”On it, Joy. Keep her steady…” The gunner lines up his shot and sends two beams lancing through the dark. He isn’t having much luck with the particle beam but it draws the Cyleerin’s attention... then the Coilgun hammers the tiny fighter.
"Yes, rebalance the shields! All power to the quantum torpedoes!"
Cherry moves energy to the Shields,
”On it, Joy. Keep her steady…” The gunner lines up his shot and sends two beams lancing through the dark. He isn’t having much luck with the particle beam but it draws the Cyleerin’s attention... then the Coilgun hammers the tiny fighter.
Once again, the beam weapon (narrowly) misses, but the Cyleerin fighter you'd hit previously (the one that doubled back) is hit solidly by the coilgun. The vessel is not destroyed, but Burlap scored a direct hit on the engines; this particular fighter is adrift in space.
That said, it is still able to fire at you as it drifts past.
Back in Engineering, Cherry grumbles as she watches the shield energy indicator recharge to full, then almost immediately drop to 25% on the front arc as the Betty takes another hit. Still, no hull damage.
The number of incoming Cyleerin fighters is finally dropping off as the Raptors pick off more and more of them. The occasional Raptor is destroyed, as well, but the Cyleerin tactics are clear. They will eventually win a war of attrition. But not this engagement, they won't.
Top of Round 5
”In a snub-fighter, that’s gotta be a nose gun. Get behind her and she won’t be able to target us.” Burlap waits patiently for Joyride to bring one Cyleerin ship or another into Betty's forward arc, then delivers a pair of well-placed shots.
"You know I just fixed that!" She growls as she begins to try and work her magic on the Shields.
"Foreward Shields at 25%, if you don't want hull damage, I would say try and dodge next time!" She growls out as she diverts power from aft.
No turret on the fighter flying off without guidance (or any of them, for that matter). Both of Burlap's shots hammer into the fighter; the particle beam brings down her rear shields, leaving the craft vulnerable to the coil runs. The bullets rip into the vehicle's rear, and finally, out the other side. The Cyleerin fighter explodes only briefly, burning off gases used in secondary systems, before the two halves of the vessel (minus the engine and cockpit portions, completely destroyed) float off in different directions.
With that, the battle is won. Juce and Wyvern Squadron have finished off the rest of the fighters, losing two of their own in the process.
"Thanks for the assist, Black Betty, would have been much worse if you hadn't been here."
' Finally, now I can get to some repairs!!" She says as she begins to look at the damage of the Shields and see if its a difficult break or a simple patch job.
Happy to lend a hand or 12... see you around, Commander.
With Joyride gone, James is back and looks for the landing bay.
" You gonna help me out Hotpants, wait Hitsauxe, no...Well?" She says both excited and annoyed about the damage to the shueld.generators.
The Betty docks on The Starlume a few minutes later. The crew is supposed to pick up Clarissa and transport her to a few other locations in the fleet to provide medical assistance.
The door to Clarissa's cabin slides open, the medic grabbing her bag quickly before noting the disheveled appearance of her crewmembers.
"What happened to you guys?"
"Eh. Just the usual... got in a tussle with some Cyleerin fighters. Bagged a couple toasters."
"And now they owe me, maintenance time!"She says with eagerness
"Again? Fleet's been getting hit by those more and more lately. No matter which way we go, they keep finding us!" Clarissa says with frustration.
It's a frustration many in the fleet have felt and even voiced lately. Too many ships have been lost to these strikes in recent weeks.
"How is it, we keep running into them? Do they have some way to track us through the Drift? Listening posts? Spies? Or are we just unlucky?"
"Yeah, whatta those bots even want with us anyways?"
The next morning each member of the crew receives a summons from Councilor Drongul. Arriving in the late morning in his briefing room, you note several military personnel as well.
"Good morning," Drongul says, a serious note in his voice.
"What I'm about to tell you cannot go beyond this room. We believe we have found three possible systems that may contain Golarion, our long lost homeworld. We suspect this is the reason the Cyleerin have been working so hard at destroying our fleet this last month or so."
"Wha-? Because we're getting close? Why do these losers care so much about us going home?" Alzura sits in a chair and leans back, propping her boots up on the tabletop. "Ugh, I have so many exes that act like the Cyleerin. They just can't move on, can't accept that it's over... Typical." She sighs, looking into the distance wistfully. "If the bots know - somehow - where we're goin', then they know where to concentrate their forces to stop us. I dunno if we'll be able to force our way though their entire fleet. Prolly don't want 'em hangin' around Golarion anyways. We need a way to get rid of them for good..."
The ysoki absorbs the news. ”What’s the mission? Recon one or more of these systems?”
"If the bots know - somehow - where we're goin', then they know where to concentrate their forces to stop us. I dunno if we'll be able to force our way though their entire fleet. Prolly don't want 'em hangin' around Golarion anyways. We need a way to get rid of them for good..."
"We don't believe they know exactly where we're going. We've got agents working on determining how they're following us. But for now, your Ratkin crewman is correct. We'd like you to pick one of the three systems, and determine if this is indeed Golarion, or if you can find evidence of the system there."
A digital image pops up on the display screen. It features a stellar map, shown in two dimensions for simplicity, with differentials showing the distance to each star.
"The first, closest star is a K-Sequence star. It is similar in mass to our own star back in the colonies, but is roughly 1/3 as luminous. It is approximately 1 day's Drift travel above and starboard to our current plane of travel, according to the latest Drift navigational readings."
"The second, a larger yellow G-type star, is 3 days travel below our current plane of travel."
"The furthest, a yellow star only slightly larger than the colonial primary star, is 5 days Drift travel ahead and 30 degrees to port to our current direction."
All equal probability? James seems loathe to chase the wrong possibility.
What if they have a... spy? Or maybe they tagged us... Black Betty, somehow?
"I'd go with option 2 or 3... If we did come from Golarion and it has such a dim star, you'd think everyone would see well in darkness. We can't, so a twilight world like option 1 seems unlikely to me."
"Wait, couldn't the star be weaker now? It has been a while. Either way, it would take time for us to get the colony back up and defensible" Cherry says as she looks at the others.
"If we settle, we can let a space-bound force keep the Cyleerins thinking." Cherry says with hope as she works on the shields.
”I don’t know all the maths but a star can live for like 10 billion years. Let’s assume we left Golarion 10,000 years ago. The odds that our 10,000 year 'window' falls exactly within the timeframe that the star goes from bright to dim, I think, is incredibly small. Could it happen? Maybe. Do you bet credits on it happening? Only if you want to end up broke.”
"Approximately 1 in one million, given the statistics. That leaves the two G-series stars, one 3 days downward from plane of travel, one 5 days ahead and to port."
"Hmm. Which do I like better, 'G' or 'K'?" She taps her chin a few times, pondering her preferred letter. "What if we run hard to the furthest start, try and get there before the bots so we can examine it unbothered?"
"Investigate the farthest and then try to set up something? Also, shouldn't we have other teams going to the other options? "[
"That's being handled, but since your team's been so effective at assisting the fleet, we wanted to give you the first choice," the speaker admits.
Hours later, the crew of the Black Betty is on their way to the 5-day destination star.
The trip goes as expected. No surprises in the Drift, and you arrive in-system.
"Reading four planetary bodies in-system. Two are in the habitable zone."
'Wnat about scanning for mechanical life forms? ' Cherry says, looking to Vaelorin.
"We should make sure we don't have other robotic lifeforms about" She suggests as she looks over the data.
"Are any of the planets Golarion?" Alzura asks, somewhat humored by the question.
Joyride, somewhat bored but curious... very slowly approaches or drifts toward the nearest planet as he awaits orders.
As Joyride approaches the planet, he instinctively knows...this isn't it. There's background communication, not satellites, no space stations or even the smallest of craft.
"Initial scans completed. Planet has atmosphere to support life. No strong energy signatures, meaning there are likely no settlements larger than tens of thousands. Individual life sign scans will require an in-atmosphere scan on or closer to the surface."
"The lack of detectable electronic communication seems to indicate no mechanical life forms, though they could be present and simply quiet."
Suddenly, Joyride detects a ping on the starship sensors. Something is coming in from out-system. It's moving too slow to be Cyleerin fighters.
"True, if inactive and waiting for immediate lifeform scans. That's what I would program for. Same with any defensive systems. However, no strong energy signatures. Hmmm, I would still worry about archaic defenses? We should be careful and figure out the best way to proceed"
Hey guys... something out there pinging. Moving slow. Maybe too slow to by Cyleerin. Coming in from out-system, bearing...
Set an intercept course!