When the Faction's Fractioned

[Jamo Jakatta]

Exiting hyperspace in 3.... 2.... 1....

“Status report.”

All systems fully functional. Shields at eighty-two percent.

Three pinpoints of light exploded against the darkness of space, dropping into the Bespin system. The trio of vessels were Alliance fighters, each well-worn by battle and by the looks of things freshly escaped from a hostile confrontation, their hulls scored by blaster fire.

“...and here I thought my first week on the job was going to be dull... you two still alive?”

Inside the cockpit of one of the X-Wings, Jamo Jakatta smirked. The crafts sensor array flickered to life, beginning a passive scan of the nearby area, which seemed to be littered with asteroids. Almost instantly the computer threw up a red flag, picking up a large vessel in the vicinity. Taking hold of the ships controls, Jamo swung the fighter a hundred and eighty degrees. The ominous shadow of an Imperial Star Destroyer loomed ahead.

“Out of the frying pan...”

[Kelly Perris]

"Aye aye, sweety-pie. Hot Mama still lives to seduce...Whoa, take a look at that trash bin..."

Shields functional...eighty-seven percent. Weapons systems performing optimally..

"Thank you, thank you very much..."

Ayuh. And there I was thinkin' we were done at the dance party. Next thing you know, it looks like we were just club hopping, 'cuz BAM! another party-pooper slithered into the bar...Frell, I tell ya, that just rains on my parade.

"Just can't get away from the club owners, now can we? Hot damn. They're really gunnin' for their sausages and scrambled eggs this morning."

[Bette Davis]

And just when morning patrols were promising to be as boring as usual, the unusual happened. "Shooter, I've got three bogeys in sensor range."

Bette checked her HUD, "Frell, you're right. Where'd those come from?"

"Looks like three strikes that came out of hyperspace by the asteroid field."

"Thanks Jackal, its called a rhetorical question." She was already altering course to intercept the X-Wings.

"Right. Sorry Lieutenant Commander."

She sighed, but nothing could ruin her good mood with the promise of action on the immediate horizon. "Shadows Ten and Eight, form up on me. Let's go see who dropped in." Bette throttled towards the strikes.

"Davis, wait for my wing!" Grisham's voice snapped hard over the comm. "Don't you go in there with just Professor and Jackal for backup!"

Bette rolled her eyes, and kept going. "We're not going anywhere, Deathstick. Just a little looksee. I'll leave some for you, don't worry."

[Zachariah Jak'el]

"Shooter, I've got three bogeys in sensor range," He said as his radar just barely picked up the three weak signals in the asteroid field. His ship was on off of Shooter's right wing and the only one close enough to pick up the signals. He patched his find through the comm system and sent it to his two wingmates since they're radars were still not in range yet.

"Frell, you're right. Where'd those come from?"

"Looks like three strikes that came out of hyperspace by the asteroid field," He answered as he tapped a few buttons on his radar as did his best to get a clearer signal on those bogeys.

"Thanks Jackal, its called a rhetorical question."

Damn. He always screwed up when it came to them troublesome rhetoricals, "Right. Sorry Lieutenant Commander," was all he could think of saying.

"Shadows Ten and Eight, form up on me. Let's go see who dropped in."

He clicked his comm in acknowledgement and brought his Tie Interceptor in closer to Davis, Professor saw his movement and did the same. He clicked off the safeties on his quadtet of lasers and fired every other weapon system on. He wasn't going to show up at a fight unprepared. It would be like playing gravball n your underwear.

"Davis, wait for my wing! Don't you go in there with just Professor and Jackal for backup!" This new voice belonged to Grisham. He could just picture the look on Bette's face as she contemplated her options.

"We're not going anywhere, Deathstick. Just a little looksee. I'll leave some for you, don't worry."

Time to go to work...

[Tannis V'larr]

Tannis pulled his Defender into a straightline formation with Bette's and Zach's -- as much as the asteroids allowed -- while Grisham snapped off orders to his remaining pilots with a little more righteous rancor than usual. Tannis had grown somewhat accustomed to Shooter's flippance with the chain of command, but this was a situation where he believed caution was warranted.

"Suggest we give a wide berth, Shooter. There may be more Rebels concealed in the asteroids outside our line of sight."

A long shot, since the Rebel fighters had just dumped hyperlight and couldn't have scanned the system beforehand. But Rebels could be crafty -- or just plain lucky. The last thing they needed was to blunder in front of a pack of B-wings waiting on the other side of one of those rocks.

[Eluna Thals]

"Cut the chatter Rogues. Switch to channel three alpha six."

Eluna frowned as she worked her controls. Her hyperdrive had thrown a rod on the return to realspace. The sizzling she'd taken in the last strafe had cooker her forward quadrant shielding, and it didn't help that another flank of TIE's had tried to run interference as they fled.

She wiped a bloody nose against a gloved hand, and dumped the reserve auxilliaries from the hypers into her sublights, but didn't switch to burn. Instead, she vented the residual plasma from her hyperdrive, a noxious cocktail that would react in an unfriendly matter to blaster fire. With her aft to the approaching tango's, she put the plasma vent between herself and the TIE's as she pushed away from the threat using maneuvering thrusters.

"I'll buy a little time while you skip on a few rocks. Don't get too deep though!"

[Jamo Jakatta]

“Roger that, Lieutenant,” Jamo mocked a salute, unseen, and fired the starfighters thrusters.

As Eluna set about staging a diversion, the two remaining Rogues set about getting themselves lost in the Gam Tim'nisi asteroid field. The belt was dense, with rocks of every size. Here and there junk debris floated, the remnants of some past conflict. There were fragments of destroyed vessels, that if scrutinized with enough care appeared to bare Alliance markings. Jamo paid them little attention, as he curved around the surface of a particularly large asteroid. The belt seemed to be in constant shift; it would provide excellent cover, but also presented an unpredictable course, one that could be lethal when navigated under pressure... What was there to do now? Thals had told them to stay in the shallow end. All they had to do now was wait for the TIEs to appear and hope they weren't outnumbered.

[Kelly Perris]

"Yes'm."

There's a whiff of a smirk in my voice when it comes to her. The little lady always seems so stiff, and I dunno why, but it just tickles my funnybone. Well, I'd better burn...Keep my homeboy company. So, as we slinked into the rock playground, I took note: Old debris. Ours. Somehow this doesn't at all surprise...Now, don't get me wrong, I ain't saying us rebs don't have a bat's clue what we're doing, cause really, we're some of the best stuff there is..What I'm saying is, times are chaotic. Debris is the current fashion trend of the big black.

"It's ballerina time. We be on our toes."

[Bette Davis]

"Suggest we give a wide berth, Shooter. There may be more Rebels concealed in the asteroids outside our line of sight."

"Suggestion is a good one, Professor, and I will take it into advisement." Davis was getting a visual on the strikes, just as one started venting plasma. The other two seemed to be escaping into the asteroid field. She tried not to think of Hoth, but it was hard. A Defender had a much better chance in one than a standard TIE, of course. But still.

"Watch that plasma spill, we don't want to do them a favor and blow ourselves up." She was still a little out of weapons range, or she would have just blown the cloud before the strike had time to get away. "Looks like we're going to be playing a little hide and seek in the field."

[Zachariah Jak'el]

He clicked the comm button twice in acknowledgement of her command and then marked the plasma spill on his radar, that way he would always know where it was; provided it didn't disapate too much and disperse all over the asteroid field. He had to resist the urge to take a pot shot at the X-Wings, but the plasma blocked his shot and he really didn't to blow himself, and his teammates, up. By the time they cleared the plasma spill the Rebel fighters had already disapeared around a larger asteroid.

This mission carried both the chance to be fun and deadly. Which, in a sense, made it more fun if you were the deredevil kind of person. Zak, though, was not.

[Tannis V'larr]

Nor was Tannis, but X-wings were valuable kills, even isolated as these were. Mentally, he reviewed the statistics: of all Imperial fightercraft in service, only the Defender had a kill ratio better than one to one against the Rebel X-Wing -- if he recalled correctly, it was just higher than five to three. However, most engagements were in open space where the Defenders could take full advantage of their superior engines. If they pursued the Rebels into the asteroids, the odds would be very close to even.

"Diverting fifteen percent engine power to shields." Even as he balanced the power triad, a sprinkling of dust and pebble glittered off his forward deflectors.

His eyes narrowed as they closed on the large asteroid. Based on their last trajectories, the Rebels were surely hiding on the other side -- probably burning as much as possible in a direct line to keep themselves hidden from the Shadows' line of sight as they escaped into the denser field. By the time they'd submerged themselves in the field, it would be very difficult to dig them out again.

A plan formed in Tannis's mind, but the window of opportunity was rapidly closing. "Professor to Shooter, permission to fire at my discretion?"

"Granted, Professor. Weapons free, Shadows, we're going in hot."

Tannis had already thumbed the safety off his warheads. "Yes, sir. Target locked and firing."

A concussion missile streaked from his Defender's port launcher, its white contrail gleaming on the surrounding debris as it arced, seemingly, into oblivion.

Until you noticed it had turned to chase a fifty-meter asteroid that was hurtling away from the Shadows to the far side of the large asteroid. The missile curved after its target as both disappeared from the Shadows' line of sight.

And on the far side, very near Tannis's estimation of the Rebels' last position, the missile struck, shattering the asteroid into a shower of deadly, molten ejecta.

[Eluna Thals]

"Dammit!"

Eluna flared her sublights, pushing harder into the belt than she initially wanted to escape the maelstrom of debris kicked up by the Defender's warhead. She dipped her nose down sharply, tracing the contours of a larger planetoid mass as the bits of rock rained down behind her.

She quickly assessed the situation as she zipped behind cover, trying to quickly gauge where the threat would come next - from empire or asteroid.

Asteroid.

Eluna rolled starboard as another large rock barreled into the planetoid she used for cover, sprinting away as it kicked up a spray of debris.

"You two find any breathing room, I suggest you take it. The soup's thick down here!"

She was deep. Deeper than she wanted to be, and deeper than any Imperial without a deathwish would want to follow. And they'd have to if they wanted a shot at her.

[Jamo Jakatta]

“Sithspit!”

The exploding asteroid sent out shockwaves that rocked the Rebel starfighters, threatening to spin them colliding out of control into the path of another hurtling meteor. The X-Wings trembled from the impact, even as Jamo banked his fighter away – riding out the momentum. Tiny debris bounced off the fighters view screen, ricocheting back into space. Their only choice was to move further into the field. Jakatta pushed his fighter on, spinning the X-Wing between two asteroids passing dangerously close together.

“I guess the way out is through. Hope you're up to the challenge, Mama.”

Ahead, the belt only grew more dense. Only the likes of a starfighter would be able to maneuver the constantly changing terrain. In the far distance, asteroids far larger those those at the edge of the belt could be seen.

[Kelly Perris]

Kelly busted out of the wake of the debris as fast as it was humanely possible for him to push his 'fighter to do so, rolling, deke-ing, jumping to avoid the larger debris that could likely take him out, and getting showered with the rest.

"Frack! Of all that is sacred! Lunatic, that wasn't pretty. None of this is pretty. I don't know what's worse, now. These boulders or those trips we got sniffin' at our behinds."

He carefully scanned the field in front of him. There was no easily escaping this predicament. The rocks only got large, denser and infinetly more treacherous from here on in. Perris could see that Jakatta was having just about as much 'fun' with this as he was, considering the commentary he was putting up just now. The imps were going to have quite the field day trying to knock them out this time

"Yeah, Joker. I'm always up for a challenge. B'sides, we have no more of a choice in facing this whole deal as an ewok has in whether he's an ewok or a wookie. It's all hairy."

[Bette Davis]

"Good work Shadow Ten. That gave them something to worry about." Bette put her available power into shields, sacrificing some weapon functionality for more protection. "Follow me, Shadows, and lets see where those strikes have gone."

The three Defenders rounded the large asteroid, looping as wide as they could to avoid the debris from the missile strike. A quick scan revealed that the X-Wings had gotten away clean. Shooter clicked her comm, "Shadow Leader, the Rebels have gone deeper into the field. We are pursuing."

Without waiting for a response, she spun her Defender into a tight turn around an asteroid, diving underneath and then around another rock. The strikes had just turned up on her scope and she led the other two Shadows in after them.

[Zachariah Jak'el]

Unlike Bette, Zak did not drain much power from his weapon systems to bolster his shields. Instead he kept his weapon systems online and used them to fry any of the larger boulders that would otherwise smash them to space dust. But, as it turned out, there were not many of those boulders, so his work was minimum and he mostly just hunkered down and hoped to whatever god was listening that a stray asteroid particle did not penetrate his shields and get sucked into his sublight engines. That woudl result in a big boom that would do more then just kill him, the explosion would likely take out his wingmates as well.

A small asteroid bounced off his shield, throwing off his vision as his shields lit up and repulsed the object. As his viewport cleared he was greeted with a view of the retreating X-Wings. They were distant still, well out of the range of Bette and her powered down weapon systems. But His were still at 75%. He might be able to make the shot...

His fingers slipped around the firing stud on his control yoke and a quick burst of laser fire erupted from his laser canons. The green bolts whizzed through the space between the TIEs and the X-Wings, but ultimately fell shot as asteroids and other space debris soaked up the laser fire. He thumped a non-important section of his control panel with his fist and then smasked himself on the forehead. He'd forgotten to count the debris in his estimation, and made himself look like in idiot infront of Bette and the Professor.

What more could go wrong?

[Tannis V'larr]

"Jackal. Don't waste power."

It was a subtle mark of nerves that Tannis had reprimanded the junior pilot - really, that was Bette's role. But the Sikarran halfbreed was annoyed that his trick had only driven the Rebels farther underground into thicker and more dangerous parts of the field. It occurred to him that if they were to drop a seismic charge among those rocks, there'd be nothing left larger than a man's fist; those rebels would be completely pulverized. Unfortunately, those were not standard armaments on Defenders. And he didn't want to spend another concussion missile on anything less than a sure kill.

But the asteroids were demanding too much of his attention for him to waste any part of his brain on idle speculation. He switched off the onboard proximity alarms; it seemed there was always a rock close enough to set them off, and he didn't need the distraction.

The best he could do was to keep the Rebel contacts in the center of his scopes. But the red dots were skipping about crazily - sensor reflections. There were enough heavy elements in these asteroids to impede their scanners.

"Shooter, the field is interfering with my scanners. What's your status?"

If they lost scanners, the risk went up exponentially. Not because they couldn't track the Rebels, but they couldn't track each other - and if anything happened to them, there would be almost no chance of recovery by the Termagant.

[Jamo Jakatta]

“You're such a wit, Perris, you know-”

A bright green bolt of energy flashed past Jamo's cockpit.

“What the frag was that?”

He swerved the X-Wing, sensors sweeping back and forth in search of the source.

“It's coming from... up ahead? Not possible.”

Perris' voice crackled through Jamo's head set.

“Welcome to bizarro land, Joker, where the impossible is possible and we are farkled.”

Another sweepscan from the sensor grid singled one of the large asteroids in the fields as the source of the shot – but what was a turbolaser gun-emplacement doing on the surface of a desolate rock?

“There are some unusual power-emitions coming from that area,” Jakatta heard Eluna say.

“Readings are showing high level of tharium and duranium...”

“Great. So when we're done getting our brains blown out, we can come back for a spot of mining.”

“Cut the sarcasm, Joker. The other asteroids are solid rock. There's something strange going on here. I'm going in for a closer look...”

Thals soared over head, her guns spitting return fire at the asteroid-mounted turbolaser that seemed to be intent on taking the squad out.

[Bette Davis]

"Looks like our friends have company out here..." Shooter's voice trailed off as Maneater swung around a slowly spinning asteroid. "Wait, I lost my visuals. Professor, you have any idea what's going on ahead? Looked like a turbolaser, but thats... improbable."

Bette flicked her fingers on her laser triggers, vaporizing a chunk of space rock before it could impact on her shields. Professor was angling upwards for a better view of the asteroid that the Rebels had disappeared around, and Jackal's voice came over the comm. "I'm not sure what this is we're looking at, Commander. There seem to be turbolaser placements on - frell!" His Defender shot off to the side as a lancing green energy bolt fried space between them.

Shooter chewed her lip. "Could be a new type of Rebel base. Lets get closer if we can."

[Tannis V'larr]

Information flooded across Tannis's scopes almost too fast for him to follow. He'd had to boost the power to his scanners to knife through all the interference, leaving him with limited weapons capacity.

"Data coming in... relaying to you now. Definitely a base of some sort. Duranium superstructure built inside the asteroid. Two fusion reactors. Omnidirectional deflector screens. Five... correction, six turbolaser batteries. Transponder does not match any known Imperial or Rebel codes."

The Strikes were out of sight around the asteroid. If this was a Rebel base, they could easily loop around and take advantage of their turbolaser support to mop the Shadows out of the sky.

"Commander, I submit that we are outgunned. The odds of surviving such an engagement are approximately--"

He veered away from an incoming turbolaser bolt, which struck an asteroid and showered his aft deflectors with debris. He fought the G-forces to keep from careening into another rock as his fighter groaned and his scopes flickered - one of them spat sparks over his flight helmet.