603. The Heist - Raezyr and Trychon

The wookie sitting in the co-pilot's chair on board the Muurian Interstellar light frieghter let out a long wail.

"Rub it in will ya?" the human female in the captain's chair replied sarcastically. Jahayne Kryll, captain of the Wayward Damsel, had already decided that signing on with Dianna Kingsdoom had been a fool-hardy thing to do. She didn't need Ryykarro giving her the, "I told you so," speech right in the middle of a battle.

Ryyki had been opposed to signing on from the start. He always had been able to smell trouble from a parsec away. The problem was that the Ibarrian carrot dangling at the end of her nose had been too much to pass up. She should have listened to the big, hairy wookie but it was too late now.

Ryykarro growled at Jahayne.

"I get it, okay? Just lock in the axillary power and angle that rear deflector screen. I don't think I've ever seen this many fighters before... not when they were shooting at me, at least!" Jahayne said, trying to change the subject to the matter at hand.

She had met Dianna a few times in the past and liked and admired her. Secretly, she sort of aspired to be her, to own and run her own operation, but things had never gone quite like she had planned. Unexpected repairs to her ship or falling prices at the wrong time had cut into her profit margins, meaning that instead of making some real money, all she ended up doing was covering her expenses and just getting by.

She had two things going for her though: her ship, and her best friend and co-pilot, Ryyki. While she sometimes cursed the ship for breaking down on her, she owned it free and clear and it was more than most people in her position can say.

The sound of a crash somewhere in the back of the ship brought her out of her momentary reverie. My life's not flashing before my eyes just yet... she thought to herself as she yelled unnecessarily at the Wookiee sitting next to her. "What was that? Oh forget it... I know you don't know either."

Her ship was one of the few freighters in the whole group that was fast enough to even think about venturing into a dogfight with republic starfighters. There was two others that had that duty. They hadn't been fast enough after all.

She managed to make it out of the the dangerous zone with another fighter chalked up to her score. That made five, which if she was in a regular military, would mark her as an ace. She didn't feel the accolade should really matter anyway, as she had the so called luxury of pulling out of the firefight and waiting for an opportunity to attempt a strike. She felt for the fighter pilots who had to stick it out in the middle of the fray. They must have nerves of steel. "Alright buddy, lets hang here just long enough for you to check out the engine. Go!"

She watched over the battle closely while she tried to ignore the sounds of equipment and parts being tossed in the engine room mixed with her first mate's howling. She cursed silently as she saw an opportunity to take off after a target, but was unable until Ryykarro came and strapped in.

It wasn't long before he did, informing her with a few quick grunts that it was their motivator. "Oh well, at least it's not something we'll need until we're ready to get out of here." She replied, hoping that the loss of fighters would at least mean that they could get a birth on the capital ship Dianna called 'The Stalker.'

They got back closer to the action. The hardest part about the tactic they had been instructed to use was deciding just how close to get to the sortie. Small, one-man fighters twisted and rolled in a relatively small area, locked in a deadly dance, while the freighters cruised around the edges, picking targets of opportunity like Dobvarian wolves circling a herd of styrrians.

The point was to provide support for the fighters yet not send the larger, less-maneuverable ships directly against the smaller, faster ships. Their own forces would assist in this tactic by leading any pursuit they couldn't shake out to the freighters and into their line of fire.

Rykkarro pointed to the sensor screen and grunted. The two watched as three Republic craft were being led in their direction.

"Oh boy, fresh meat. Let's get ready, Rykki," Jahayne said to her wookie companion. She could worry about the non-functioning motivator later.

"Get ready to give me full power... wait for it... NOW!" she yelled and the hairy co-pilot flipped several switches on the console in front of him.

Suddenly the third of the three Republic fighters veered off-course and away from pursuit of the Jester unit who was leading the targets in. Jahayne knew she should break course as well, but that fighter wouldn't be leading them out here if he didn't need help.

Rykkarro must have been reading her mind and let her know he thought it was a bad idea. "I know what I'm doing. If that third target begins to head this way, shift some power to the aft screens," she ordered. She sure hoped she really did know what she was doing.

Jahayne pulled the Wayward Damsel in behind her new targets and immediately started her auto-guns firing. Her targeting computer had received an upgrade and had so far performed remarkably well on auto-fire.

The wookie gave a long howl, and Jahayne looked at the screen. Just as she had dreaded, that third fighter had turned and come back. It had just been waiting for her to commit to her action on the other two Republic fighters. "Damn it! Shunt some power to the aft gun and..."

Her voice trailed off as warning alarms began sounding all over the cockpit of the small freighter. They were target-lock warnings.

A more agile ship might be able to evade the missiles or break the lock, and a bigger ship might be able to take the hits, but her own ship was neither large nor agile.

"Switch all power to the rear deflector screens and angle those babies to 45 degrees!" Jahayne yelled although she needn't have bothered as her friend was already doing it. She watched as two dots streaked across her screen toward the dot that represented the Damsel. They had at best 2 minutes until impact.

She looked over at the best friend she'd ever known. "We can't take both hits, Rykki."

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Dianna Kingsdoom watched the battle from the monitors on the bridge of her own ship. She was concentrating most of her firepower onto that second hammer-head, but she getting constant updates on all aspects from her well trained bridge crew.

"Captain, we just lost another freighter," said one of the crewman.

"Which one?"

"The Wayward Damsel, ma'am."

She said nothing for a moment. "Keep concentrating all your firing on that second hammer-head." She hadn't known Jahayne Kryll or Rykkarro very well, but she had liked them anyway and had been excited when they signed on. She had hoped they'd be a big asset, not only on this mission but in the future as well.

The losses were beginning to pile up fast. She opened the private link to the Jet Razor. "Raez, we can't do this much longer. We're losing too many people," she said quietly so her crew couldn't overhear.

"Babe," came the whispered reply, "I know that. We're trying to hurry over here, but to make matters worse, I've got that frigate bearing down on me..."