USH'S GAME EPISODE I-"AVALAR" - Dark Side (Edna Witch, queeq, Captain Rex, yerssot)

(Sorry about this, but I have to speed on the plot a tad so you are in sync with the others!)

With the upper level pirates cleared and the orbital defences down, the only thing left to do now is break thjrough the pirate blockade.

Edna, on the upper landing pad, Chion and Krisha have landed. Krisha is busy sabotaging the ships of Hade and Pelloran.

"We can't use them anyway," she explains, simply. Occasionally a small explosion comes from one of the ships.

Chion walks heavily down the ramp from Krisha's ship onto the pad, and takes a look at the view from the top of the volcano. As ever, he says nothing.

Quam, on the way back up you note the dead body of one of the Jedi on the floor in the corridor. He has a sabre wound through his chest.

You arrive with Kuylen up top shortly afterwards.

"We're all done on Damagran," says Krisha. "What the heck is happening here?"

"Forget Damagran," says Kuylen. "Faylar and Pelloran have betrayed us. We'll pay that debt in person, later." Krisha looks shocked.

"If Faylar has betrayed us then our whole plan is compromised!" she says.

"NO," insists Kuylen. "They moved too late. Everything is ready at Avalar. We'll go there now."

"But the pirates and Faylar's forces will stop us going there..."

"Then we will shoot them down," says Kuylen.

"And the Jedi will follow us there..."

"THEN WE WILL KILL THEM!" yells Kuylen.

"But..."

There is a flash, and a moment later Kuylen is holding his ignited blade at Krisha's neck. She has managed to grab her sabre from her belt but no more. She looks at each of you for help. When she looks at Chion, Chion gives a horrible smile and walks expressively to Kuylen's side.

"We're nearly done," says Kuylen. "No-one will stand in our way now. If anyone tries, I will kill them. That includes ALL of you," he says. "And especially you, Krisha."

Kuylen raises his hand and Krisha is sent flying across the landing pad, landing heavily on the other side. She gets up, furious, and ignites her sabre, buy Kuylen has turned his back on her, contemptuously, and Chion stands between them both.

"Quam, Edna, Krisha. As it was the loud noise you made on YOUR mission to the station that brought the Jedi upon us, you three can deal with them when we get to Avalar. If you think that is unfair; that it was not you to blame but the others, you can argue it out amongst yourselves."

Kuylen looks into the sky.

"We have to fight our way through that lot first," he says. "I understand the Jedi are breakiong through as well. We'll go through at the same time; it will be easier."

Quam and Edna, there are three ships to choose from, all of which will be running the blockade.

Ship one is Quam's

Ship two is Krisha's

Ship three is Kuylen's stolen and converted Hutt corvette.

*choose???? Why choose???*

"I don't get why you let her live, Kuylen. But this is your party. I'm off, see you guys up in the sky.", Quam said as he walked off to his Fighter. He pushed a few buttons on his remote and two additional wings extended from the sleek fighter. A door opened on the side of the landing pad and several droids came out towing several missiles and proton torpedo's.

As Quam got set in his fighter the additional armourment was placed under the wing extensions.

That last bit wasn't Kuylen talking, queeq. I was just letting you guys know what the choice was.

* All I need to know is, can I fly my fighter? If so, please continue.*

I need to know where Edna is... and this whole part is being done real-time. Needs to synchronise with the Light Siders. So a short wait, I am afraid.

Quam sits in his cockpit and runs his finger over his control. On the landingpad another group of droids come out toward the fighter, carrying two big bundles hovering on a degrav platform. Slowly they bring the platform underneath the fighter. The cocoonlike bundles open up and the droids start installing numerous flares and decoy droids in the Fighter's hull.

Edna heads to Kuylen's ship. Chion moves to board the Hutt ship as well, but after a glance from Kuylen Chion decides to 'accompany' Krisha instead.

Edna, Kuylen has s ingle other crewman, a mad-seeming Twi'lek, whose name you have nevr learnt. He grins at you maniacally as you board, then runs off to man the weapons systems on the corvette. It's actually meant to have a crew of twenty or thrity so it is very empty on boarf.

Quam, there is a marked difference of styles. Your ship, full of hidden extras and deadly systems. Krisha's ship, light, fast, sleek, with a chrome finish, but pretty simple.

And Kuylen's battered and bruised Hutt corvette, a ship the Hutts normally use for heavy duty smuggling operation, with scorch marks all over from weapons fire, and several dozen patches covering the hull. Still, the weapons, shields and engines work just fine.

The three ships take off; Kuylen's is obviously last off, Quam, if you want to set the pace, you might end up in a racing contest with Krisha.

Meanwhile...

The pirate blockade is spread thin but is very comprehensive. in any sector in which you want to try and break out, there are at least a dozen fighters there (and others can get there fast) plus a smattering of larger ships. The pirates don't have any large battleships, of course, but they have al sorts of frigates and corvettes.

One extra option is available. It is easy to distinguish the Jedi's ship. It is not standard issue, it is a medium-sized transport, sophisticated and well armed.

It is already attracting attention form the pirate fighters and escaping through the same sector as the Jedi ship is probably your easiest option...

... if it were not for one thing. To your surprise, the Jedi ship is directly charging the leargest ship the pirates have- a captured Damagran war cruiser, not huge but large enough to be scary. You doubt it is fully crewed, but you also doubt the pirates would neglect its many turrets.

Quam, you are surprised at this apparent suicidal tendency of the Jedi. But then... it is perhaps the sort of plan you would pick- it certainly will have surprised the heck out the pirates. And if they make it past the thing they are virtually home and dry. it might not be that easy for them, though- a squadron of twelve fighters is moving for a rapid intercept.

Your choice of escape plan is yours; there will HAVE to be figting no matter what, but the nature of it depends on you.

Quam sees the interception manouvre by the Jedi ship on his scopes.

"Hmmm, interesting." Quickly he punches in some data, trying get some info on the status of the cruiser. "Okay. Doable." Quam mumbles.
Quickly he starts locking targets to his proton torpedos, all aiming at the war cruiser. He keeps the targets locked in as he speeds head on to face the fighters.
"Krisha, if you want to make yourself useful for a change, take out a few of these fighters. Be wise and stay in my slipstream until we make contact. And never mind the stuff that comes out of my tail pipe."

Quam's controls start beeping like mad when his Dark Fighter comes in range of the pirate fighters. "This is where the fun begins", he mumbles to himself. His fingers speed over his controls like crazy and then he firmly grabs the stick.
When two missiles come very close, Quam ejects the flares, makes a fast dive and as he pulls up, his controls confirm detonation of the missiles on the flares. Immediately he sends out a small swarm of decoy droids.
The tight group of pirate fighters frantically begin to disperse as their scopes suddenly light up with numerous dots which could be anything: enemy ships, missiles. THe scopes just don't give any clarity what it is.
"Target practise", Quam said as he pulled up behind three fleeing fighters. He releases three proton torpedos at the cruiser and simultaneously opens fire at the fighters in front of him. Two explode almost instantly, the third one requires some more manouvering before one of his wings gets shot off.
A little back, one of the pirate fighters hits a decoy droid and after a brief flash there's only fighter fragments floating through space.

Perhaps to your surprise, Krisha acquits herself well.

You both let the pirate fighters slip in behind you and then Krisha breaks at the same instant you do as your bits and bobs launch. Then the priates are swooping down on you and you lose her for a moment.

After you claim your third kill, you see her, giving the pirates a lesson in defensive flying. She sweeps easily through the debris and droids and flares, whilst the pirates hit all of that, and even, in one case, each other. Krisha then performs a neat roll, which she cuts short to descend upon another confused fighter that she shoots down before returning to your rear.

Four fighters remain out of the 12 that attacked you, and they are trying to re-form. More fighters are trying to vector to your position. Meanwhile, your attack run on the cruiser continues. Your shields are healthy and so are Krisha's.

The Jedi ship is being badly swarmed by fighters. They seem to have diverted most of their power to their engines. Nevertheless, an early and clumsy attack by the pirates leaves two of them shot down by the turrets on the ship. Now they are making fast, swooping attacks; the Jedi can;t hit the fighters and the fighters can barely hit the Jedi, but the are chipping away at the ships shields at a worrying enough rate- worrying for those inside, anyway.

Your ships are fatser than the Jedi;s so you can get closer to them.

Meanwhile, Kuylen can get a surprising turn of speed out of his corvette but it is certainly the slowest ship of the group. It enters the sector now, with another 12 fighters hurriyng to meet it.

Quam sends off another three proton torpedos towards the battle cruiser right after the first three blew into the large ship's hull. He then makes a sharp turn and steers back to the location where he released the decoy droids. He refreshes his course on the controls so he could come and help Kuylen ward off his attackers.

Within moments the 12 fighters are on attack course with the Dark Fighter again, but Quam was able to maintain a nice distance between. The laser bolts fired at him weren't very accurate.
When Quam passed the swarm of droids still sitting were he left them, he carefully manouvred between them so he wouldn't hit any. But the pilots of the pursuing fighters had learned their lesson and expertly manouvred between the deadly objects.

When Quam felt he was at a good distance, he pressed a button on his controls. In the dark space, the decor droids suddenly lit up and sped immediately towards the nearest heat source. A series of heavy explosions followed...

You send your torpedoes towards the same spot. You only wish that this was some cheap priate job, but the Damagran navy is a veteran force and their cruisers are sturdy (though likely to be worse maintained now it has been stolen). It seems to be holding well.

Edna, on board Kuylen's corvette, his Twi'lek is frantically operating the weapons systems. A spray of concentrated gunfire adds to the pirate's problems as Quam and Krisha smash through the squadron.

Quam- say, six left of this squadron? Four more from the ones you attacked before. Still ten attacking the Jedi.

The Jedi ship is executing tight spins and other evasive manoeuvres, but this has totally thrown off the aim of the gunners who are now not even firing back. Meanwhile, the Jedi ship comes within range of the cruiser, which starts to fire its larger guns at it...

Quam accelerates his Dark Fighter to full speed, easily outrunning the pursuing fighters, and heads towards teh Jedi Fighter.

"Gundark....", he spoke through the Force, "Gundark.... having troubles?"

As he speaks to the Jedi leader he programmes another set of projectiles: three more proton torpedos for the war cruiser for the destructive blow on both the shields and weapons systems and three missiles for the fighter harrassing the Jedi ship.

Following the consecutive launches of the projectiles, Quam charges his lasers for another destructive autograph on the pirate fleet.

You sense Gundark's mind as you zoom past, queeq... buit on this fast swoop contact is difficult, and it feels remote...

As you go past the Jedi ship you see a heavy laser shot hit it solidly at the front. That must have made a fair dent in their shields!

The Jedi ship is heading fdirectly towards the upper part of the xruiser. Quam, you reckon they are going to torpedo the upper heavy lasers at close range. Again, it is risky- they will take a lot of damage on the way in- but if it works, with the upper heavy lasers destroyed and out the lower ones totally out of position, the Jedi will be home and dry.

Krisha volleys off some of her limited supply of torpedoes as you fire again. The missiles you fire at the pirates do more to break their formation than actual damage.

20 pirate fighters remain. Kuylen's corvette comes sweeping along as fast as it can. It will soon enter the gun range of the cruiser.

On his first attack run, Quam takes out two enemy fighters and launches two more proton torpedo's at the upper lasers of the attack cruiser. With a tight turn right he passes over the Jedi ship, scarring the hull with his lasers to show this is not the beginning of a friendship.
Accelerating to full speed, Quam catches up with a fighter on Krisha's tail. As he opens fire heavily he decides not to be too accurate this time. A heavy spill of lasers take out the fighter and hit Krisha's ship lightly. "My present for you, darling."Quam mumbled as he passed her.

Two bogeys on Quam's tail cause him to turn rapidly after releasing a handful of decoy droids that activate as soon as he is out of range of the heat seakers. Within moments his pursuers are gone...

The Jedi ship continues to charge at the upper part of the cruiser. It straightens out and an accurate burst of fire takes out a pirate ship. Fire from the cruiser continues to rake the Jedi, though, and then your quick attack hardly helps them...

Your torpedoes glide in smoothly towards the upper lasers. You are irritated to see two of your third wave of torpedoes are hacked down by a sudden bursts of defensive fire from the cruiser. They must have re-assigned their gun crews... long range torpedo runs could be difficult now.

As you and Krisha swoop away from your pursuers, you try to line up on some more targets. Your rear shield has taken a couple of hits; not a problem unless you go near the cruiser, at which point you would feel happier with healthy shields.

Suddenly, an impact flips your ship over, causing you a moment of panic before you regain control. You don't seem to have taken any significant damge.

Hmm. A flare, fired from Krisha's ship. That could have been meant for the pirates or could have been deliberate; it's impossible to tell.

Damn! It's put you out of position, though.

Meanwhile, Kuylen's corvette enters firing range of the cruiser. The pirates are still concentrating on the Jedi ship. A heavy laser in the nose of the Corvette starts to fire continuous shots at the cruiser, at the same place you aimed your raerlier torpedo volleys, Quam. Shot after shot after shot... without enough fighters to harass it, Kuylen's corvette is a deadly threat to the overwhelmed cruiser.

MEANWHILE...

A welcome to your new, and much overdue, Dark Side player, as played by Captain Rex!

Rex is playing a Corsair (that's a Dark and violent Swordfighter) named Galder Welptet- I guess you all know him as Gald.

Gald... it's a big Galaxy out there. For a man of your unique skills, thats a lot of opportunity. A lot of fighting and killing and death.

Thing is, people never let you DO it. For you are a Dark Jedi, and there are no more hated or more hunted people in the Galaxy.

It's not the police or clumsy security that worry you. It's the Jedi. Whenever they hear of your presence they send Knights to hunt you down; and several times you have been very close to being caught and killed. Much to your hatred, you had to run. And run. And run...

Until, one day, you met Kuylen- a tall, handsome, bearded man who always wears classical military uniform. You knew there was something different about Kuylen the moment you set eyes on him.

Kuylen was doing some insanely dangerous deals with the Hutts at the time. At first he simply employed you as a bodyguard, something you had done many times before. You tried to keep your Force powers and sabre secret from him- it;s never good to advertise.

One day, a deal went wrong and you found your meeting point under attack by two dozen Rodian assassins. Surrounded, you fought desperately, using all your powers, but you could not stop them getting to Kuylen.

Imagine your surprise when Kuylen drew a sabre of his OWN- and cut through the remaining assassins faster than a regiment of shocktroops could.

"Come with me," he said to you afterwards, simply. You did. And you have been with him ever since,

Kuylen led a group of Dark Jedi. At last YOU had friends- or the closest you can get. You had other people to rely on, a team to be with.

There was Krisha, hasty and ill-trained but the best saboteur you have ever seen. Chion, a huge, silent brute with an enormous sabre. Quam- quiet, moody, scary and lethal. And Edna, a girl with a phenomenal force talent.

Kuylen himself scares you most of all. He has a mind like iron, that you cannot understand. And his skill with the blade is AMAZING! You have never seen anything like it.

Kuylen trained you; taught you to fight better, to think better... and how to survive. For years, you and your group have been safe from the Republic.

You have known for some time that Kuylen has been working on a grand plan. A little while ago, he sent you to a small mining platform surrounding a forgotten planet named Avalar. He put you in charge of security there- to make sure things did not go wrong. Every month, mined gold from the planet would be sent to another planet nearby, where Kuylen was working. Kuylen made it VERY clear how important those shipments were. He needed lots of money to keep pirates working for him, he said.

He also told you never to visit the planet.

You know little of what Kuylen has been doing, except that he has been using the pirates to attack the Republic, and has been doing a deal with a man named Faylar to enabale Faylar to take control of the 13 planets of the Damagran Confederacy. In return, Faylar has given Kuylen the mining platform you are now on.

So far, you have obeyed. The workers there, scared of you, have performed well.

But yesterday. you lost all contact with Kuylen and the others. Panic! You tried to contact Faylar, but he won't speak to you.

Something has gone wrong! And stuck on this mining platform, without a ship or any idea what is happening, you are getting very agitated!

Gald walks around in his office room. He taps the comm again and punches in a code for the operator. "Can you get Kuylen on the line? I think he's in the Damagran system." "You don't have to tell me that sir. You've been trying frequently for the past few weeks," replies a protocol droid.

The droid tries the number, but to no avail. "I'm sorry, but his comm isn't working again. Try in a day." The Dark Jedi says thanks and hangs up. He sits in his chair, deep in thought. He meditates for awhile before he hears a knock at the door. "Come in," he answers.

In comes two of the 20 workers working for him. Quint, a Mon Cal, and Sun Rek, a Geonasian. "Sir, we've just found a massive supply of gold!" yelps Quint. He looks eager for something. "Good. Kuylen will be happy to hear this. It will keep the pirates working for him." "We, as in your 20 workers, were wondering if we can have our payday," Sun Rek says. This angers Galder, for this has been going on for some time now.

"I've told you, I'll give you your pay when I get a message from Kuylen. Do not question me about this again!!!" "Sorry sir. We'll go now," says Quint moodily. A look of anger fills the workers' eyes. Gald suspects a mutiny. He tries to get to Kuylen again, with no answer. The operator doesn't answer...

Quam spurts out of the squirmish for a while for a full damage assessment. Small repair droids are sent out to optimise what is left of his rear shields so he can take one or two major hist, just in case. This only takes a few minutes. In the meantime Quam works his controls reprogramming new targets into his targetcom. He'll be concentrating on the fighters on Kuylen's tail for now.

When the damage controls light up green, Quam blasts off with fully charged lasers.
The first group is easy. Before they realise Quam has returned, two are blown to bits by Quam's missiles. He then engages two more fighters in a dog fight. Clearly the superior pilot, Quam shotts the pilot of one fighter in the head through the canopy and shotts off the wing of another causing it to spiral towards the cruisers before crashing into it's hull.
Two more fighters engaging combat show to have more experienced fighters. "Finally...", Quam smiled and pulled back heavily and releasing another small swarm of decoy droids.

EDITED

(MOD NOTE) Sorry about that, Rex, but I had to do it for a couple of reasons

1. Major plot developments in the story really have to come through me; I thought we were discussing the possibility of a revolt by PM, anyway? My main problem is that we really don't have the time for one any more; this stor dragged a bit in the middle and I'm trying to zoom through the end

2. To be fair, Kuylen left you in chrage of that platform so you could keep it intact! It's absolutely vital to him that you hold it.)

So, meanwhile, we'll take it from the point where you susepct a coming revolt from the workers...

Suddenly, the comms crackle into life. You receive a VERY quick message from Kuylen.

"Gald. Kuylen here. We're coming to Avalar inside the hour. Trouble is on our tail. Make sure everything is smooth. Out."

Hmm... he didn't give you any time to warn him about the troublesome workers...

-

Quam, the Jedi are coming to the end of theiur desperate manoeuvre. Then, to your amazement, they pull a ninety degree downward turn mere seconds before they fly over the ship. Instead, they dive down underneath it, surprising both yourself and the pirate fighters chasing them who do not pull down in time. The lower lasers, not expecting any more good shots, don't even fire. The Jedi miss the hull of the ship by mere inches, and then they are nearly clear of the cruiser.

It looks like the pirates might mot be even bothered the chase them. They REALLY want you, though!

Kuylen's corvette continues its laser barrage, and fires off six torpedoes, for good measure.