The Final Stand of the Desolator

[Chask274]

Vaxus floated listlessly through the darkened corridor, the only sound audible to him being the rasp of his breath through his helmet's oxygen system, and the quiet hiss of venting air from the busted mag seal on his left wrist. Not more than three hours ago, he'd been on a standard patrol mission aboard his ship, the War Leviathan Desolator. Now, he was drifting alone, running low on air, in the shattered wreck of a Republic cruiser, with his ship destroyed. To top it all off, he had no idea if any of his crew had survived.

Suddenly the wreckage around him lurched violently, the wall of the corridor slamming into his side as a bright light filled his vision. 'What in the hell...'

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Three Hours Prior
Aboard the Desolator

The Zabrak stood at the main viewport of the bridge, watching the swirling blue vortex of hyperspace streak past as the corvette moved to it's next patrol sector. So far the tour had been quiet, with the only notable incident being a drunk freighter captain deciding to play chicken with the Imperial vessel. The captain was now in their brig, and his cargo of mining supplies locked away safely in the cargo hold.

Turning on his heel, Vaxus walked back to the large holo-display at the center of the bridge. The system they were dropping into was uninhabited, it's planets a collection of airless rocks and deteriorated gas giants, but it was reportedly a hotspot for illegal activity, so here they were. The Corvette was to drop out of hyperspace in orbit of the largest gas giant, make a circuit of the system, then return to base if nothing was found. 'Should be a cake walk' Vaxus thought to himself.

Vax felt the familiar lurch as they dropped out of hyperspace, and had begun to turn to issue orders for a heading when he heard the helmsman and another bridge officer curse loudly, followed by the proximity alarm kicking on. Spinning around, Vaxus went pale as the viewport was filled with the battered carcass of a Hammerhead-class vessel. "EVASIVE MANEUVERS! Full power to the particle shields!" Stumbling as the ship lurched sideways, narrowly avoiding a collision, Vaxus looked to his officers.

"Report!"

"It's a Republic vessel, sir, registry numbers match the VIP transport ship Reliant. Whatever destroyed her couldn't have been Imperial, we're the first Navy vessel in this system since Kyuss' coronation."

"Could be pirates... Alright, sound for general quarters, get the Marines ready for EVA, and tell Nayel he's got three minutes to get his ass up here. Double time, people!"

@Tristar

 

[Tristar]

He felt the sudden shift of the floor beneath his feet. The glass on the table tipped to the side and spilled his drink onto the floor as he was nearly flung across the room. Nayel tightened his grip on the mounted shelf, pulling himself together. Until a moment ago the ship hadn't tried to rag-doll the marine commander around the room. For the man with no emotions, he was feeling rather off-put by the sudden change in living arrangements. He picked himself up and shoved the glass away with his feet, looking around as though he was expecting something.

Was there nothing to this? he thought as he walked around the table and reached for his side-arm holster. "Commander Nayel, please report to the bridge immediately. I repeat, Commander Nayel, please report to the bridge immediately." He grimaced and looked at the armor locker next to him. He heard the shuffling of feet outside his office, the yells of marines clambering into action. He looked down at his garb once more and realized how naked he really felt despite the uniform.

It would be a while before he felt the need to walk away from the locker with his true skin locked away.

"Leftenant Calim." spoke the black-armoured officer walking down the rushed hallway. The marine junior officer holding her helmet by her waist turned around, a look of professional calm marred slightly by unexpected distress etched on her face. "Have both platoons geared for boarding operations, double check vacuum seals on all suits and ensure we have spare oxygen rebreathers."

"Sir! Are we expecting an extended EVA operation?" queried the officer as she directed her subordinates to their duties with a wave of her hand. Sara Calim was Nayel's right hand (wo)man, a fresh graduate from the academy. A little wet behind the ears and eager, but willing to learn and had the same apathetic touch for human life as he did. "It's not an enemy boarding or there'd be more klaxons, neither are we under naval bombardment or bombarding anything back; there has been little announcement holding that regard. In all possibilities, we might have stumbled across another ship who's intentions have not been specified." Nayel ended his observation with a small shrug.

"That's oddly specific, Commander Kohner. I thought you hadn't been to the bridge yet?" Calim looked at her superior officer with a raised eyebrow, prodding Nayel with violet eyes, questioning the blank helmet. "I haven't. It's just an educated guess, I could be wrong for all accounts and purposes."

"I still say you're eerily accurate with your predictions, Commander. It's like you've got some kind of- mojo around you." The commando snorted, patting Calim's stocky shoulder. He was a foot taller than her, but she was as stout as she was short, with better defined muscles to boot; you couldn't tell her gender from behind the visor. She was also incredibly superstitious, which annoyed the incredibly nihilistic man to no end. "Less praying, more business. Off with you leftenant." He pushed her away gently and continued his steady approach to the bridge, dodging past an orderly. A violent lurch like that, someone was bound to be hurt, he supposed.

​

The bridge was a flurry of activity from one console station to another. He found out the reason for his initial discomfort very quickly as he approached the main deck. It was times like these that he could overlook having an exposed frontal bridge as the sight of what lay before him took his breath away. From top to bottom, left to right the entire viewport was filled with a rotting carcass of a Republic ship. It had been gutted, no mistake about it.

Did we cause that? he pondered, slowing his approach to a halt just behind the ship's captain and an old subordinate. Vaxus. He still had the prosthetic from the miscalculated duel from before. Their tenure together in Gorgon team may have been incredibly brief, but the effects of their work was notable. Even if short-lived.

Gross mis-allocation of valuable resources was the phrase they used to justify their break up. The higher ups never saw beyond the picture, did they?

"I suppose that's why I broke my third glass for the week then, is it?" he stated plainly, gesturing at the wreck on the screen. "I suppose you want my men to plunder the corpse then."

 

[Chask274]

Vaxus was reviewing the sensor readouts from their scan of the wreckage when the CO of his ship's marine detachment arrived, and in his usual manner, got straight to the point. "Yeah, that'd be the cause of it. Damn near crashed straight into the blasted thing when we dropped out of lightspeed. As for what I want your boys to do, yeah, that about sums it up. She was a VIP transport, and scans show no life signs, but there's still a power signature coming from the main computer onboard. Head over there and see if there's anything valuable left in the drives. Keep on your toes though, I don't know if whoever did this is still in the area or not, so be ready to book it back to the ship at a moment's notice. Understood?"

Vaxus looked over at Nayel, awaiting a response. He'd certainly got a kick out of it when he first learned that not only did he outrank his former team leader, but was to be his commanding officer as well. Of course, he didn't give Nayel crap about it for too long, he respected the man too much for that, but it was fun while it lasted. A small voice in the back of Vaxus' mind was screaming that something didn't feel right with this whole situation, but his desire to see what could be salvaged from the wreck and his confidence in his crew's ability to deal with any potential obstructions drowned it out. It was only a bit of wreckage, right?

What could go wrong?

 

[Tristar]

Nayel gave the floating wreckage another look over, biting his lower lip. He was fairly sure that this was no coincidence; it was far too opportune to have found a dead Republic ship. Craters pockmarked the hull, the result of explosive warheads typical of missiles. When was the last time the Imperium used conventional warheads enmasse? He wasn't the captain of the ship, nor was he privy to naval doctrine and thus like the obedient soldier he pegged himself to be, snapped to a stiff salute. "Understood." Nayel's gaze lingered on his captain's face a fraction of a second before spinning around and half-walked-half-marched his way out of the bridge.

There was an itch that was irritating the man about the situation. He fiddled with the wrist cuffs of his suit and double checked the seals to distract his mind, ignoring the snapping of salutes from ensigns and marines alike as he walked through the corridors to the hangar bay where his marines were undoubtedly awaiting his presence. He stopped before the mouth of the passage that would lead him to the hangar and looked upwards. He had nearly forgotten his weapons.

Whatever that was irritating him must be serious enough to have made the clinical man lose focus; his stomach twisted a little. The Desolator's armory was a little lacking in his professional opinion, but between extended operational periods and the upper command's refusal to read his reasonable requisition orders ( reasonable being a subjective term ), Nayel was left with the rather dull standardized equipment of the Empire, his personalized gear notwithstanding. Back at his office, he quickly walked up to a locker and retrieved his gear: carbine, check; side arm, check; concussion grenades, check; knives, check; jetpack, check. The clack of batteries slapped into their receptacles was a systematic symphony of a well practiced machine at work.

Significantly better equipped to tackle the task at hand, Nayel entered the rather humble hangar of the corvette with purpose in his steps. The neat arrangement of the two marine platoons was a rather minute show of Imperial strength. Nevertheless they were men under his command, and they entrusted their lives to his words. First Leftenant Calim was visible at the forefront of the first platoon, snapping to a salute as he approached her. "First platoon, all accounted for, sir!" she barked.

"Second platoon, all accounted for, sir!" mimicked her male counterpart, Second Leftenant Horst of Second Platoon. He waved them down and turned to address his men. "Marines." he said quietly in his usual, cool and crisp voice.

"As of ten minutes ago the ILS Desolator dropped out of hyperspace in clear view of a wrecked Republic transport ship, forcing the ship to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision. The vessel has been identified as the Reliant, last recorded to be carrying a VIP. Quick scans reveals no life-signs on board however there is a definite power signature within the wreckage."

There was a marked level of attention now the moment the marines detected the chance to go 'loud'. He hoped they were prepared for disappointment, although he could sympathize being locked up with nothing to do. "First Leftenant Calim, your platoon will remain on board the Desolator and act as security detail. Second Leftenant Horst, you and your platoon will accompany into the Reliant and do a manual sweep of the Bridge, Life Support systems and Engines. Prep a shuttle and get ready to move. Any questions?"

"With all due respect sir, why is First Platoon being held back if there are no life-signs detected onboard the ship?"

"The wreck shows no life-signs, but we haven't performed any extensive scans of the system and as such there may be potential threats lurking about. I am not of the mind to leave our ship unguarded. Dismissed." Marines of the second platoon were excited, he could tell by their body language. Compared to the slightly lagging movements of first platoon, Horst's troops were overflowing with energy and eagerness.

It wouldn't have mattered if he had chosen Calim's platoon- both were equally green, eager for combat. He shoved that thought to the back of his mind and gave Calim one last glance before walking to the shuttle.

He waited until the last marine had settled inside the shuttle before seating himself by the edge of the ramp. He was an ardent believer that any leader was required to be the first on the ground no matter the scenario. As the ramp slowly lifted up he caught Calim's gaze. She gave a small wave before turning back to her duties. The officer would have to learn how to deal with disappointing posts sooner or later, might as well be sooner. He caught snippets of the pilot's conversation with the traffic controller and filtered it out of his hearing. As the shuttle left the hangar and into the dark void of space, Nayel pinged Desolator's captain one last time.

"Vaxus, this is Nayel. We are enroute to the ship, T-minus ten mikes. I repeat, we will arrive in ten minutes. If you do not hear from the landing party after thirty minutes, assume all members KIA, blast the ship and leave the system. Whatever's inside that's capable of wiping out the boarding party would have backup nearby."

 

[Chask274]

"Copy that, Nayel. We'll keep you informed of any changes out here. Tallav out." Walking back to the viewport, Vaxus stared at the wreckage a moment. In typical fashion, it seemed that the sublight drives, and engineering section in general, had been primary targets for whoever did this to the Republic vessel. That in of itself wasn't surprising, as preventing a target from fleeing or effectively maneuvering was a tactic employed by many pilots and captains out there. No, what was strange was that the life support systems and living quarters had been specifically targeted as well. If one were attacking a VIP ship, wouldn't your objective be to preserve the life of the VIP so they could be captured? Instead, it seemed in this case that the attacker not only intended to cripple the ship, but kill as many of it's occupants as possible. Narrowing his eyes in curiosity, Vaxus looked over his shoulder at the bridge crew. "Have a detailed scan of the wreckage done, then transmit it along with a sit-rep to Command. Request that they send a ship to investigate if we don't report back again within the hour."

After staring at the wreckage a moment longer, Vax had the helmsman back away from it, putting them roughly a third of the way between the nearby gas giant and the wreck.

--------------​

Meanwhile, as the Marines' shuttle touched down in the Reliant's hangar, the first thing they'd notice is the lack of gravity. Without a working power system, the artificial gravity generators weren't working, leaving the troopers to rely on zero-g maneuvering and magboots to work their way through the ship. The corridors would be littered with the corpses of Republic personnel, with some having clearly died from exposure to the void. Others, however, had the distinct mark of plasma burns from blaster fire, their armor beaten and battered with their own weapons still clutched in their frozen hands. Upon reaching the room with the power signature, Nayel and his team would find the door partially sealed shut, though it wouldn't be too difficult to pry it open.

 

[Tristar]

Nayel had every intention to leave this place as soon as possible. It wasn't the military commander that was speaking, but his inner instincts as an ex-criminal mastermind who had faked his death numerous times. This smelled as ripe as rotten fruit of an ambush, though he would rather choke to death eating said fruit than admit it openly. It wasn't the role of the leader to question his orders, but to execute them to the highest degree, or so he had been drilled to think as such when he entered the officer's academy. He opened and closed his fist slowly to ease his tensions whilst keeping eye on his surroundings as the ramp descended.

The cold wave was a instant hit that sent chills down the boarding crew and lingered for a few precious seconds before their suit's temperature regulators kicked in. The pulsating warmth kept them going, and with a quick hand gesture Nayel enforced radio silence upon them all. He pushed off the safety bar restraining him in his seat and activated his magboots with a thud! as his soles stuck to the floor of the ship. The simultaneous thumps of the platoon followed shortly after, a muffled chorus in the silence of space.

His breathing was steady, and Nayel took his first step into the hangar: crates were floating all around, some of their contents spilled and littering the air space; the husk of a shuttle had managed to stick itself in the far back-right corner of the room, unrestrained by gravity. Nayel couldn't spot the scorch marks from a distance, but still recognized the floating carcasses around it. A firefight had occurred, which meant whoever gutted the ship had chosen to board the vessel to get to whatever was inside but the way the ship was lanced through. . . They weren't here for the VIP , he mused to himself quietly as the platoon made their way to the hangar's entrance in a spread out diamond formation, taking each step with careful precise movements. "Partial activation sequence: Authorization FOXTROT-GORGON." he whispered quietly. "Felicity." The rising pitch of the hum nearly deafened the man as he hugged the corridors, ducking to avoid the bodies of the Republic personnel. Nothing was right about this, and in such times he had his back up plan- a relic from his old job that he kept in permanent hibernation until he called upon her.

"Virtual Combat Assistant: FELICITY acknowledging reactivation protocols. How may I serve?" "Tap into Dropship Z511, use their scanners and give me a ship-wide scan. Report the damage done and any anomalous signatures bar Signal Alpha. Execute." he called for the platoon to pause as they reached an elevator. Had the ship been running, the carriage would have brought them to the floor their mysterious signal was hailing from. He signaled for two soldiers to pry the door open, using the time to allow Felicity to run her scans; it would take time, seeing as how he only limited her to one quarter of her fully powered status. The problem with using her on missions like these was that her processing took a lot of internal computing resources that slowed down his own armor's functions- it was not welcomed. Having the other soldiers recognize her for a third-generation AI, no matter how outdated she was compared to the state-of-the-art artificial intelligence running the massive ships of the Imperial Navy, would compound additional problems. When the grunting stopped Nayel walked over to the edge of the shaft and peered down into the darkness. Sparks of electricity partially lit up various sections of the elevator shaft, giving an ominous presence to their necessary descent. Motioning to his squad that they had to descend, he lifted his left foot and swung downwards until his soles attached themselves to the walls of the shaft.

Fleeting scraps of vertigo washed themselves over him, and he kept walking down the well. The rest followed and asides from a few troubles getting the landing right, managed to follow his actions without too much incidents.

The floor's doors were ripped open in the usual brute force methods of the Imperium (little wonder they had such mixed results in their peacekeeping operations) and the vanguard of the platoon entered the room, one at a time as the black-suited figure lead the way, a finger to his helmet's side. "What are you saying?"

"REPEAT: Scans indicate severe structural damage to these systems: Life Support Systems, Engineering Room and all three Communication Arrays on the surface. Though various parts of the ship was damaged in the presumed engagement, most of the damage was concentrated around these areas. Further results of the scans shows high explosive residue in the living quarters, and indicates a massive hull breach in that sector." Nayel knelt as the rest of the platoon went ahead without him to secure the corner to the mid-section of the ship. The way they were headed, they were going deeper and deeper into the ship itself. . ."So anyone within the living quarters would have been sucked out into space?" "Correct." came the soft, yet robotic voice. "Assuming all survivors had enough time to don their atmospheric gear and/or survive the ambush, standard Republic suits would not allow them to survive no longer than twenty minutes without continuous air supply. Records date this ship had been missing for nearly three weeks, with no news on a recovery missions thus far."

"Why did you use the word ambush?"

"It is a speculation derived from all mathematical probability sir: What remained of the ship's communication database that I extracted from the arrays showed no anomalous activity prior to the first ship-wide emergency announcement. However the first alpha-priority data packets originated from the engine room under the serial number of one Chief Engineer Zarasda Kelidor. The message itself could not be retrieved. Three minutes after the ship-wide data surge, there was no traffic from the shield-generator room, predated by massive energy spikes detected by sensors by the aft of the ship." The marine had to stop Felicity's monotone report as they came across the hallway that lead to the ship's server room, where the ship's central logic structure sat: in an easier comparison, a computer's motherboard.

The double doors were slightly ajar as if inviting the intruders into the dark room. He raised a clenched fist and the men knelt, eyeing the hallway for any movement. "What's your conclusion?" he whispered, silently fearing whatever was going on with the ship. Felicity spoke the same tone, though he could hear the faint sense of urgency within the undertones of her message: "There is a 68% probability that the Republic vessel was ambushed by an unknown force capable of fooling military grade scanners and overwhelming onboard security. The precise damage of the ship's crucial systems indicates a well organized force: however the sporadic nature of the damage to the rest of the ship also indicates multiple points of energy blasts with little indication of a convergenc-"

"Multiple ships then."

"Correct." Nayel squinted, thinking deeply. None of it made any sense; if whoever had attacked the ship was after the VIP, then it made no sense to flush the ship's crew out into space in case the VIP was among one of the unfortunates. The enemy's objective also wasn't to kill the VIP, or the ship wouldn't simply be left with a relatively intact hull. There were also undeniable signs of a boarding operation, if the bodies of the dead marines sporting blast wounds said anything at all: they meant to take the ship by force, crippling it and preventing any resistance. It wasn't an aggressive scavenging operation either, considering extensive damage to all important looking bits and the fact that it hadn't been stripped clean.

All of this made his head hurt, and he gave the signal for the platoon to move closer to the doors. As they stepped closer and closer to the room Nayel could hear the soft hum of machinery inside: were the servers still online? Motioning the same two marines to open it, he hugged the right wall behind Leftenant Horst. The way his body language was screaming, the kid was keeping his excitement to himself. He heard a click, snapping his head forward to the room just as the doors swung open: a small object was visible in the backdrop of the room, a red pulsating light coming from the top.

"Ge-" he didn't even had time to warn the men before the thermal detonator exploded, sending scores of deadly shrapnel; the pointmen were nothing more than ribbons of flesh and blood, and those further out sported wounds as big as a grown man's fist. One marine bled out as chunks of the door protruded from his neck, the hissing of their suit releasing air accompanied by the globules of blood a strange beauty to the concussed commander. He heard the soft hissing of his suit leaking air, followed by the dull pang of pain; red globes of blood floated from his abdomen. He glanced downwards and suppressed a pained gasp: shrapnel from the detonator had pierced his side, cutting through the skin suit. The suit's emergency systems quickly administered its medical cocktails and biofoam coated the breach with quick-acting sterilizing foam; the shrapnel would remain there until he got to a doctor.

The hum quickly revealed themselves, as well as the point of the signature as eyes flashed in the darkness, and what conscious marines was quickly blinded by the flood lights that turned on. The bodies of droids was illuminated, their blasters pointed at the vulnerable platoon: "Holy sh-" The droids opened fire and blaster bolts quickly tore through the troopers. Horst took a hit to the head, quickly snuffing out his life. Nayel's curses were drowned out by the firing as he used the bodies of his dead soldiers to make a mad dash towards the elevator where they came from; he activated his jetpack and nearly sent himself flying to the end of the corridor and smashing his head in the wall.

"Vaxus, this is Nayel!" he screamed into his radio, grappling around the corners of the corridors and grasping any handholds to propel himself. "We've been engaged! Boarding party just got wiped, I'm making it to the dropship- do not move closer to the ship! Whatever's-"

White noise immediately blared through all channels, inciting a harsh yowl by the soldier as he struggled to pull himself up the shaft with bolts flying after him. He switched his radio off, nearly deafened by the combined noise of bolts and radio interference: this was a well prepped ambush, almost military like in efficiency. As he turned round the second corridor leading to the hangar he heard more blaster fire. He pulled out his pistol from his holster, eyes scanning the corridor as he pushed ahead. A suited assailant burst out from the second left corner, yelling wild death threats and swinging a vibroblade- catching the soldier off-guard, the two of them grappled wildly in zero-G, Nayel desperately trying to keep the blade from slicing him in half while trying to bring the barrel of his pistol to his opponent; equally matched and disadvantaged in the wild nature of zero-G, the soldier pushed the attacker back and landed with his back against the wall. He drew his pistol and fired a shot that missed, denting the wall next to the alien's head. "Crap crap crap-" he dodged the the vibroblade and pushed himself forward to the entrance of the hangar, firing back wildly at his pursuer.

The dropship was under barrage from a multitude of gunners who had surrounded the vehicle, unleashing hell on its shields; they maneuvered with thrusters and atmospheric suits, some with their feet locked on the ground. They were too preoccupied with the dropship to notice his presence at the end of the hangar, staring agape at the scenery before him. His pursuer caught up, wildly slashing his blade at Nayel who broke out of his stupor and dodged the swings and backpedaling frantically. The attacker had swung with just enough force to bring himself forward with the momentum of his swings right into the sights of Nayel's gun: his finger was quick to act and the first shot did not miss. It blew its brains out, and the multi-hued chunks of skin, along with pieces of fragmented horns gave away the zabrak's identity. Drowned out by the ever-present mechanical pursuers and the constant fire in the hangar, he stuck himself to the floor of the corridor and took a deep breath, trying desperately to ignore the impending doom marching upon him. "Felicity, still with me?"

"Affirmative." came the robotic reply. "Can you assume control of the dropship from here?" There was a brief silence before her reply came, this time with a hint of anxiety. "I may replicate a part of my logic engine and upload it into the dropship's systems, which will require both time and intense processing power from your armor's systems. You may temporarily lose several system functions including medical monitoring prorams while I replicate myself." Nayel peaked into the hangar, clutching his wounded side. If his suit wasn't breached he would be willing to leap into space and maneuver back to the Desolator with his jet pack. The droids were approaching soon as well, and he wasn't armed for a one man shoot out. The situation spelled all kinds of FUBAR for the marine and he didn't like his odds. "Do it, Felicity. We don't have too many options and we can't afford to be picky. I'll do my best to keep a low profile in the mean time."

"Affirmative. Replicating now." The heads up display flashed out, leaving him with a clear visor for the first time since he first requisitioned his armor. It was oddly calming, not being bombarded by information.

Looking back, he quickly pressed into the hangar, and spotting a palette of crates dashed forward. He slammed against the palette with force and had it not been for the floor hooks keeping the crates together, he might have been sent flying in full view of everyone. He needed to put as much distance and concealment between his wounded self and the pursuing droids. He peaked to the side, spotting more crates to dash towards to. He prayed to whatever gods of space there was as he prepared to make another dash.

In the pulsating hangar of a dead ship, caught in space, the lone soldier's prayers was a silent mantra: on the verge of death, would an atheist's prayers make a difference?

 

[Chask274]

Theme​

Vaxus watched and waited as the team got closer and closer to their objective. It seemed like things were going as smoothly as expected, then all hell broke loose.

"Sir, baradium detonation in the target room!!"

"Blaster fire detected, we've got flatlines everywhere on first platoon's vitals!"

"Captain, I'm picking up numerous power sources and life signs on the Reliant.... And we've got three ships emerging from the upper atmosphere of the gas giant with fighter escort!"

Vaxus went pale, turning to stare wide-eyed as the three gunships came into view alongside half a dozen fighters. "Shields to maximum, gunnery crews focus fire on those gunships, and get the pilots to their fighters. Move!" As the ships began trading weapons fire, salvos of plasma shells and warheads filling the space between the four vessels, Vaxus nervously watched from the bridge, pacing back and forth issuing orders and making adjustments as new reports came in. Nayel had gone silent since the fight started, and with no reading from his armor's medical systems, Vaxus feared that his friend was gone. Pushing the thought to the back of his mind alongside the near overwhelming sense that he'd just walked everyone on this ship into a deathtrap. 'No, we aren't down and out yet. We've still got some fight left in us, now let's get to it'

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he brought his focus entirely back to the battle. Although the gunships out-numbered the Imperial Corvette, a combination of effective fire control and power management with the shields meant that they were holding their own for now. Vaxus watched at his fighter squadron cut through the amateur pirate's pilots like butter, and for a moment, he truly had hope that they could make it out of this ambush alive.

Then the lead gunship charged forward under the cover of an intense missile barrage by it's comrades. Even as it's shields failed and holes started opening in it's hull, the sturdy vessel kept on coming. Orders for evasive maneuvers were on the tip of the Zabrak's tongue when he noticed that the gunship wasn't on a collision course, and that it's ventral payload bay was open. Too late did he notice the coffin sized object slide clear of the bay, and rocket straight towards the hull of the Desolator.

"BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

The EMP device connected with the particle shields of the corvette and detonated as it was intended to. A wave of blue energy rolled along the hull as the shields fizzled offline, followed by the weapons systems and sublight engines. As the lights on the bridge snapped off, Vaxus visibly sagged as the realization sank in that his ship, and quite possibly his crew, were doomed. But he didn't get to his position by letting bad odds get to him. As the bridge crew began to frantically scramble to restore power, Vax grinned as a plan came to his mind, and he turned to his comms officer. "Give the evacuation order, and have a runner get the Chief up here. I've got an idea."