RPlog:Chasing Shadows

The trees that the orbital bombardment had brought down around the ship had been a near thing. one crashing so close to the side of the ship that it's scraped the hell out of the paint, but did little to no more damage than that. Several thick limbs had fallen down as well, and thanks for Snarl, those had been tossed aside while Zik had been powering up the ship and getting it ready for takeoff. Sith battle droids are moving towards this position at a steady pace, having been deployed in this immediate vicinity along with speeders that are even now angling into position. The ships in orbit are tracking the action on planet itself and there's a sense of determination that may well override standing orders to locate - detain - deliver Snarl and Zik ALIVE to the ship.

Getting Ranger One ready for flight had been relatively short work once Enb'Zik and Snarl had removed the wooden trimmings with which Malign's droids had chosen to decorate the small fighter. Thanks to some foresight, the Mantaray's engines were warmed and ready to go before they arrived. Once Zik is able to get into the cockpit, he runs through the most basic preflight any pilot knows. Snarl is getting herself strapped in still when the AEC superiority fighter dusts off, landing gear pulling up and locking back into the underside of the chassis.

"Snarl-La, help me keep an eye out for droids until we're higher into the atmosphere. I'm going to try to exit the planet opposite of Malign's forces and get us out of here without any more engagements." The fact is, Enb'Zik and Snarl are both wiped out. It's been a long pair of days with a lot of fighting. But fate has different plans in mind as Ranger One's beeps several times. A look at the scanner reveals an older Z-95B outbound from the planet, escorting an equally derelict SSKale. "Aldol," the Sullustan murmurs to himself, recognizing his contact's ship. "Okay, nix that. I want to make sure he gets past the Sith and out of the system in one piece." Pulling his fighter to starboard, Enb'Zik begins to accelerate toward the upper edges of the atmosphere, rapidly pursuing the civilian freighter and fighter.

There is not much of a warning, and there most likely wouldn't be much of one even were a ship particularly close. The quick succession of ships reverting back to normal space after their jump into the system small enough that they don't make much of an impact. And their appearance deep in the system, close enough to its edge, certainly does help them a little. It is a veritable smorgashboard of craft that appear, the bulk of them having that arrowhead form associated the most with A-wing, though there are a few of them who might be mistaken for misshapen Z's from a distance. "Falcon 1 to squadron, any contacts on radars? If not, assemble up into prearranged formations. Falcon 9, take point and go ahead, see what's ahead of us.", the monotone voice drones on for some moments more, a few more instructions given before the man closes his comm.

One of the ships that appears is Falcon 5 piloted by Leo Corak. As he moves his ship into formation, his hands begin to fly over the controls as he scans the area for anything unusual. There seems to be an ease in the pilot's movement as the pressing of buttons and turning of dials does not cause him to lose focus on keeping a tight formation.

Amongst the cacophany of ships to drop into regular space is Rogue Two. Within the cockpit, the man known as Lance 'Wildman' Corbet rests, his eyes sifting over the controls as his fingers tap expertly over the control panel. "Wildman, checking in." he calls over the comm system. "Looks like..." A pause is had, and the young man continues his examination, requesting a deeper scan be performed. Then, "I think there's ships out here." he states, his expression stunned beneath his flight helmet. "Requesting permission to investigate." he calls back to command.

"As ordered, Falcon Leader." Speeding ahead in one of the newer RZ-1 A-Wings, Johmac Mabru, the pilot of Falcon Nine, switches on his sensors and moves from the 'passive' mode an active scanning sensitivity. Sitting back in the cramped fighter's command chair, Johmac monitors the sensor input he's recieving furrowing his eyebrows as he plows ahead. "Falcon Leader, Falcon Nine. I've got what looks like a large contact in sector fourty-seven Tau. Looks like a large profile, possibly a capital ship... The readings I'm get aren't matchin' anything I've seen from an Imperial Star Fleet vessel, or any of our configs, Colonel." The A-Wing begins to turn, as Johmac wills it so, running a paralell and then a large arch away from the sector, moving back toward th eformation.

If one were to guess at the age of the pilot in Falcon 7, if a person could see inside the small and poorly lit cockpit, they might guess around fifty years old. "Roger that Falcon Leader, Falcon seven falling into formation as ordered." A quick scratchy sound over the radio and the A-Wing heads into it's place, crusing along at a decent speed. "Roger that Falcon Nine, this is seven confirming the pickup." He chirps, being right behind the leader. The old man, or "OB" as he's called for reasons that are unclear to many, continues to watch his screen and wait for orders from the leader.

Not far from Rogue Two, encased in her own X-Wing and keeping up with her lead readily, Sylia 'Kit' Avra adjusts her systems to compensate for the sudden spike in comm activity. "Watch that power fluctuation, Bolts," she calls to her R2 unit. "I knew we should've talked to maintenance before we launched."

Lance's call draws her back to her flying, and she adjusts her course to stay in formation. "Kit here. I'm getting some signal returns. Three ships near the planet... lot of unknown activity right where Falcon Nine said." She doesn't wait for orders to raise her shields and lock strike foils into attack position. She can always worry about her lead's irritation later.

The speeders that are angling into position are brightly shiny toys compared to the fighter that Zik and Snarl are lifting off planet. Even so, they continue to try to swarm the fighter under, taking blaster shots at the fighter, trying to force the fighter back into the trajectory of the surface to air weaponry that they'd already fired at the pair while they were running for the relative safety of the fighter. Just as Zik lifts off a unit of battle droids steps into the clearing where the fighter had rested and they turn, in unison, to fire up at the fighter. The droids relay this data to the Legion General, time sharing the sensor feed which updates the ships in orbit and help predict the escape trajectory. The arrival of more ships in system, however, sends warnings to stream through the Dark Presence, though it remains nothing more than a shadow, barely seen, invisible to the naked eye be it on planet or in system. For the ship is rigged for silent running, a shadow among the stars. Passive sensors are constantly scanning the system so it's a matter of reading the sensor feed. With a mere 'thought' the legion general orders fighters to prep and deploy. A mere moment of data transmitted in rapid burst binary to activate more fighter pilots to step into their fighters and drop silently out of the belly of the ship and form up in the shadow of the Dark Presence, the bulk of the ship a barrier in the line of sight between the NR pilots and themselves, sensor baffling making it nigh to impossible to even notice that they've entered the cold of space. From the bridge of the Dark Presence, Captain Cato issues a quiet voiced set of orders to continue tracking Ranger One and to track the new arrivals in system, weapons stand ready, but not offering violence - yet.

The pilots of the R-41 Starchaser Squadron, Leviathan, was already on alert when the info of a speeder escaping the city planet side was reported in. When the launch order was given from the Legion General, the Starchasers were already warmed and prepped. Spilling out of the Dark Presence's belly in a neat and organized manner, the squadron is quickly deployed.

When the fighters have all exited their mothership and at a safe distance, quad bank of engines flare brightly as each R-41 Starchaser maneuvers into position, breaking up into three flights. For now their intent is to form a fighter screen for the ominous Capital Vessel, the three diamond flights organized in a triangle formation.

Inside his Sith meditation sphere Malign quietly contemplates and thus sees the universe around him, not into the infinite, but enough to understand the subtle complexities of Ord Vaxal and what was developing. The Sith vested a sturdy reputation in their ability to observe and manipulate large scale battles from such places. The reports came in quietly on support monitors largely ignored until the skeleton-looking face of Siege with his glowing photo receptors appeared on one of them to offer a personal report:

"Master, the Jedi has escaped, as you anticipated. I will process data and intelligence shortly. He is outbound in a ship..." He went silent as the Dark Lord raises a hand

"Very good Legion General. Captain Cato will take care of it from here. Prepare for primary divisions departure, leave our garrisons, and prepare to launch our political advisory team to the citadel city. I will make sure nothing is interfered with." He stands as his sphere opens and he dons the helmet and red armor of his kind, "Notify Squadron 1 to go on standby, ready my personal fighter." his cape billows behind him as a rank and file escort files in beside him leading him to the hangar. They would delay their launch just by a few moments.

As cannon fire fills the air around Ranger One, the shields encircle the ship without any time at all to spare. The fighter shakes under the barrage, but most of the energy is from personal grade weaponry. The direct hits lower the shields minutely, but are not nearly so worrisome as the surface-to-airs the console is deedling its warning tones about. Zik twists Ranger One into a clockwise barrel roll and continues to pour on the speed. With the Mantaray's modifications, the ship actually begins to pull away from the speedy little missiles.

The higher Zik pilots, the more complete the picture being painted by his scanners. "Huh," he murmurs, "Decent fighting force up here." His eyes narrow before he adds, "And a good chunk of them Republic. Well, that's a sight for sore eyes." However, Enb'Zik does not hail the friendlies. Instead, he keeps his focus on the escaping Z-95 and Kale-1. Even as he watches, the Kale-1 streaks toward freedom, heading for the broken fetters of hyperspace as fast as the little ship will get there.

"Snarl, as soon as those ships are out of the system, we're gone. The Republic can take care of themselves. We've got too much damage as it is to stick around long."

"Permission granted, but keep close. We might have jumped into more trouble than we can handle.", Falcon Lead replies in that same drone of a voice. Colonel Feth was reputed to cause more than one to fall asleep during preoops briefing, but the man did not seem to care enough to correct that fault of his. When the first reports begin to return, particularly of something that might be or not be an Imperial capship, Feth frowns, the gesture hidden by that helmet of his and again his comm is reactivated. "Falcon lead to Falcon 9, report, what are on you seeing on your sensors?", and to the rest of the squadron is given the task of forming up in battle-ready shape with the Rogues slightly to the rear of the main A-wing formation, but for now not darting forward until the situation is more properly ascertained by those up front.

Leo continues to watch his radar as the ships move into attack formation. As there appears vessels coming from a nearby planet, the Colonel radios to Falcon One, "Falcon Leader, two ships have entered from a nearby satelite. Radioing now for identification." As he switches his communication over to send the transmission, a transponder does not appear for the ship for a name. Upon seeing it, he radios, "Ranger One, this is Falcon Five of New Republic StarOps. Do you copy?" He then anxiously awaits a reply while keeping his A-Wing in attack formation.

"Roger that." comes the response of Rogue Two. Yet, as the new commands are barked out, the young, scarred XO of Rogue sighs. Switching to ship-to-ship, he calls over to Rogue Four, "Be ready. The instant it looks like trouble's brewing, we're engaging. I want to make sure we get all of ours out alive." Once the orders are delivered, Wildman switches back to the general comm.

Easing Rogue Two into position at the rear of the formation, Wildman sighs faintly. "Rogue Two, in position. Ready to pick off some opposing fighters. Just say the word, and we'll go to work." The other Rogues fall into allignment with Lieutenant Corbet, and he sighs once more, hands playing over the controls, getting a better idea of the battlefield as it currently lies.

"Stand by, Lead." Cutting back around and turning the wedge-shaped vessel back toward the scanning zone, Johmac's eyes widen as several alarm klaxons begin to sound. The sensor scope starts to light up like Coronet City during the night. "/Sithspawn./" Well. Switching his comm channel, Johmac speaks quickly and concisely, "Falcon Nine to all wings, four, repeat, four new contacts. Looks like a pair of moderate sized gunboats and two frigates. I'm having a little feedback so far. What's your orders, Lead?" he calls out.

The A-Wing with the old man, Falcon seven, continues to scream through space as it's engines whine. Checking over his data panel, the old man furrows his already wrinkled brow as he interprets the data. "I say that we leave the escaping ship. Let's go after these ones that are comin' after us." Of course, that is relayed over the comm channel to his partners. Then the scrambling fighters catch his eyes, that are still good and recently passed the medical board's checkup. "My sensors are going crazy, and I swear guys, it ain't me." His gruff voice calls over the radio. "I want ta go in." He says finally, retaining the formation with charged lasers, raised shields and loaded torpedos.

"Copy, Rogue Two. Preparing to engage. Recommend setting lasers for dual-fire." Kit replies, slowly boosting her engines' throttles and switching her comm back over to the mess outside. It looks like things are slowly going downhill. Two unidentified gunboats, as many frigates, and some unknown capship, and they could potentially /all/ be hostile. She sticks to Two's wing like Dewback scales to its hide. "Bolts, get ready to patch up damage. I think we'll probably take some."

Malign's orders are issued and enacted even as Starchaser Squadron has maneuvered into position, Leviathan in the lead of the formation. The Legion Generals orders were fairly straight forward, but then Binary doesn't necessarily require the nuances and failings of speech. The flesh and blood pilots of the fighters have nearly the same efficiency of their droid counter parts and Captain Cato issues orders that are, in turn, as clear cut. "Engage and draw the New Republic fighters away from planet." This being ordered the captain summons up a display of Ranger One and orders the Dark Presence to begin maneuvering to cut off the escape path. "Don't let the fighter escape the gravity well," is ordered as the forward weapons begin to power up, targeting solutions programmed into the sensor feed. Angling towards the planet in the bid to cut off the escape path, the Dark Presence opens fire on Ranger One. The pilot of Ranger One, however, continues to prove himself to be an unreasonably agile and perceptive Jedi and both easily avoids the incoming fire but makes a successful break away towards the approaching new republic fighters, broadcasting a quick burst of data to identify the pilot, the passenger, and that YES they'd rather like to leave system now.

Once the orders to engage are given, the R-41 Starchasers quickly ignite their quad bank engines as each fighter speeds away from their original fighter screen position. Distance between the Dark Presence and the Starchasers grow rather quickly while the klicks between the intruding New Republic force disappear just as quick. Leaving the shadow if their mothership, the Starchasers dive down on a slashing attack on the New Republic starfighters, having using the Dark Presence's sensor baffling scattering their readings. The Starchasers break up into two fighter elements, one lead with one flying cover. Each lead ship selects a target to fire on, super heated laser cannons pumping out rounds of energy that lance out at the invading Starfighters, a quick strike to be sure. No, 'Leave or be destroyed' warning is given before the attack and no identifiable markings can be seen on the hulls of the R-41s.

As Ranger One ascends through the upper reaches of the atmosphere, its pilot is carrying information of an extremely valuable nature. Valuable on more than one front. The Sith have invaded a planet -- a remote, isolated planet, but it marks the spreading of Malign's territory. More, there's a slaving operation taking place here, and the Sith are involved. And finally, maybe surprisingly the most important to the Sullustan /Jedi/ than either of the two before, Zik's family is among the slaves. The last two days have been hard fought and filled with tension, but now Enb'Zik's face is a mask of concentration as he prepares to enter battle one more time and get himself off Ord Vaxal. There is work to be done -- and others can't do it if he doesn't get a chance to tell them.

Keying the comm as he takes note of Dark Presence angling his way, Enb'Zik banks his fighter opposite the direction of the coming Star Destroyer and responds to Leo: "Falcon Five, this is Ranger One. I read you and advise to turn back. The planet is already occupied by a significant force. You all are going to need a lot more than three squadrons to take this one back, over." His voice is as tense as his expression, no nonsense, all business.

The mixed squadrons of the 22nd Starfighter Wing are in formation when the attack from above hails them with red bolts. As this attack comes, the fighters break, yet into a smaller formation taking wingmen. Over the StarOps radio, Leo says, "Keep those fighters busy to give time to Ranger One to escape." As he turns, meeting up with his own partner, the Colonel turns his comm back over to Enb'Zik as he replies, "We don't plan to take the planet back...just get you out of here alive. Moving for the nearest exit vector, over." With his focus now being able to return to the combat, Falcon 5 turns quickly in order to face the enemy before firing off its down crimson darts.

"Rogue Two, acknowledged. Don't worry, Colonel. We'll do our part." With that said, Lance takes point on a diamond formation that the Rogues take up. Sweeping in towards the oncoming R-41s, Wildman speaks up. "Alright, Rogues. You know what to do. Let's keep 'em busy, and too scared to notice Ranger One's imminent escape." A grin reaches his lips beneath his flight helmet, the young XO takes aim upon the lead of one of the R-41 formations, depressing the trigger as the Rogues engage.

Pulling her craft away from the incoming fire, Ranma doesn't acknowledge the orders verbally. Instead she maintains radio silence and moves into position to take on the enemy fighters. For the time being, she seems to slowly take her time lining up her shots and concentrating on where incoming fire is coming from. For it being her first time in a true fighter battle, she doesn't seem to too shaken up or flying too erratically. What seems like several long moments go by before she even fires a single shot. But once she finds a shot that she likes, her fingers gently depress the firing stud for the laser canons.

The Dark Presence continues to maneuver silently through the cold of space. The single burst of weapons fire giving away it's presence in system, and were it not for that the ship's shadow running status would not have been given away. The ship continues it's steady advance to attempt to block off the escape of Ranger One, but after a few measures the ship slows and allows the gun boats and escort frigates to move into flanking positions along either side. The only squadron launched, at the moment, is engaging the single squadron that stumbled across this system in what looks like just a standard recon patrol. The captain of the Dark Presence studies the tactical over view of the system, for it would be startlingly easy to launch all squadrons in a heavy handed tactic to hammer the Ghost squadron out of existence. Orders, however, do not entirely support this decision. For the momentary the fighter squadron is tasked with dealing with the unexpected guests in system while the battle droid elements on planet are falling back to their rally points and a handful of transport ships lift off planet.

Meanwhile.. Starchaser-3 is squaring off against Rogue-two, guiding the R-41 towards the incoming fighters and opens fire once within range. Unlike the NR pilots, the fighters of this fleet do not need to wait for orders to fire, for they are launched once the enemy is verified to be precisely that, and weapons are already hot. Squeezing off a solid barrage of weapons fire, the R-41 rolls right into the line of enemy fire and takes a solid hit to the forward shields that they crash down with almost no resistance what so ever, hull damage tallying up rather abruptly and Starchaser-3 is forced to fall back while working to bring shields back online.

At the same time, Starchaser-5 is eagerly chasing after another one of the NR fighters, arrogantly trying to separate this one particular fighter from the herd for the sole purpose of taking his time while battering at it with weapons fire. Over confidence is, as always, lethal. Starchaser-5 is charging straight at Ranma, squeezes off one single volley before exploding in a shower of metallic fragments and a burst of fighter fuel.

The slash attack by the R-41 Starchasers seems to not have gone the way the leader of Leviathan Squadron had planned. Instead of scattering like a gaggle of frightened geese, the New Republic was able to strike back. Leviathan Squadron's line of quad engines flare up as they try to speed away to complete their slash with the invading force behind them. Leviathan Leader and his wingmen were able to evade the lasers from Leo's starfighter as they suddenly broke away to the right, causing the shots to fly wide. The second and third elemenants weren't so lucky though as both wingmen of the attacking Starchasers gets pummeled from behind. The first loses more than half of it's shields while the second Starchasers takes a quad blast right in the tush, the shield generators overloading and burning out.

Orders are given from Leviathan Leader to the rest as the nimble R-41s complete a half loop and roars back towards the X-Wings. The formation of each attacking element criss-cross between each other, perhaps to intimidate or baffle the New Republic Starfighters pilots but when they enter firing range, each element ceases their aerial dance and break towards their intended target, laser cannons on each wing pumping out lethal energy bolts at the invading Starfighters. The one that Leviathan Leader is gunning for would be his counter part in this engagement, his Starchaser spinning on it's horizontal axis while cannons blazing, the laser trail a bit of a spiral.

Enb'Zik's businesslike demeanor develops a crease, located across his forehead, at Leo's reply. Expelling a sharp burst of air through his nostrils, the Sullustan opens a broadbeam communication on a channel he knows the Republic is listening to: "All Republic forces, this is Ikihsa Enb'Zik piloting AEC Mantaray-class Ranger One, transponder identification Senth Forn Six Five Seven Five. Folks, I'm sure glad to see some friendly faces, but I /strongly encourage/ you to maintain your distance. Please set up a picket at distance of seven kilometers and do not engage. I repeat, do not close the gap and do not--" And then Enb'Zik sees the starfield light up with the bright red and green lances of cannon fire being exchanged between fighters from both fleets. "Ah, scrag," he mutters to himself, the last pair of words uttered off-comm before he goes online again, "Alright, fine. NR caps, I am moving to the jump coordinates I'm sending you now, about four kilometers on the other side of your current position. Will get there as quickly as possible, but I'll have to run right through you to do it. You guys don't make /me/ come back here to rescue /you/, got it? I suggest beginning your fallback as soon as I'm out of range of the Sith."

Taking note of the positions of Malign's capitals, Enb'Zik is intrigued that none of the fighters are moving to engage /him/. After all, in his current ship, there's no way in the Nine Corellian Hells they're going to catch up in him using anything slower. As Zik accelerates, Ranger One begins to approach cruising speeds slightly higher than those of Falcon Squadron's stock A-Wings, and much faster than X-Wings or Starchasers or Gunships.

The comm rings as Enb'Zik's voice echoes in the ears of Leo as he begins dancing with the other fighter. As the red bolts flash towards him from the R-41, he twists his ship into a spiral that causes the lasers to miss by a wide margin. Moving in unison with his wingmate, Falcon Five comes out of the spin and aims upwards towards his opponent blasting at the underbelly of the starfighter. In the moments between maneuvers, the Colonel radios over the same channel, "Follow the orders of the Ranger One. Once he is clear, we jump out."

"Copy that." says Rogue Two, though as he looks over the battleground, he intakes a breath. "I'll buy us some time." he states simply, and presses his throttle to the max. Sweeping in and up towards Starchaser-3, Wildman makes a straffing run at the vessel, lasers firing heavy towards the cockpit and top of the starfighter, then he sweeps passed him, and banks to starboard, soaring passed (and behind) the R-41s, attempting to draw their attention.

Pushing Ghost 6 into a quick dive, Ranma evades the return fire from the enemy fighter after her own shot had landed. As she swings the nose around to line up another shot, Leo's voice crackles over the comm. She flips on the comm and in a curt voice replies, "Roger that." Switching the comm back off she lets her fingers rest on the firing stud once more and starts the task of acquiring a target lock. Pulling her fighter hard in the direction of the enemy, she comes out of the arc with a slight roll to level herself on the other fighter. With the fighter in her sights, she depresses the firing stud and lets loose at the other ship.

From aboard the Dark Presence a low voiced order is issued and relayed via ship to ship in a burst of binary data. The pilots of the Starchasers do not waste time replying to the instructions, for it is not theirs to ask why, it is theirs to do. Starchaser-3 abruptly brings the R-41 around and instead of evading Rogue-2 barrels straight at the NR fighter with clear intent. Irregardless of the incoming fire that hammers through the shields and hits the hull hard enough that the entire frame shudders from the impact, Starchaser-3 continues on with deadly intent to either slam the R-41 against the undamaged NR fighter or chase it off once and for all.

Starchaser-7, not five - as five is so much metallic glitter and vapor fumes now - has turned for the same purpose. In fact, the entire squadrons has broken off their engagement with the Ghost squadron and altered tactics, and course, drastically. Starchaser-7 is performing the same maneuver, engines flaring suddenly, full throttle, charging directly at the lighter frame of the X-wing without wasting time in return fire. The rest of the squadron has their orders and are angling after Ranger One at full maneuvering speed, bedamned the consequences.

It seems like Leviathan Leader was choosen to be leader for a reason, his skill with maneuvering the R-41 Starchaser is amazingly fluid as the pilot was in motion once his initial attack on Falcon Five missed, as if anticipating a counter attack. Instead of eating a belly full of scarlet lasers, the Starchaser pilot pulled back on his stick, hard, committing his craft into a very tight loop and latches back onto the tail of his opponent. However, it was at that time the tranmission burst is recieved from the Dark Presence and Leviathan, instead of blasting away at his target, quickly breaks off and makes a beeline at the escaping Manta Ray with his wingman covering him. Engines roaring brightly, bringing the Starchaser on an intercept course, the pilot immediately unleashes a volley of lasers, aiming at the Manta Ray's engines, intent to disable rather obvious.

As Ranger One continues to accelerate, the ship whistles a binary sequence at the pilot, drawing his eyes toward the scanner console. Zik blinks and frowns. "Peachy," he remarks. "Guess that's what I get for thinking this was too easy."

Punching several controls, Zik reroutes power from the engines, as well as some of the energy that had been charging the shields at a higher rate, and directs both into his cannons. "Snarl," he calls to the frontseat, "I want you to start laying down fire with the turrets. I don't care if you hit anything -- just make it hard for them to get a clean shot on us. Keep an eye on your targeting computer, and if we get within one click of any of the /blue/ dots, stop shooting. We don't want to take out any of our X-Wings."

Having given the quick rundown on that, Enb'Zik quickly gauges the lay of the field. Howie's Starchaser is the closest incoming ship, and as that one lines up and opens fire, Ikihsa quickly rolls Ranger One to port and brings his cannons to bear. Squeezing down on the trigger, Zik noses directly at the other fighter with guns hot.

Deftly avoiding Starchaser-3 with a snap-roll manuever to starboard, Wildman narrowly avoids the suicide run. Yet the manuever which took him out of harm's way takes Rogue Two further into the squadron of R-41s. Cursing over his comm as he's further seperated from the remainder of the NR Fleet, Wildman turns his X-Wing towards the line of enemy fighters, and fires at Starchaser-3, which is diligently chasing after him, hoping to carve a way through the assembled mess.

Seeing the other craft coming in at her, Ranma holds Ghost 6 steady and continues to fly steight at the on coming fighter. Not sure why the pilot of the other ship isn't firing on her, she readies her own lasers. Just as she is about to fire she realizes what the other pilot is doing. Instead of depressing the firing stud, she quickly rolls her ship out of the way at the last possible second and avoids the collision. Cursing under her breath she swings the fighter around, "Gonna try and ram me? Could have at least bought me a drink first." As she brings the canons to bear. Before firing she takes a quick glance at the small targetting display to check on the progress of Ranger One. Seeing several of the other fighters chasing him down, Ranma quickly depresses the firing stud one last time before veering off and chasing down after the friendly vessel to keep as many of its persuers occupied as possible.

Straight at him. Enb'Zik's refusal to significantly change his trajectory had placed him running straight at the Sith Starchaser that had been firing on him. Watching the red coherent beams leave his cannons and impact solidly on the other ship's shields, the Sullustan now neglects to fully engage. The longer he stays here tied up with these minions, the longer he keeps the New Republic pilots here doing the same. He has other things to do -- and wasting their lives isn't on the list. "Snarl," he calls up to his wife in the front seat, "Change of directions. Turn the turrets to aft and lay down sweeping cover from five o'clock to seven o'clock to keep them off of us while I lay the jump into the navicomputer."

Proximity to the Republic lines had been what allowed the Starchasers to change targets and engage Zik so readily. Now, Enb'Zik blazes through that line, shunting power off the weapons again and back into the engines. The brightly glowing Griffon technology moving the ship has it now close to its top speed of 150 MGLT as Zik keys the comm one last time, "All Republic units, this is Enb'Zik. I am out of range of the Sith now, and they have no possible way of catching up with me. Withdraw your forces immediately. As soon as all Republic ships are out of the system, I will follow you. Ikihsa out." Zik waits for the response from the Republic ships -- there IS no time to argue this, and hopes they have the good sense not to.

Leo continues to watch the battle scene after his shots miss and his target changes whom it is firing at. As his comm speaker comes alive with the voice of the Jedi, Leo pulls his ship hard and accelerates the A-Wing to its full speed as he radios, "All squadrons, disengage and prepare for hyperspace jump to the transmitted coordinates." He then begins to flip switches and press buttoms that set his ship ready to depart.

The maneuver that the pilot of the Manta Ray performed caught Levianthan Leader off-guard as he didn't expect an escaping target to suddenly turn into him and engage. Reacting too late to the attack from Enb'Zik, the Starchaser catches the brunt of the attack on it's fore shields, lighting up the starfighter spectacularly. Lucky for the pilot, he was smart enough to put all shield energy to the front arc, saving the pilot's life but causing the generator to blow out. Breaking immediately to the right, Leviathan Leader breaks away from further attacks but when he turns back to give chase, the Manta Ray is already too far away to catch up.

It is a delicate balance.

The balance between holding the power of the fleet in one hand and the restraint to avoid tipping ones hand entirely and displaying to this one wayward NR recon element just what the full abilities of this fleet really are. The captain of the Dark Presence weighs these options in silence while observing the dance and the exchange of weapons fire between the R-41's and the NR fighters. The Dark Presence could maneuver into battle, it is prepared and fully operational, it is ready to take on this small flight of fighters and use every weapon in it's not inconsequential arsenal. The escort frigates are ready as well, to lay down a barrage of weapons fire and distract the fighters from getting into position to jump to the relative safety of hyper space. The gunboats standing by, to do more of the same. With one gesture, a mere utterance of words, the captain of the Dark Presence could put all of these assets into play. Could throw one fighter after another after Ranger One. Could waste one life, after another, in the pursuit of this one ship and it's occupants and the knowledge they've acquired.

What value one life? What value many?

The order is given, and the Starchasers fall back, allows the fighters and Ranger One to withdraw from the area and to return to base. No matter how the battle has played out thus far, the X-wings and their pilots are allowed to leave system, intact. For here, and now, is not the time or the place. And the captain of the Dark Presence will not give these pilots more data to report back with in their debriefings, for they've learned enough as it is. They've learned that all the while the NR was so engaged with the Empire over Dac, all the while they've been focusing all their efforts and attention on the Empire's movements, a darker shadow has been gaining ground, claiming territories, taking worlds into the shadows and the cold dark night.