffles forward and looks over wile in the cockpit.

The ship leaves the platforms dock and floats free for a moment before igniting its engines and moving downwards towards the planet.

Reaching out with the Force, Aneela does sense something foreboding about to happen , but utterly unavoidable at this juncture.

The ship descends and moves further and then it happens: the display in front of Wile lights up with about a dozen signals in attack formation. They bink blue, signifying friendlies.

[Donan]

Tab had been studying CW and his programming when he hears the beep and looks up, eyes widening a little.

"Wille.. that's not a good sound. What is it?"

[Bo]

Wile looks down at his consol, a puzzled look on his face. He points at the screen and says, "It looks like our fleet is here....and that they didn't get our message."

A moment later, three times as many blips on the screen appear, this time in red. "Oh no!!!" Wile covers his face. "The Imperials have arrived.... their position shall I say is ... quite advantageous."

Boom! The ship gets rocked by an attack. Wile looks down. "And we have company. Three fighters on our tail.... Rear deflector is nearly down..."

[Muskrat]

"Oh, crud," says Anneela. "Maybe the Imperials jammed out signal. Anyway, we have some fancy flying to do here." She takes a seat where she can fire one fo the ship's guns, while letting Wile fly.

[Donan]

Tab growls, a sound of anxious worry. "Keep us in one piece if you can, I'll try something else." He taps the droid's metal chest. "Can you access the Imperial fleet through the orbital platforms?"

[Bo]

"Of course, Master," says CW-258. "It will take but a moment to pull up the appropriate encryption algorithms...." The droid shuffles over to a data-jack and plugs in, clearly not rushing himself. The droid seems to have no sense of urgency about this sort of thing - probably not in his programming.

Wile just rolls his eyes. He looks to his right, though, and then is glad to have Anneela sit next to him. "Thanks," he says. "Incoming, 4 o'clock!!"

OOC

In the interest of time we can just RP the space combat at this point. I don't want to slow things up by making folks look at a bunch of stats and digging into the rulebook. I do want to do some space combat at some point, though

As the adventurer's ship continues flying, the console tells the tale: The red signals on the screen open fire and start engaging the blue signals. In a few moments, the first blue signal winks out of existence. Oddly, though, Anneela feels.... nothing?

[Muskrat]

Anneela sinks herself into a light Force trance as she prepares to fly. But when the Imperial ships begin firing on the Rebel fleet and the Rebel ships disappear without a ripple in the Force, she says, "Something ain't right here. And even more not right than in the obvious ways. When people die it creates ripples in the Force. When lots of people die, it creates big ripples in the Force. And I'm not sensing a damn thing. I'm glad no one's actually dying out there, but someone is doing something screwy. I wonder if that's actually the Rebel fleet or if it's some kind of trick ... and if it's a trick, who's playing it? Are the Rebels screwing with the Imperials by sending a fake fleet, or are the Imperials screwing with us?"

She pauses, then reaches out with the Force, trying to sense if the Jedi Masters, Seendar and Ommol Choi, who she sensed earlier are in the area or not.

[Bo]

As Anneela sinks into a Force trance, the space battle grows and rages around her and the ship's crew. More and more blue dots on the screen wink out as the Imperial numbers grow. Wile jukes their transport this way and that, taking out several fighters along the way. No amount of flying, though, would be enough: Eventually another hit is scored on the ship's rear engines and the ship begins to plummet downwards, every downwards to the planet.

Anneela senses nothing.. no familiar presences... nothing: until, like a bright ray of sunshine, it hits her: the Jedi are here!

At the same moment, behind the mass of red dots on the sensors appear a multitude of blue icons surrounding them!!

.. but what happens next? Well - that is hard to say. The ship has entered the high atmosphere over Dac and its instruments are spinning wildly out of control

Feeling the vibraion of the ship beneath him, Wile says. "I don't know what just happened, but we have no choice but to continue on." He shakes his head. "Atmospheric controls look ok... I guess we just need to try and land this thing and contact the planetside groups."

[Donan]

"If they've pulled off an ambush, all the better. CW, do you have that access managed?"