Underwhelming Dogfight

“This is the system” Tanna told you as you stare out into the void before you. There wasn’t much in this system, other than a star off in the distance it was mostly asteroids. It wasn’t even densely packed asteroids either, just empty space with the odd asteroid drifting by.

“Seems a little quiet” you say as you steer the Eos onto a course that was mostly used by CSA convoys in this star system. You had decided to try and mimic a freighter in order to lure out the pirates.

“Got a ship, it’s on an intercept course” Tanna called out and you take a look at her console. The ship in question was longer than the Eos by a small margin, but other than that, it was still small by galactic standards.

“What kind of ship is that?” you ask.

“It’s a model K Vulkstar freighter” Tanna replied, “They’re a rip-off of Corellia’s Action series” she explained.

“Fair enough” you say before turning back to the window. “How easy is it to hide from us behind these rocks?” you ask, eyeing an asteroid lazily floating by.

“They’re large enough that you could probably hide fighters behind a few of them” Tanna replied as she herself gave the same rock a suspicious look. You sigh, you know exactly how this is going down.

“Sata, we need our weapons operator” you sigh into the intercom and moments later, Sata joins you in the cockpit.

“Just one ship?” The girl asks, trying to look over Tanna’s shoulder from her station.

“Probably not” you reply, giving her a quick rundown of your thoughts on the matter.

“Receiving a communication from the unidentified ship” Tanna said. You turn and look at the Twi’lek, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s rather a mouthful for ‘they’re hailing us’” you say.

“Yes, well, they’re hailing us, better?” Tanna snarked.

“Much” you reply as Tanna hits the accept button.

“Srrrendarr ya carrrgo” comes a crackly voice. It almost sounds like the guy is trying to talk without using his tongue.

“This is the Republic Warship Eos, you are to surrender immediately or face the full might of the Republic’s Judicial Forces” you say in a bored tone, knowing exactly how well your bluff was going to work. The only response from the pirate was crackly laughter before the com channel clicked off.

“Well, looks like there’s at least a full squadron of Cloakshape fighters bearing down on us” Tanna commented as she tapped one of the screens on her station.

“What’s a Cloakshape armed with?” you ask as you turn the ship to engage the oncoming fighters.

“Ummm” Sata replied “yes” she added. You turn your seat around to look at the small blue girl who was pretending very hard to be busy.

“You either know or you don’t” you say to the girl with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s not that simple, they’re highly upgradable so I have no idea what these pirates have put on their ship” Sata explained “But we can expect they at least have lasers,” she added. You turn back to your own console and get a good look at the Vulkstar through the front window. The ship had a large wedge like head and a long rectangular body which ended in an engine pod. Underneath the head was some kind of tri-barreled cannon.

“Is that a laser cannon or a turbolaser cannon?” you ask out of curiosity, taking a quick look at Tanna’s sensor readout and noticing the approaching Cloakshape fighters were still a few seconds out.

“Probably a turbolaser” Tanna replied as she watched the sensors.

“Well, we’ve dithered about enough” you say as you made to hit the throttle. As you do, a thought occurs to you. You smile as you hit a different switch and suddenly the cockpit is filled with music. With this addition you hit the throttle and gun the engines.

The first of the fighters comes screaming at you with lasers firing, your own cannons retort and the fighter detonates almost immediately. The second fighter broke off and made to get around you but it just opened itself up to a burst from the Eos’s cannons, it lasted just as long as the first. The other fighters had dashed behind nearby rocks by this point.

“How many fighters were there exactly?” you ask as you contemplate just shooting throw asteroids to get at the enemy fighters.

“Uhh, seven” Tanna said, bopping to the beat.

“Excellent,” you say as you twist the Eos around to hunt down the remaining five fighters.

You found two behind an asteroid and promptly destroyed them, but the real fun came when the enemy ship finally caught up to you and a barrage from its nose cannon slammed into your shields.

“Definitely turbolasers” you say as you twist the Eos out of the way and manoeuvre onto the rear of the pirate ship. The Eos’ own turbolasers slammed into the shields of the pirate ship and you watched as they got closer and closer to the hull. The pirate ship did try to flee, but the Eos was so much faster and more maneuverable that there was no chance of escape. Your onslaught made short work of the shields and your turbolasers slammed into the enemy’s engines, causing a massive explosion that sent the ship listing through space.

“Incoming missile!” Tanna called out and you remembered that there was still three fighters around somewhere. Twisting the Eos out of the way of the missile, you snapped onto the tail of the fighter and laser fire made short work of it.

“You know?” you begin“This has been a thoroughly disappointing fight” you say, casually tapping your foot to the music.

“There’s still two fighters yet” Tanna replied, trying to sound hopeful.

“Cloakshapes have never been the most maneuverable of fighters, especially in deep space” Sata said with a sigh.

It didn’t take you long to find the asteroid that the other two fighters were hiding behind, your laser cannons blasting them to pieces as they tried to escape.

“This whole battle was a joke” you say with a deadpan expression, easing back on the throttle as you turned towards the stricken pirate ship.

“I guess we were given an easy mission” Sata replied. You turned to look at Tanna and noticed she didn’t have a happy expression on her face.

“He’s still trying to keep me out of the way” Tanna muttered, causing you to sigh.

“Can’t be helped I guess” You say, putting a hand on her shoulder. Tanna turned to give you a quick smile before turning back to her station. “See if we can get a com link with that pirate” you order as you turn to your own station.

“Aye aye captain” Tanna replied with amusement.

As the link was established, a crackling came over the com before it cleared up.

“Waddya want?” came a voice different from the one before.

“For you to surrender and to hand over the location of the base from which you originate” you say to the pirate.

“Fine, base’s on Tau Fetta” the pirate replied and you got the distinct impression they were folding their arms.

“Excellent” you say and nod for Tanna to hang up. “Sata, if you please” you say with a bored expression.

“Haven’t they surrendered?” Tanna asked, turning to give you a concerned look.

“We don’t have space for prisoners” you say, leaning back and folding your arms.

“I’ll just send a message back to base and they can send someone out to take them in” The Twi’lek replied. You turn to look at Sata who looked like she was eager to see the impending argument.

“Well, they aren’t going anywhere I suppose” you say, knowing full well the Judicial guys were just going to space them anyway. “I’ll let you handle that” you tell Tanna.

“Thanks” she said, turning back to her console.

“Now, where is Tau Fetta?” you ask “It’s not in the cheese system is it?” you ask.

“Uhh no” Tanna replied “what’s cheese got to do with anything?” she added with a frown. Of course, you knew the pun would go straight over her head, feta cheese comes from Greece, and Greece was in a galaxy far far away.

“Never mind” you say with a sigh.

“It’s actually the next system, an easy jump” Tanna said as she pulled up a star chart on her monitor.

“Well then, shall we continue on and hit the pirate base?” you ask as you line the ship up and begin making your way to the jump point. You only hope that the fight ahead will actually be a challenge, and not a boring affair like this space battle was.