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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[somethingwithturquoise]

Good! The more persistent they were with the shooting, the more chances there were to miss and hit something behind Summer rather than Summer herself!

Especially since she was clearly having way too much fun with this, for how dangerous and insane it was to be weaving through ships like this. But now that she was getting the hang of it and hopefully getting the feel for how the ships that were pursuing her were moving and shooting, she also felt confident in shooting out a portal in front of her, so that she could disappear into it and close it off as soon as she wound up on the other side, which hopefully would put her in a different spot on the battlefield.

A risky maneuver, especially if she screwed up the coordinates, but, hey, you didn't win shit by not taking risks! And hopefully, she could come out on the otherside with a nice round of her ion cannons at the ships over there before they even realized what hit them. Literally!

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

[tros_npcs]

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

Re: Spaceships

[notagoose]

Goose grinned as the TIE fighters came towards him, he laughed and immediately returned fire, he dove in and out of the firing range a few times before he began to pilot directly towards them. Returning as much fire power as he could in the process.

“Eat light,” he declared gleefully as he took on the TIE fighters head on.

Goose really should not be enjoying himself this much.

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

One TIE fighter blew, but the others were coming straight at him despite that, like they were determined to win this game of chicken.

Re: Spaceships

[notagoose]

Goose whooped as the TIE fighter exploded, he also wanted to win this game of chicken.

“Goose we’re taking on a lot of fire power,” Alma warned, “our shields won’t hold,”

“It’s fine, look for an opening Alma we’ve got this,” Goose instructed as he kept getting closer and closer, not wavering from his determination to keep flying straight into the TIE Fighters, returning fire indiscriminately.

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]

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

Re: Spaceships

[sith_happened]

"Right behind you," Anakin said, sliding his ship into place.

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

One TIE was doggedly pursuing her, joined by another that swooped in to get in on the chase, blocking her just enough that she couldn't quite escape without crashing into it.

Re: Spaceships

[sith_happened]

"When I say so, juke left," Anakin said. "I'm going to shoot one to hit the other."

Because he was Anakin Skywalker.

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]

Yeeeeep.

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

Re: Spaceships

[grenadesandohana]

Well, fortunately for Steve, the "don't freaking die, moron" lesson had been buried deep into his subconscious--also by the Navy--and so he shifted his plane--ship! ship!--out of the way and poured on the firepower.

He'd have to keep an eye on his firepower. He didn't remember exactly how fast that depleted.

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

One ship got its wing clipped and went spinning, but the others kept coming. One even dove in front of him, barely missing the gunfire, to try and distract him.

Re: Spaceships

[grenadesandohana]

Steve wasn't distracted. He was terrified, and a little bit pissed off, but not distracted. He shifted the ship again, lined the TIE up in his sights, and fired.

Re: Spaceships

[imafuturist]

As much fun as riding a space horse would be, Tony was where he could be of much more use with the armor. Which meant up in the sky rather than down with Steve.

"A ship would have been a much safer option, sir," a greatly aggrieved JARVIS chimed in.

"Aw, where's your sense of adventure, J?" Tony asked, doing a very unnecessary spin in the air to avoid one of those TIE fighters.

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

The TIE pilots really had no idea what he was or what to do with him, so their first reaction was to try and blow him up. One had him locked in their sighs, firing off several shots in rapid succession.

Re: Spaceships

[imafuturist]

Look, sometimes there was just a guy in a suit of armor, flying around.

It was fine.

"Whoa!" Tony said as alerts sounded in the HUD of his helmet, immediately moving to avoid the shots as much as he could and maybe panic releasing a few decoy pods to take the rest in a cloud of smoke and debris. "You're right about as friendly as the Kree."

Which was to say, not at all.

Re: Spaceships

[tros_npcs]

Sith and Sith affiliates would like to argue that they were less friendly, really. But at the moment they were also suddenly swirling around trying to figure out what to do with decoy pods besides try to blow them up.