NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 1611041" data-attributes="member: 515">Vargas keys up the transmitter. "KGL, this is Imperial humanitarian mission. We are attempting to comply with earlier request to stay clear of your airspace by departing same. Please be advised, this vehicle makes wide turns. Have a nice day." The former Scout turns to Argent. "All jokes aside, four enforcers? I wonder what happened? Oh, and any ideas how we handle our friends out there orbiting the border? Go ballistic maybe?" "The Bromlians are there to ensure the Kingans don’t attempt to enter their airspace," Marcus answers, continuing to follow the fastest course to the friendly border as he decides to use the nape of the earth to his advantage. "I’m quite sure they’re extremely interested in our attempts to obtain the vaccine. "Swann, target KGL units at your discretion. No mercy, Mister," he adds. "Ian: strap in and take notes." Argent chuckles through an evil grin as he tries to coax all of the speed he can out of the lumbering hulk. -----"Aye aye, Captain." Ian responds. "Thanks for the concern, Darishun, but it’s just some good ol’ strains, sprains, and bruises. We can check it out later." After a brief argument with Darishun about his health, Ian heads for the stateroom next to the improvised sickbay, straps himself to the chair, and configures the station to keep track of the action. Shaking his massive head sadly, Darishun follows and hunkers down in the corridor outside of the stateroom and braces himself against the walls. Thinking about the unfortunate propensity for the crew to get into unnecessary violence, the Virushi thinks that he really ought to rig some harness points where he can strap himself in around various parts of the ship given that he can’t fit in any station chairs. -----Martha chimes in on the comm discussion about where to go next. "Cap’n, have you considered going above them? We can reach orbit faster than they can, and once we’re up there, we’ve got Imperial support on our side." She shrugs, mostly to herself as Marcus probably can’t see her. She continues her efforts to jam the sensor locks of the fighters, frustrated that three shots got passed her prior efforts. -----Vasilii listens to the ex-Scout and the engineer, then chimes in. "Captain, Ms. Smith and Mr. Vargas may have good points. If we cross into Bromlian airspace directly, we implicate them and could start a war. If we head into space, not only will we avoid that but also we could head straight for the Wall of Stone where Imperial medical facilities are better. "The Bromlians can claim outrage and denounce us all they want. They can even claim that their fighters are there to deny the border to us." A sly smile spreads across Vargas’ face. "Very good, a nice piece of thinking that." "Good idea. Hang on," Argent confirms, then banks left — parallel to the border — and takes the Bray Keaven as vertical as he can get without losing too much velocity. "Emile, Swann, keep those fighters out of our exhaust port." -----"Roger that, Captain," Swann says as he tracks the incoming fighters. He targets the closest one and fires. -----Marcus initially points the lumbering far trader towards the border with Bromley and attempts to extract as much airspeed as possible from the Bray Keaven. After suggestions from Vasilii, Martha, and Vargas, he takes the Bray Keaven vertical and heads for space at maximum speed. Unfortunately, Marcus can’t recall the likely operating ceiling for the TL-8 fighters, so he can’t estimate how long the Bray Keaven will be under fire from the KGL fighters. Vasilii uses the ship’s sensors to assist Swann’s gunnery. -----Seeing the Bray Keaven go ballistic, the lead new fighter comms the fleeing far trader, "Merchant ship. This is Raptor One. Return to 10km altitude and circle immediately. We will destroy you if you attempt to flee. You are in violation of King George’s Land airspace and you are harboring criminals. This is your last warning." -----Martha’s attempt to jam their sensors goes disastrously awry, and her efforts apparently turn the sensors into some great beacon, and all four fighters achieve lock ons and fire. Fortunately for the Bray Keaven, only two of the missile hit. One missile impacts on the top side of the hull over port jump engine. The other missile strikes on the port side near the low berths. The damage control screen in the cockpit indicates probable damage to one of the low berths. -----Swann returns fire, targeting Raptor One. With Vasilii’s assistance, he easily hits the lead fighter with both lasers, and the fighter is simply vaporized. Vargas has the computer target Raptor Two with the port laser. The port laser hits Raptor Two, and Raptor Two goes down streaming smoke. -----Vasilii watches his screen as the ship fires, and winces as the lead fighter vaporizes. He switches his sensors to the two remaining fighters and tries to assist the gunners with targeting. -----Marcus frowns as the ship takes a couple more hits, then leans his head slightly in Vasilii’s direction. "Vas, if you can, give Martha a hand on jamming those radars." With everyone doing their jobs, the captain is able to focus entirely on piloting, and he continues to guide the Keaven up and out of the atmosphere. The former Scout remarks calmly as the ship obtains a vertical climb, "Hmm. Haven’t done one of these in a while. I forgot how much fun they can be." He also preps a shot at the remaining fighters. -----Swann watches in grim satisfaction as two of the fighters disappear from his targeting screen. "Two down, two to go," he says to himself. "I just hope we can bag these other two before they get a lucky hit on us." He sets his sights on the next closest fighter and fires. -----Martha, realizing that the bridge had now overridden the sensor arrays, remarks into the comm system, "Vasilii, you take sensors. No use in us both giving conflicting commands to the equipment. Captain, I’ll try to give us some more power so we can get out of here just that much faster." With that, her fingers dance across her boards, coaxing the engines to perform at their safest limits. -----The Bray Keaven streaks towards space with the two remaining KGL fighters desperately trying to keep up. Vasilii takes over the jamming duties and does a good job of causing problems for the two TL–8 fighters. One of the fighters loses its lock on and doesn’t fire. The other manages to maintain its lock and fires. The missile homes in on the Bray Keaven, and strikes squarely on the starboard turret, damaging or destroying one of the pulse lasers, damaging the turret traversal mechanism, and sending a spall or two whizzing around in the turret fire control. One narrowly misses Swann’s head while the other strikes him hard in his uninjured shoulder. Cursing enough to peel paint off the fighter, Swann returns fire, and the shot punches straight through the cockpit, killing the pilot instantly. Swann grunts in satisfaction as the laser strikes the fighter. "You got off easy, pal. You’d be sorry if Martha got her hands on you for damaging her baby." He briefly rubs his right shoulder where the spall struck him. He then grits his teeth and begins trying to line up the remaining fighter in his sights. -----Vargas’ computer–controlled turret fires at the other fighter but misses. -----Martha adjusts the engine’s output as much as she can, knowing that the Bray Keaven will pick up speed as she gets to thinner atmosphere. Losing the second starboard laser has helped a little bit, and she manages to coax a little more speed. -----Marcus glowers as the Keaven takes the hit and casts a quick glance toward Vargas. "Emile, that noise is distracting,"he growls. "Cut those monkeys off." He continues to push the ship, as if he were trying to will the Keaven out of the atmosphere. "I’m already on it, Arggie," replies Vargas as he works the weapons console. -----Martha begins assessing the damage sustained, with the intention of exacting what repairs she can with the equipment she has at hand. True repairs would have to wait until dry-dock, but she would have to make sure her baby makes it to dry-dock first. She starts running damage control diagnostics routines on her systems. Component readouts generally show OK except Low Berth No. 3 (which appears offline) and Starboard Laser No. 2 (also offline). There don’t appear to be any hull breaches with the possible exception of just outside Low Berth No. 3. -----Meanwhile, the passengers (Darishun, Ian, and Saro) are hunkered down in/near the improvised sick bay and the cabin next to it trying to follow the action the best that they can. ----- The remaining "Raptor" fighter is still in pursuit, but is starting to drop behind as the Bray Keaven accelerates as it gets to thinner atmosphere. The fighters that most recently took off from the KGL military base are clawing for altitude, but Marcus decides that, barring mishaps, they will not be able to engage before the Bray Keaven gains too much altitude for their engines. Of course, the KGL Air Defense command is still calling on the Bray Keaven to surrender or be destroyed. The Bromlian fighters are still circling just inside their airspace and warning the KGL fighters to stay clear. -----The Bray Keaven streaks towards space with the remaining KGL fighter desperately trying to keep up. On the bridge of the far trader, Vasilii continues to try to break the fighters’ sensor lock-on. He continuously shifts the frequency output of the trader’s radar, and scans for the frequency the fighter is using to its weapons tracking. When he finds it, he intends to start introducing bursts of random energy on the same frequency, hoping to introduce a premature detonation for any proximity–fused missiles. Marcus continues to push the Bray Keaven to her limits, and the velocity indicator continues to increases as the air gets thinner. In spite of the damage, the far trader climbs into the upper atmosphere and steadily draws away from the pursuing KGL fighter. -----Though smarting from his wounds and wrestling with a damaged turret, Swann is able to get the starboard turret to bear and fire a shot at the last KGL fighter. This shot strikes the fighter towards its tail and punches clean through the single engine. At the same time, Vargas’ computer–controlled port turret fires, but misses. The fighter goes down in a number of flaming pieces anyway. -----Vasilii attempts to increase the jamming of the sensors, but ends up overloading the emitters, and the entire sensor system shuts down. It’s not immediately clear what happened or how quickly the system can be restored, but the Bray Keaven is effectively flying on visual only at this point. The next 15 minutes are tense ones as the ship is essentially flying dumb and blind except for what Marcus and Vargas can see out of the bridge. Luckily, the other KGL fighters appear to be out of range and unable to sufficiently close the range, and no other missiles find the fleeing far trader. By the time that the far trader reaches orbit, Martha has the sensors back online at half capability. </blockquote>

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