"Yes." He said. "And normally we'd leave any groundside or boarding operations to our Marine contingent, but given the probable abilities of the enemy, I'll have to ask you, Lt. Starglow, or Lt. Khambatta -- or possibly all three of you -- to accompany any such action."
"It's too bad we don't know more about their training. Still, until we do know, and until we've seen how strong they are, it's probably a good idea for us to all go and to stick together. They taught us at the Academy that the Sith are merciless with the weak...which means that any Sith we meet will probably be pretty strong."
"I expect we'll see some resistance above and on Ruusan, then," Rosa says.
"That's likely. And we don't have good data on how the Nebulon-C Frigate differs from the Nebulon-B yet. Naval Intelligence says its the Imperials first try at a proton missile frigate, but it's built on pretty much the same platform as the Nebulon-B. We don't know exactly what that means just yet." Commander Cyn said.
"I'm a pilot, not an soldier sir, but I guess that'll just make it more interesting." Istara says with a sigh.
"Do we have any idea on whether the Nebulon C will have any support ships with it, or if there are any Imperial ships already stationed at Ruusan?" the Corellian asked.
"Do we have any idea on whether the Nebulon C will have any support ships with it, or if there are any Imperial ships already stationed at Ruusan?" the Corellian asked.
"Neither we nor the Imperials claim the system, not surprising since the disaster there just before Darth Pauran's rise to power, so definitely no fixed assets in place. Our information says it should be just the frigate and its fighter wing -- our operations research people say they should have dumped one of the Nebulon B's two fighter squadrons for missile storage if they made the most efficient design choice -- that's what we did with the Sacheen class -- but we can't guarantee that. We'll have to come up with a new plan if they have more than that -- the Republic's long past the days when we had to take on Star Destroyers with frigates."
"When we go after this guy will we have the ship marines with us to counter whatever storm trooper presence he may have with him or will it just be the three of us? I don't mind long odds, but I'd rather have a few cards hidden up my sleeve before sitting down at the saabac table sir."
"If we want to capture a force user, especially one that might use a lightsaber our options are going to be rather limited since he'll just deflect stun bolts, and I'd not fancy my chances of smacking him with a stun baton while he's holding a lightsaber...I'd like to talk with the chief engineer, see if we can't come up with something that could take him by surprise. Will there be time for that?"
"When we go after this guy will we have the ship marines with us to counter whatever storm trooper presence he may have with him or will it just be the three of us? I don't mind long odds, but I'd rather have a few cards hidden up my sleeve before sitting down at the saabac table sir."
"That will depend on what he's got on the ground. I'll certainly send at least a platoon of Marines with you; if it looks like he's got Stormtroopers out in force, we may end up using our entire Marine company with the fighter wing flying close air support."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shalimar
"If we want to capture a force user, especially one that might use a lightsaber our options are going to be rather limited since he'll just deflect stun bolts, and I'd not fancy my chances of smacking him with a stun baton while he's holding a lightsaber...I'd like to talk with the chief engineer, see if we can't come up with something that could take him by surprise. Will there be time for that?"
"If she can work quickly. It shouldn't take us all that long to get there."
"How old is this information?" Rosa asks. "And should they have arrived on the planet before us?"
"Only a few days, for the info from Coruscant. It's been months since anything official from the Navy or the Jedi has been to Ruusan, so I can't be 100% sure there won't be other Imperials beyond the ones we're going after there." He says. "They'll probably be ahead of us, but not by much; we should have a faster hyperdrive than an Imperial frigate."
"This'll leave the ship's squadron pretty short handed if they have to fight against a dozen interceptors, or more advanced fighters. A dozen against seven is pretty rough without the seven having to defend other craft."
"It might be better if we take their fighters out before we send down the marines, and Zenith and I can cover the landings."
"This'll leave the ship's squadron pretty short handed if they have to fight against a dozen interceptors, or more advanced fighters. A dozen against seven is pretty rough without the seven having to defend other craft."
"It might be better if we take their fighters out before we send down the marines, and Zenith and I can cover the landings."
"I won't dispatch the fighter contingent to ground support unless the Imperials have done the same thing, or we've already dealt with their fighters. We're going to be making a lot of this up as we go along." He says.
"I won't dispatch the fighter contingent to ground support unless the Imperials have done the same thing, or we've already dealt with their fighters. We're going to be making a lot of this up as we go along." He says.
"I meant that our squadrons are short handed in comparision to imperial squadrons given that we only have 9 fighters and the other three are bombers. With Zenith and I on a ground mission thats down to seven fighters against a whole squadron of Tie Interceptors, or Advanced models, almost 2-1 odds." Istara explains, trying to clarify.
"I was asking if Zenith and I shouldn't use our fighters instead of going down in the shuttle so we are closer to being with the rest of the Squadron if needed."
"I was asking if Zenith and I shouldn't use our fighters instead of going down in the shuttle so we are closer to being with the rest of the Squadron if needed."
"I suppose I wasn't sufficiently clear. Lt. Khambatta is correct; I have no intention of pulling you two from your fighters -- or Lt. Storm from his gunnery grew, for that matter -- until the situation in space is such that we can do it."
"What's our main tactical advantage going into this mission?" Rosa asks. "How do we know that the Empire isn't leading us into a trap?"
"Unless the Empire's pulled off a few feats of engineering that our technical people are convinced are impossible for them, we should have a Nebulon C outgunned, especially when the bombers are added into the mix, despite being smaller and faster. My understanding is that the source for our information has been reliable in the past, and we've confirmed most of it through multiple channels, but of course operational details on intelligence work aren't passed on to field commanders. So there's only one real way to know the Empire's not leading us into a trap -- at least, unless our Jedi have more talent with farseeing than I thought."
"Sorry, no surprises from me. Master Solo always yelled at me for being too focused on the here and now." Istara said with a shrug. She wasn't too bothered by her apparent failing.
"What I was thinking of for our surpise for our force user was strapping some drids with vests full of stun gernades. Have them run up to the guy and set them off. Its not like droids would even feel the grenades, and with a half dozen gernades it should be enough to put him out, shake him up at the very least. Use more of the same for guards. It might do him much good to keep getting hit with stun blasts, but its preferable to having him get away."
"I don't believe it would be all that hard to find stun gernades or a vest, all that would be needed would be for the engineers to rig the grenades to all go off at once."
Storm has been slouched on his usual manner at his seat, listening to the conversation. I foresee no trap but my connection to the Force is not great. However, we are talking about a possible Sith here, and they are always too easy to underestimate. As for grenades, I have few on my combatgear. But if he is a Sith, what we really need to worry about is why is he going there. The Empress wouldn't send him to a tactically worthless planet unless there was something to find. Whatever it is, we need to prevent her from getting it.
"Well, there's one sure way to find out," Zenith notes cheerfully. "We go down, and we ask 'hey, what are you doing down here?' Then we'll repeat it, only less politely, after we've defeated him...or her."
"Point being, we'll never figure it out from up here. We've got to mop up the fighters and the frigate, then get down there and see what's going on."
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