Exegol preplay

[bb8_dad]

The ships exited hyperspace, and Poe's first thought upon seeing Exegol was that it looked dead. It was the the ugliest thing he'd seen in a long while, and he wondered if it had always been this way, or if building a colossal fleet of Star Destroyers here had killed the place.

And when the ships dived into the cloud cover, they nearly ran into the Sith fleet. It was massive. Their triangled hulls were enormous, but they grew even smaller as their numbers seemed to stretch into infinity.

"Great dark seas," Aftab Ackbar gasped across the comm. "Look at that!"

"No sign of the Falcon or allies," Tyce said from her ship.

"Help will get here," Poe assured them.

Comments

Spaceships

[bb8_dad]

At once, thousands of simultanous cannon blasts lit up the sky like a nova. Immediately a ship was reduced to a fireball, and the shooting was coming hard and fast at them. It was already on.

"Stay at their altitude!" Poe yelled into his headset. "They can't fire on us without hitting each other."

And from somewhere else, Snap called, "Incoming TIEs!"

And then hundreds of Sith TIE fighters were screaming their way towards them.

[nothowtheforceworks]

Finn's original plan had been to set the Tantive IV down on the ground and attack the navigation tower to keep the First Order from deploying their sqadrons. Moments before the TIEs were released, he changed his mind, and landed them on the actual hull of the Steadfast instead. Sometimes you had to go with your gut.

And then a couple minutes later, the landing ramp had gone down, and a cavalry charge of Resistance fighters on orbaks went running onto the surface of the Star Destroyer, with all the fighters they had at the moment running right after them. The First Order knew they were there. But at least they could make some headway to the tower before the stormtroopers joined them for a fight.

And then...

[bb8_dad]

They were losing. Their forces were still being damaged and shot down. They'd lost friends. Poe didn't know how many they could afford to lose. It was just them. No one else. And cries of shock were lighting up his comm.

"General! Do we retreat?"

"What now?"

"What's our next move?"

Poe clicked his comm on. "My friends," he said, around a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry. I thought we had a shot. There's just too many of them." They'd learned nothing from Crait. He'd learned nothing.

A familiar voice broke through the comms: Lando Calrissian. "But there are more of us, Poe. There are more of us."

Poe flipped his fighter around to look, swooped over the hull of a Destroyer to get a visual on the atmosphere above.

Ships were popping into sight all over the place. Freighters, fighters, medical frigates, longhaulers, from every sector of the galaxy, every era Poe had ever heard of. Hundreds. No, thousands. A fleet of fleets.

"The allies!" Aftab said. "They're here!"


[For both teams' reactions if you want, and any additional shooting at things.]

Finale

[bb8_dad]

All of a sudden, nav screens cleared. Their navigation wasn't being jammed anymore. The power coming from the planet's surface had stopped.

"We're back on!" Poe yelled. "This is our last chance. We've got to hit those cannons now! Finn, get everyone on the lander!"

Time to aim everything they had at the Steadfast and hope everyone on the ground got onto the Tantive IV in time.


[Make it messy if you want. Ground fighters can run for the lander, spaceships can fire what they have on the ship they're escaping. Don't hit the good guys.]

OOC

[bb8_dad]

Anything I missed?

Rey's post will be going on simultaneously. I'll throw one more Finn and Jannah bit at the finale and the Star Destroyer will blow up, and then it's to the live post!

[solo_sword]

Jaina had decided an orbak would just slow her down, and she was more than happy to run after the others with her lightsaber drawn, violet blade adding an interesting new light to break up the dark blue.

And the instant the red-armored Sith troopers were released to make their way into the fight, she was charging towards them, because really old habits died just super, super hard.


[Can be pingable!]

Re: Spaceships

[somethingwithturquoise]

Any reservation Summer had felt about being in her ship instead of on the ground for this immediately dissipated the moment they arrived and it became firmly clearly that every ship was going to count in this one. She felt a rare twist of doubt in her gut as she clutched the wheel of her ship, trying very hard to remind herself that she'd gotten out of a lot of really impossible situations before, why should this be any different? But even for her, that massive fleet was looking pretty insurmountable, it made the New Supposedly Improved Galactic Federation fleet look like babies.

But it was fine. They could do this.

Somehow.

Maybe.

Oof. But with determination, she latched onto what Poe had said in particular.

"I'm heading in," she informed everyone. "Tell me this baby's not just screaming to be hit."

But she was faster than she looked, and she had portals. She could be an excellent dodgy target.

[defenderofdesmoines]

As slow as she was on foot, Annie opted to ride into battle. (Also: that was just kind of cool, she could admit it. Hopefully they all lived through this so she could tell Diego how fucking awesome that part had been.) Orbaks, it turned out, were so much like horses it wasn't even funny. And while it had been a few years since Annie had been in any kind of saddle, she still found a natural enough seat on the creature's back as she charged along with the others. Being up a little higher gave her a little bit of a view ahead, too, which meant she could be more selective about where she drew power from. She took care not to drain anything that looked like a friendly was using it, opting instead to tap into the systems of the ship they were actually on. Might as well make use of the charging time.

By the time she was swinging out of her saddle, she'd pulled enough power to be one of the brightest things on the surface of the ship. Which was probably bad news for anyone coming at her, considering she was just going to keep pulling power until it was straight-up hard to look at her.

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

If that baby was begging to be hit, then good, because there was a TIE sweeping towards her to shoot a volley of laser fire at her.

She was kind of an obvious target.

[tros_npcs]

As soon as she was off the horse, there were Sith troopers lining up to fire at everyone, so at least one was definitely aiming for the very bright target that was Annie.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Which was silly of them for several reasons! First of all, shooting at her wasn't going to do anything -- though that did smart a bit, so thanks, dude, and Annie didn't waste any time in firing a bright blast of her own back at the Sith troopers.

But also, Annie was only on the ground for a second or two before she pulled hard from the Steadfast's power systems, and her feet actually left the surface of the ship as she levitated.

Cool to see, probably. Also: now she was an even bigger, brighter (and totally invulnerable) target, so if y'all just wanted to focus on her, that would be totally cool.

Re: Spaceships

[notagoose]

Goose was probably the last person anyone would actually want to be a pilot since his methods were … unorthodox at best but he had a ship that he was very happy to provide to the cause and instead of being worried or anxious he was actually quite enthusiastic about it.

“Goose there are a lot of enemy ships,” his AI Alma spoke up.

“Steady Alma,” Goose told her, “I know what I’m doing,”

Alma seriously doubted that but she had been Goose’s AI for a while now and decided to focus on her calculations and targets for Goose to be able to fire back and hopefully not cause too much damage to his ship, even though this was Goose's third interceptor since he had become a Galaxy Ranger.

Goose’s interceptor was going to be lucky to survive this.

Re: Spaceships

[somethingwithturquoise]

Well, yeah. That was the point.

With an alert of an active enemy on the move toward her blooping almost cheerfully on her screen, Summer quickly switched on a suggestive nav path with the program she used to help her guide herself through asteroid fields when she went stress-relief meteor-blasting. She knew she didn't have much time to really think about it, though, so she gloss over it quickly before immediately dropping down at just about the time she figured that laser fire would be reaching her. A few more adjustments, locking onto a few of the enemy ships and planning her course to hopefully swing by them just slightly ahead of the laser blasts so they got caught in the range, then ducking swiftly back around and weaving through them like some spastic, unpredictable pink guppy swimming through a swarm of sharks.

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri kept pace with Jaina, her own lightsaber ignited and casting a golden light.

"This is weird," she said as they closed with the Sith troopers, "but also just like old times."

[heroic_jawline]

Steve was not a natural orbak rider (and he was very sure that throwing one at the incoming troops would be frowned upon. It wasn't a motorcyle.), and so as soon as he got close enough to the fight, he flipped himself off of his animal and used that momentum to kick the nearest trooper in the head as he came down to the ground.

That was a good start, he felt. He threw his shield test how it worked against unfamiliar armor.

Re: Spaceships

[sith_happened]

Anakin was up in an X-Wing, relaxing into the Force and using it to make his ship engage in maneuvers that were seriously testing the laws of physics. "They still haven't shielded the TIEs?" he asked over the comms, firing on the nearest one as it closed in.

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

She was doing a very good job of keeping them busy, and one TIE even exploded not by thanks to one of them trying to hey her.

They did have better numbers, though, so they were persistent with the shooting.

Re: Spaceships

[grenadesandohana]

Steve had done really well in his summer flying classes with Jaina, and the Navy had spent many millions of dollars to teach him to adapt to his surroundings and fly whatever he found himself in.

Looking at the TIE fighters screaming in towards him, sitting in space, he realized he was hopelessly outclassed up here.

"Shit."

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

The TIEs were plentiful in numbers, too, so there were several coming at him at once, firing the whole way to him.

[dishesonthetoprack]

A moment or so after Steve had dismounted, a very much Scott-sized Scott popped up nearby, already charging at a trooper to throw an ant-strength punch at the guy (or lady! He couldn't tell! But whoever it was: punches.)

Why get your own orbak when you could surprise Captain America by hitching a ride on his as an ant-sized man?

"Nice work, Cap!" he called, saluting -- and hopefully that would help with the whole who the hell is that factor.

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

"I'm not taking it for granted," Tyce said, dodging one swooping at her. "I need cover."

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

Yeeeeep.

Hopefully he was at least a little prepared for the TIE firing on him as it sped closer.

[tros_npcs]

In the troopers' defense, they couldn't have known they couldn't hurt her.

And a line of them did try to fire on her, but at least a few had figured out that they had to try something new. They just had to figure out what.

[solo_sword]

"It's weird," Jaina confirmed, slicing through a Sith trooper without a second thought. "I'm having second thoughts about Imperial Knight uniforms..."

[heroic_jawline]

Steve was distracted enough to almost miss catching his shield on its return. "No problem!" he said, sounding a little befuddled, "...you there!"