Previous Tenants

[Kijirra Adhaferra]

On a day such as today, Wing Commander Adhaferra felt glad of the mild disdain that she had carefully and dedicatedly cultivated over the course of her lifetime. In her youth it had been a defense mechanism, aimed at the offworlders and the uncouth lower-class citizens of Syragor, practised through the act of peering down at them from the civilized plateau cities where the wealthier Cizerack dwelt. At the Academy, it had mutated into a scathing distaste for anything that hailed from beyond the Cluster; and that prejudice had lingered.

Today, that quiet seething was aimed squarely at the ion-squirting hunks of kosa loitering beyond her cockpit canopy to port and starboard. Back at Command, back in the Cluster - and hell, even in her own damn squadron room, when people thought she was out of earshot - everyone had matted their pubes from creaming so hard over the Alliance and their lousy forrda starfighters. Everyone was in love with the letter-wings, desperate for the Pride Mother and the Supreme Commander to carve out some sort of arrangement; some increase in manufacture so that the Trade Navy could toss out forty years of aviation history for a shiny new toy from the Pride's new political gai'tou.

The Ta'ihta'rrou wasn't completely backwards: she did understand the benefits of performance, and technological advancement. The Alliance's X-Wings were faster than Kijirra's beloved Taithaa'fei; better armed, better shielded, more reliable. Just plain better, in almost every metric that the accountants cared about. They were more expensive too; and if there was one thing the Cizerack were especially good at, it was blowing their cash on something needlessly expensive, just because it seemed fancy.

But what Command and their accountants didn't factor into their calculations was skill, and training. Kijirra had been nestled cosy in the cockpit of a Taithaa since not long after she'd sprouted foliage between her legs. She knew the limitations of her fighter. She knew how it felt; knew how to push it; knew how to understand the language of the craft when it protested her instructions. Put her in an X-Wing, and she would fly it well; but not as well. She wouldn't be able to make the Incom craft move the way her Taithaa'fei did. Wouldn't have the advantages of the reverse thrusters. Wouldn't know exactly how much yaw and how much thrust hesitation was necessary to snap the starfighter through a koiogran turn without breaking a sweat. Those holding the money wanted new, they wanted better; but they didn't understand the price that the pilots would inevitably be asked to pay.

"Kosa, they even look hjideous," she muttered to herself, shaking her head and wrenching her grateful eyes away from the absurdly designed craft. How much jeeta had the humans been smoking when they came up with that kind of configuration: engines clustered along the central vector, blasters so far apart that they needed a convergence point. Was it some hideous mistake that had been stumbled upon in the distant past, some racial embarrassment that their entire culture had agreed to overlook to spare the shame of the engineer responsible? One of these days, Akiena and his Alliance leadership would insist that Jovan Station's fighter compliment be homogenised to Alliance designs. Over my smouldering corpse, Kijirra vowed to herself.

The Tai'ihta'rrou gently goosed her throttle forward, regaining a foot or two of the lead that the X-Wings had been slowly eroding. It was the kind of sloppy, casual flying that she had grown accustomed to from the Alliance pilots. They'd click the thrust controls into place, and then lift their hands away; scratch at their nethers or whatever else it was they chose to do when they weren't carefully modulating their forward velocity. Kijirra didn't stand for that kind of conduct from her pilots. You never knew when you'd need laser precision in your manoeuvring skills: best to keep those claws perpetually sharp, rather than relying entirely on wits and luck the way the Alliance always seemed to.

For a split second she allowed her throttle hand to move, diverting a little extra power to her forward sensors. Regulations decreed certain default settings for a Tai'thaa'fei and it's systems, which the ground crew diligently reproduced; but Kijirra knew her craft better than they did. She knew that a few extra percentiles of power would cost her only a few minutes of battery life in exchange for a few hundred extra metres of sensor range -

Almost immediately, an angry red flash sparked on her sensor screen, a tiny pinprick materialising on the display followed by another, then another -

"Negatjive thrree-one, possjitjive fourr-seven," she barked into her helmet's comm unit, hand back on the thruster controls once more, gunning the engines to full power as she chased away from the front of the formation, racing towards the range where the sensors would give her more than just a faint energy signature against the blackness of space. She cycled through comm frequencies on her auxiliary transceiver, sweeping passively through the presets. Alliance frequencies. Civilian frequencies. Imperial frequencies. A crunch of static. A few faint, almost inaudible words. Imperial frequencies.

Numbers scrolled down on her targeting display as her range to target decreased at a rapid pace. A tone sounded in her headset as the telemetry resolved, confirming Kijirra's fear. Imperial ships. At least one Star Destroyer, and a number of escorts or support ships. "Nomaani's horrned cock!" she hissed under her breath, hauling back hard on the throttle, leaving her with only her existing inertia to carry her forward. Switches and controls were activated in a sequence that she could have done blindfolded, possibilities and scenarios dancing through her head at light speed. This was why they were out here: ever since the Ta'u saii attack on the station, the Alliance had been - justifiably - concerned that the Empire might try to take advantage of their weakened state; strike a blow while repairs were still underway. Kijiira had scoffed at the idea, dismissing it as paranoia. There was no way the Empire would be so foolishly bold.

Damn these bastard Imperials for proving her wrong.

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

The tightbeam telemetry stream transmitted and was received in such an insignificant fraction of a second that it may as well have been real time. On the command deck of Jovan Station, Preita'rrou Kiimiti Taassaurra had the Combat feed queued for priority, setting it apart from the rest of the inbound/outbound traffic at the station's periphery. In merely a touch, each data stream could be expanded for detailed information such as transponder codes, vector and speed, and measurables such as energetic outputs like engine emissions or weapons fire. When minimized, the data points would allow for an unbroken view of any patch of space within the sector, observing an approximated reference scale that allowed the viewer to have a basic visual representation of the star traffic. It also handily color-coordinated each unit's status. Green for condition nominal. Yellow for alert. Red for priority alert.

The moment that the CAP icon flipped from green to yellow, Kiimiti's hands were moving, bringing up a full readout and status as she opened the tightbeam to return vox.

"J-Jovan Actual to CAP Fai...err...One. Rreadjing unjidentjifjied jinbound at zerro-zerro afterr c-c-correctjion."

The positioning of the contact caused the hairs on the tips of Kiimi's ears to stand. She'd seen more than a few Imperial probes of the line of demarcation during her brief stay on comms watch. It wasn't unusual to see the Empire test the fence, as it were. Unidentified contacts from within the wire, however, those could range anywhere from a careless freighter captain without a flight plan to a pirate attack.

"Pleasse advjisse."

[Kijirra Adhaferra]

Traanjirra's thorrny snatch.

Whatever fates or Force guided the galaxy towards it's inevitable destiny, it was clear that Kijirra had managed to fall from their good graces. Of all the times for a crisis to befall Jovan Station, it was just Kijirra's luck that Preita'rrou Taassaurra - the comms officer who couldn't manage to string a coherent sentence together - would be on duty. A string of profanities tumbled out under Kijirra's breath, too quiet for the microphone to receive; a plethora of words from numerous worlds and languages inherited during her adventurous childhood exploration of Syragor's offworlder districts.

"Confjirrmed, Actual," Kijirra responded audibly, bouncing as much telemetry back to Jovan Station as she could. "jI have posjitjive ID on one jImperrjial Starr Destrroyer, two Vjictorrjies, one Drreadnaught, and fourr, no, fjive ljight crrujiserrs or frrjigates that jI cannot clearrly jidentjify at thjis rrange."

Her targeting systems began running calculations at her instruction: time to weapons range calculations for the vessels that she could see, as well as the ones the Imperial starships inevitably carried. At her insistence, the Alert-5 fighters aboard Jovan had streamlined their launch preparations down to just 3.7 minutes: fast enough to get a few more pilots starborne before the capital ships would be able to close the gap at flank speed, but probably not before any Interceptors and Defenders - squints and trips, her subconscious helpfully converted into Alliance parlance - made it within weapons range. Even a best case scenario where the Imperial ships carried the most modest compliment possible, Kijirra was not liking the odds of one Taithaa'fei and two X-Wings against a hundred or more Imperial pilots.

"Rrequest you scrramble the Alerrt fjighterrs, and get everry combat capable shjip launched as soon as possjible."

Her eyes narrowed on the distant daggers of the Imperial ships.

"Thjis jis gojing to get verry ugly, verry fast."

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

Kiimi could feel the tips of her ears get hot at the sudden tremendous spike in the seriousness of the situation. As the Tai'ihta'rrou called the marks, the new telemetry illuminated her board. It was one thing to list off a litany of enemy contacts. It was another thing to be able to see it in front of you, even in holographic representation. Her brain was running too fast for her tongue, spinning wheels in introspection before she followed through with the chain of communication.

"Alerrt fljight actjion t-t-thrree grrjid fourr-njine-f-f-fjive. Enemjy contact ssjighted."

Almost as an afterthought, the Preita'rrou hurriedly smacked the all-stations comm channel.

"Ssenjiorr command sstaff to c-command level. Rrepeat, ssenjiorr command sstaff to command level."

Lieutenant Commander Gyess was already on duty, but protocol dictated an all-commands alert upon hostile contact. The male human bounded over to her station, initially with the thought to chew the Cizerack girl out. That notion died in his throat as he looked at her board.

"Sound station alert. Get all crews to their ships."

The balance of Jovan's defense force would take a bit longer than Action Flight to get into space, but if this was legitimate contact, they'd need every last pilot out there.

[Vulcan Tanner]

Vulcan allowed herself a slow breath as the chaotic buzz of battle stations began to swell around her. While it was a thought she would keep firmly to herself, the Twi'lek couldn't help feeling strangely at peace as the station readied itself for the peril looming in the horizon. It hadn't been until the recent terrorist insurgence on the station that Vulcan had realised how much she missed the panic and pandemonium that had defined her life as a part of the Rebel Alliance: peacetime and protocol had draped a blanket of monotony across everything, each crisis that presented itself groundbreaking in the new mundane depths it achieved. Now, that blanket had once again been whipped back, and her mind felt alive, neurons firing and lekku twitching as her fingers reflexively flew across the operations console before her, new challenges and rapid tasks surging at her from every direction. It was intoxicating, the kind of buzz that you couldn't ordinarily experience outside of a spice high. All around her she saw grim faces, furrowed brows that weren't ready for another crisis so soon; but for Vulcan, Jovan Station had never felt more like home.

One blinking light on a panel almost a full extension of her right arm away caught Vulcan's attention; internal comlink. She glanced, her violet irises focusing as she peered over at Kiimiti's console. No corresponding indicator on her panel; a message for her directly, then. Reaching for the earpiece resting ready on the console behind her, she carefully settled it into place along her jawline, and accepted the hail.

"Tanner," she answered with an air of curt calm. "Go ahead."

[Adonis Inirial]

Equally calm and focused, equally in his element, was Commander Adonis Inirial, striding his way confidently along the corridors of the station. While others scrambled out of quarters and bunk rooms around him, uniforms half-on as they scampered towards their posts and battle stations, Adonis' uniform hung with perfection from his shoulders, as pristine and perfect as it would be en route to greet some visiting dignitary from the airlock. The reason was simple: despite the late hour, despite having ended his designated duty for the day over a shift ago, Adonis hadn't shrugged off a single item of his uniform. There was little point: the barrier between life and work had long since been obliterated for the Commander. There was nothing more comfortable to slip into; no social engagements to occupy his free time. He'd made the concession of exchanging his office for his quarters as soon as 1900 had struck, but until the time came to allow his body a few hours of unconsciousness to recharge, Adonis never truly allowed himself to be off duty.

Noticing the response light blinking on his comlink, he settled his own earpiece into place, tapping the controls to open the channel to speech.

"Excuse the interruption, Chief," he offered, adjusting his course ever so slightly to avoid an equipment-laden damage control team bustling down the corridor in the other direction, "But I figured you'd have a few less voices buzzing in your ears than the Preita'rrou about now."

There was nothing glib or mocking in Adonis' tone: merely the voice of someone who had meticulously studied the station's staff rotations, and familiarised himself with the various personnel of note. Kiimiti Taassaurra was an incredibly adept communications officer, but Jovan Station in it's current state was a shambles, and now was not the time to be burdening her with more chaos.

"I'm about thirty seconds from stepping into a turbolift. Which way should I be heading - the command deck, or the Destiny?"

[Vulcan Tanner]

Vulcan wasted no time calculating an answer to that question. A quick root query through the internal comm array identified the tranciever node the Commander's signal was being picked up by; a quick assumption or two suggested that he was in the nearby habitat section. Maintenance submissions over the last few days had been complaining about the transit systems being a little sluggish in that sector of the station. Even factoring in the stride speed of someone as tall as the Commander -

"Long story short," she replied, a few quick mental calculations all coming to the same conclusion, "We have a Hutt-ton of Imperial ships popping up on the edge of our defense perimeter, and every second is going to count."

A few taps on her data screen pulled up the shift logs for the Destiny - the recon cruiser assigned to augment the Commander's role as intelligence officer for Jovan Station's patch of border territory. A tiny grimace tugged at her features as she recognised the name of the officer on duty who'd submitted the last few logs: not one of disapproval, more of empathy with the poor Lieutenant. Her mind checked the numbers again, but the margin still wasn't enough: the few minutes it would take the Commander to board his ship translated to kilometres of Imperial proximity that the station just couldn't afford.

"I don't think there's time, sir. You might have to leave this one to Echo."

[Adonis Inirial]

Echo. A whole lot of meaning crammed into that little word. Adonis knew the Chief Petty Officer well enough to translate the meaning. She wasn't just reading a name of a list: she knew who Lieutenant Ocasta was; knew his qualifications; knew he was a starfighter pilot, not a starship commander; and even then, the situation was dire enough that they couldn't afford to wait a few minutes to let Commander Inirial get to his ship. A brief instant of appreciation danced across Adonis' mind, for Tanner's efforts to make the uncomfortable option seem as necessary as possible. It wasn't that Adonis lacked confidence in his XO - on the contrary, he had every confidence - but rather that his XO lacked confidence in himself. Adonis had hoped there'd be a little more time to bolster that self esteem before the Lieutenant was thrust into a situation such as this. Apparently the universe had other ideas.

"Understood, Chief. I'll be on the command deck momentarily. In the meantime -" His brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, mind already rehearsing the urgent pep talk he was about to deliver. "- patch me through to the Destiny."

There wasn't even a response from Tanner; just a quick shift in the ambient static through the earpiece, as the photons of the transmission were bounced across circuits and relays before being beamed towards Adonis' waiting ship.

"Inirial to Destiny - how does it look out there, El Tee?"

[Oisin Ocasta]

Hunched forward over the edge of the nav console, loitering just behind the shoulder of the duty helmsman, Oisin peered with narrowed eyes at the tactical display projected onto the viewscreen before him.

"Everythin' is all peachy out here, Commander," he replied to the disembodied voice that the comms officer had relayed through the bridge's ambient speakers. With a faint sigh he pushed off, using the impulse to propel him into a few quick strides back towards the command chair, taking an instant to tug down at the front of his uniform before perching himself casually upon the seat's edge. Most times, he would have regarded the chair as if it was about to bite him, but for the last several hours he'd been here enduring the uneventful nothingness of the night shift, and so his body readily slipped back into the exact same relaxed pose: listing off to one side, with an elbow planted against one of the seat arms for balance.

"Just an Imperial battle group swingin' by to deliver a few early Life Day presents. Nothin' for anyone to be gettin' their panties in a bunch over."

[Adonis Inirial]

Trust a starfighter pilot to act like impending death and destruction was no big deal. Adonis hoped that was a good sign - hoped the gravity of the situation, and Oisin's familiarity with precarious odds, would default him into a mindset of confidence rather than the alternative. He was a former Rogue, after all: Rogue Squadron was supposed to thrive in situations like this.

A few quick strides brought Adonis into the turbolift; despite his hands reaching for the appropriate part of the controls out of reflex, he still found him hesitating for a moment before he instructed the transit system to convey him to the command deck. Resolve formed in his jaw as his fingers surged forward, jamming the relevant button. No turning back now: no alternative to this situation for the Lieutenant, or for him.

"That's good to hear," Adonis replied, playing into the flyboy humour. Even so his words were carefully chosen, attempting to convey the situation without shattering the mood. "Seems like you'll be just fine handling things on your own, then. You'll have the situation squared away and dealt with before I even manage to get there."

[Oisin Ocasta]

If there was a falter in Oisin's confidence, he didn't let it show outwardly; just the faintest micron of extra tension in his shoulders, a tiny manoeuvre away from the relaxed nature of his current pose. He understood what the Commander was getting at. The situation was bad, and time was tight. Under normal circumstances, the Commander might have been able to rush his way across the station, dive through the airlock that the Destiny was berthed at, and led them into the impending face-off with the Imperials, all within a matter of minutes.

Now was not normal circumstances, though. The recent terrorist visitation upon Jovan Station had left the place in disarray. Half of the docking structures had been blasted to hell with planted explosives; the other half were being marred by the station's persistent state of dubious function. The Destiny was fortunate: Imperial Light Cruisers like her had been a staple of the Empire's navy when Jovan Station had been constructed, and so the station had a much broader assortment of viable docking locales for a ship of her class; not so much for the mismatched assortment of other Alliance ships presently nearby. Unfortunately, those alternate docking ports were almost clear across the station from where the Destiny usually docked, and while the station's logistics staff had been wise enough to find Commander Inirial an office and quarters as close to that usual location as possible, that proximity was no longer valid.

All of that conspired to mean that the Commander would not be coming. The Empire was here to blast them all to hell, and all the Destiny had to rely upon was an out of his depth recon pilot who, to be frank, was only really here because of a girl.

Oh, what the hell, Oisin's subconscious muttered. You've spent a lifetime perfecting the art of faking confidence. What's ten more minutes.

"Understood, Commander," Oisin replied, in the most command-appropriate voice he could manage to muster. "Helm, clear all moorings. Tactical, raise shields and ready all weapons. I want defense teams and damage control teams standing by." His vision shifted, focusing on the tiny panel of comm controls embedded in one arm of the command chair, as if that was somehow where Commander Inirial currently resided. "We'll be right back, Commander. Destiny out."

[Regan Altink]

A few kilometres away on the Novgorod, Regan Altink was avoiding his own ship's command chair like the plague. For now, he'd nestled himself over beside the communications station, and was in the midsts of a conversation with some confusingly-accented woman on the command deck of Jovan Station, whose name and rank he honestly hadn't bothered to pay attention to.

"Oh aye, that just sounds grand," Tink snapped back. This entire situation was ludicrous, and right now the unfortunate woman with her rolling R's and weirdly pronounced I's was receiving the full brunt of his frustration. Perhaps it wasn't fair. Perhaps the situation would be better served by him opening a channel to the approaching Imperial ships and tearing them a new one instead. But the Imperials hadn't decided to pester him in the middle of a catastrophe; the poor unsuspecting woman on Jovan had, and it was her stupid fault for doing so. "While we're at it, would y' like us all tae whip our cocks out an' leave them flapping away in the breeze -"

His tirade came to an abrupt end as the doors to the bridge hissed open, the access way disgorging Captain Quez. The relief at having someone else there to supersede his command of the situation was almost enough to bring an end to his sour mood. Almost.

"Cap'n!" Regan called, gesturing his commanding officer over. "If y'd be so kind... would y' mind tellin' this wee lass from Jovan that two frigates, a light cruiser, three clunky old Cizerack ships, an' a couple a' patrolin' Hapans that may or may not show up dependin' on whether or not they can be bothered, does nae stand a snowball's chance on Mustafar of survivin' against the three Star Destroyers an' Force knows what else that the Empire has floatin' away out there?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

General quarters had sounded right at the moment that he'd stepped out of the sonics. It was a small miracle that Cirr had made it to the bridge on time. The speed was due to a sacrifice in decor, as the Cizerack captain hadn't quite made it to the point of fastening his jacket, or tucking in the white tee underneath. That was the reality on a little ship. You only got in parade condition for...parades.

"Stop badgerrjing the help, you grrouchy toad," Cirr hunched over the shoulder of his engineer, getting a grim view of what awaited them a few hundred thousand kilometers away. "You want to complajin about the Empjirre not playjing fajirr, you'rre about to get yourr chance to talk to them about jit."

He clapped a reassuring hand on Tink's shoulder, shuffling back to his seat.

"Alrrjight, jI doubt thjis jis what any of us wanted to do wjith ourr day today, but we could have all gotten desk jobs. Helm, aljign ourr vectorr on jinterrcept and go full burrn. Load tubes, get ourr scrreens double frront and get Valkyrrjie out jin attack escorrt patterrn Besh."

Tink was right though. The domiciled forces at Jovan were capable of repulsing an Imperial attack line if they had to. What they were facing now was nearly at squadron strength. On paper, they didn't have enough guns. Best they could do was draw out the fight. Reinforcements from Carshoulis could descend on the station, if they were lucky, in fifteen minutes.

[Jaden Luka]

There were many advantages to being Jaden T. Luka. Right now, the most valuable was the lack of shame - a trait that had allowed the Commander to sprint through the corridors of the Novgorod in nothing but a pair of regulation undershorts, flight suit tossed over his arm, without the slightest hesitation. His years of practice at rapidly evacuating the bedrooms of women whose names he hadn't quite bothered to memorise helped him gear up in a matter of moments, climbing first into his jock smock and then into his cockpit, juggling the task of strapping on his g-webbing as he scampered up the ladder. A series of swift, practised motions had dumped his ass into the seat, slapped the helmet onto his head, and latched the cockpit closed with such efficiency that were this not a deathly dire scenario, he would have grabbed for a stop clock to make a note of his time.

Coasting forward a few feet on repulsorlifts, Jaden's A-Wing had been seized by magnetic forces, flinging him out through the flight deck's atmosphere shield with more acceleration than his thrusters could safely muster in such close quarters - a bit of a butt-clench experience for the pilot, sure, but Jaden would rather sacrifice a second or two of control over his craft at the outset than envelop the ground crew in thrust exhaust as he raced to avoid the fighter behind slamming into his A-Wing's gorgeous ass.

Instinct kicked in to the extent where Jaden didn't even register the control inputs any more: the A-Wing slid gracefully off to port and into formation because the pilot simply willed it, and the symbiosis of limbs and levers brought that notion into effect. Eyes glancing at his proximity display the exact instant he knew that he needed to, he watched Twitch and the rest of Valkyrie Squadron nestle into formation, a thin tug of a smile skitting across his lips as the telemetry software flagged just how fractional the margins for error on their placements was.

Static and voices crackled through the comlink built into his helmet, the words twisted and distorted by the encryption and anonymity filters that the Alliance had maintained as a relic of it's old Rebellion days. "Pattern Besh; acknowledged, Actual," he responded to the comms officer back on the Novgorod bridge, taking a brief moment to ensure his tranciever was set to the right squadron-wide frequency. "You heard the order, Valkyries: let's bun this nerf-steak."

A few instinctive shifts and thrusts later, Jaden's A-Wing began to bank, peeling out away from the Novgorod to give the rest of the squadron room to find their places. Indicators danced across his scope as the starfighters found their places, two brackets of half a squadron each wrapped around the Novgorod in the centre, matching almost perfectly the Aurebesh character that described it. Confident that his hands and feet would do whatever they needed to without his direct focus, Jaden instead turned his attention to his sensor readouts, checking that his pilots all had clear firing lines in readiness for the TIE swarm they were no doubt racing towards, and watching the other ready craft scramble from Jovan Station like a herd of startled bees.

A quick adjust of the display scale, and Jaden found the Imperial formation, relying on sensor telemetry beamed to him from the station and the Novgorod. Midway between he found the station's errant air patrol, relying on the displayed data to discern an appropriate name. "Valkyrie Squadron has you on our scopes, CAP One," he broadcast, on Jovan's designated combat frequency. "Sit tight: the cavalry is coming."