Thankfully the enemy fighters seem to be concentrating on other targets, and Ren-Do leads his squadron around for another pass. "I think I have this targeting computer figured out, B2. Huh? Well thanks for the vote of confidence pal." As he selects an enemy fighter to target he waits for what seems like an eternity for a target lock, only to have the enemy pilot cut his engines, causing Ren-Do to blow past him without managing to fire.

As he goes past the single fighter he is suddenly faced with a second squadron on an attack vector. "Blast, this is going to be unpleasant," he says to B2, ignoring the droid's sarcastic answer telling him that at least it won't be unpleasant for very long.

Fortunately the pilots in his squadron are better at this than he is. One of them fires at the fighter Ren-Do had gone after, and makes short work of him as he is helpless after slowing to allow Ren-Do to pass. Then, seeing the danger, they form up tight, blazing a path through the other squadron, forcing several fighters to veer off course and splashing one fighter with laser fire.

When Garon saw the pair of Sith warriors he felt a primal urge to beat them to a fine pulp. He even began to focus on the Force, willing it through his muscles to give him the strength he would need to finish the fight quickly. But Tok and the others were far quicker. An explosion rent the air, followed by blaster fire. Before he knew what had happened, the Sith were dead.

Hey! You were should have saved one of them for me! Now what?

"Sorry, things just kind of happened. Next time," Tok says to Garon as he looks around the hangar and gets an idea.

"You two, come here, lets get a couple of these bigger ships warming up," he says to the two saboteurs. "We're going to need a way off this boat after we've done out job. These look like our best options."

The Gotal runs to the first vessel and begins starting it up and going through the preflight checks. While doing so, he accidentally accesses an inexplicably unlocked file in the ship's computer, the contents of which make Tok's eyes widen and pulse quicken momentarily. He looks over his shoulder to make sure he's the only one who saw it. Satisfied no one else did, he quickly commits it to memory before exiting and deleting the file.

"Alright, let's get that other one humming, do some serious damage and get off this heap," he says.

Once the second ship is prepped the group heads toward their goal, but the shorter of the two saboteurs stops and suggests someone should stay with the ships, just in case the Sith troopers get through the locked blast door behind them. Tok internally questions what good the lone Iktotchi can do against a full squad of prepared troopers, but he admires her courage.

"Good call. We won't be long."

Tok and Garon both spend some time looking for a console or perhaps a paper schematic of engineering, far longer than necessary, to no avail. Frustrated with their lack of results, Tok looks instead for an engineer or something to convince to aid them. He is rewarded after a few moments with the cowering form of a short starship mechanic hiding behind a bulkhead. "No! Please don't kill me!" he cries. "I haven't done anything to warrant being dragged to hell by the Je'Daii..."

Tok looks on approvingly as Garon lifts the diminutive engineer off the deck plating. Moving close enough to feel in his receptor cones the fear pouring out of the man, the Gotal narrows his eyes and jams Janna's barrel under the worker's chin.

"Listen to me very carefully, if you want to survive this and not have my friend here rip all of your limbs out of their sockets, you're going to show us where the reactor core is for this ship. Every moment you hesitate, he's going to move to the next one. He's going to start with your left elbow. It's going to bend the wrong way. Moving on from there, he'll do the same to your right kneecap. It's going to get worse for you very quickly because we're short on time and even shorter on patience.And if you think you can wait for help to come, if that blast door opens before we're done, you're dead.

"Now WHERE IS IT?"

The poor boy soils himself out of terror and begins sobbing. "I'm just a starfighter mechanic. Please *sniff sniff* I don't know anything about engineering. *sniff* Jembow told me sorta where the core is, but he got sent to repair hangar one after a ship crashed into it."

Further sobbing muffles anything else the boy tries to say.

"Well, for your sake I hope you listened very carefully to Jembow," Tok snarls. "Take us there. Now.

"And don't even consider trying anything."

The boy stumbles off deeper into engineering, his dungarees dripping urine with each step. He takes the small group hither and thither, turning this way and that through corridors and steamy chambers. Eventually he comes to an expansive intersection with huge glinting cylinders and enormous vents - presumably the core.

"Nexu One keep on my wing, these birds need to be brought down right bloody now. If we want a chance against that cruiser these need to go now." Rin focuses on the targets, tracking their sweeping arc around a large chunk of debris. Using his superior speed and numbers Rin cuts across the face of the destroyed ship, the Sith popping out right in his targeting zone... Rin doesn't hesitate pulling on the trigger and lighting up the lead craft.

Unfortunately Nexu One are struggling just to keep up with the Dressellian, their weapons coming to bear too late to be of any effect. The speed of the entire squadron carrying them out of the ideal firing arc quickly.

"Come on Ren-Do, those ships are sitting ducks to you now, take them out,. [Just like old times] Rin thinks, memories of flying along side his buddy surfacing.. [later Rin, we have a Holocron to defeat.]

++"Coming. I think I'm getting the hang of this,"++ Ren-Do replies as he comes about again, dodging fire from one Sith fighter as he locks in another. He manages to splash the enemy fighter with his laser cannons, and his squadron finishes the job, blowing up the enemy fighter. There is no death. There is only the Force, Ren-Do thinks to himself as he witnesses another life snuffed out.

++"We are running out of time, the enemy cruisers are getting uncomfortably close."++

The Jedi cruiser waits silently while their cannon batteries recharge, hopefully, the crew is busy with emergency repairs. The final Sith starfighter attempts to flee the battlefield towards its cruiser. "Oh no you don't!" Micc'm shouts through the comms. The Force vision flashes red as Micc'm's anger fuels his next decision. To the shock of the assembled Nexu Squadron, Micc'm's starfighter catches up to the slower Sith craft and collides with it, ripping the enemy ship as though it were made from cheap plasteel. Armor plates are ripped from his own craft, the astromech is destroyed, and it is venting gases.

++"We should fall back to our cruiser. Our laser cannons have no chance against a sith cruiser,"++ Ren-Do says on an open channel to all the fighters.

"Agreed. Now would be a good time to make lines," Xaramis arcs his craft back towards the cruiser. "All Nexu pilots return to the hangar, we're getting out of here now."

"Alright, let's bug out. I'll try to get on Micc'm's six to cover him"

Kellen turned the controls to spin his starfighter around and he took up a position some distance behind Micc'm hoping offer some protection from any fire from the Sith cruiser.

"Yes, B2, keep an eye on those cruisers and let me know if they start firing."

"What? We are going back?" Sonya looked from the Sith cruiser she was preparing to fire on and noticed the rest of the Jedi heading back to their ship. "Fie this space battle nonsense," she thought, looping the fighter about in a tight circle. "That Jedi cruiser is going to be blown to space dust by the time I get back to it, if this Sith behemoth keeps firing at it."

"Bleepity bleep, we might as well get del Taxi flying a bit better on the way back. Okay, you can get it flying a bit better." She humors the droid as she recalibrates the flight controls.

Ren-Do is busy looking around his fighter and on his screen, trying to account for his squadron and the remaining Jedi fighters. If this was to happen anything like Micc'm remembered the Jedi are not out of the woods yet. "Perhaps we should go for that cruiser. If we concentrate our fire, as a squadron then perhaps we do stand a chance," he says to his droid.

"Huh? What was that, B2? Yes, I can see the secondary screen, I just wasn't watching it right now... Wait, that's the Sith Cruiser? By the Force, that thing is a juggernaught. We'd need bombers to do more than scratch the paint on that beast I think. And what's that? What does this symbol stand for? Quad-lasers? That can't be, it shows fourteen, no, eighteen of those. No, B2, I don't think attacking that ship in our fighters is a good idea any more. Yes, I know, you may just have saved our salted pork-sides. Huh, what was that? Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I'll admit you are more clever than most droids. No, where did that come from? Of course I don't hate droids. I like droids. They are logical. I like logical. Well, you might think none of us organics are, but I have a different opinion, ok? What? Yes I'm going to transmit that data to the others, thanks for reminding me. Yes, I suppose if I was as logical as you are I would have thought of that already."

The Cerean switches on his coms. He starts by transmitting the data his droid gathered by scanning the ship and then addresses his fellow fighter pilots. ++"Attention everyone. I'm transmitting data from a scan of that cruiser. We won't survive a direct attack on it, nor will we be able to do much to it without heavy bombers. Unless there are more fighters incoming I think we have done all we can and should fall back."++

Rin responds to his compatriots "Copy that Xaramis, Ren-Don't, Nexu One is falling back now" he curves the squadron around, rolling and swooping past destroyed ships, trying to keep the debris between them and the Sith cruiser. [That thing was massive, how in the Force we would bring that down I don't know... Hopefully we can make the jump before they engage].

"Hey M8, how about we patch up that power coupling on the way back, see if we can't get it cooled down... Yes I know I pushed it hard, I think I could have gone even faster, perhaps next time."

Garon, Tok and Joril follow the terrified mechanic through several hallways, and within a couple of minutes find themselves in front of a series of transparent tubes, glowing a deep red from within. The light pulses in accordance to how the ship moves and the boarding party knows the young man has kept his word.

The three member sabotage team gets to work quickly, Joril barking out the correct placement of the explosive charges to have the greatest effect. When the final charge is set, the saboteur thumbs the activation trigger, wipes a bead of sweat from his brow and says simply, "Time to go."

Tok grabs the mechanic by the scruff of his neck.

"You've kept your word, I'll keep mine," the Gotal says. "We'll get you off this ship alive. What happens from there I can't say."

The four beings rush back through the halls, purposely leaving open every blast door but the last through which they pass. The explosion will rip through the vessel's superstructure and leave it crippled, but they've got to make sure their hangar is still pressurized long enough to make their escape.

As they round the final corner, Tok starts to feel elated to have gotten through this test. He's one step closer to reuniting with his family. That's quickly replaced by a chill and the taste of copper in his mouth as he sees their other team member, Kalnit, being suspended by her throat by a tall, pale figure. Tok's eyes widen as the Sith turns his head to face them. He looks just like... but no, it can't be, Tok thinks, but still he's shaken. The being looks at the four frozen in their tracks and ignites his lightsaber, running Kalnit through then dropping her lifeless body to the deck plate.

Fear and confusion swirl together in the Gotal. How can he even be here, in this long-dead Jedi's imagination? But if it is somehow who he thinks it is, there's no way they can defeat him. Escape is their only hope.

"Go for the ships," he whispers, while drawing his pistols "Go! Now! We can't take him!"

The Sith Master resembling Tok's handful "employer" slowly stalks forward. Micc'm's voice echoes in Tok's head. "Something is very wrong. You need to get out of there now. The Dark Side corruption in this crystal is starting to use your fears against you. Get out now!"

The other Sith cruiser in the meantime is experiencing severe technical difficulties. While scanning the capabilities of the cruiser, Ren-Do's astromech droid hacks into the Friend-or-Foe controls for the cruiser's turbolaser grid. The port and starboard cannons swivel 180 degrees and fire a volley on the unprepared second cruiser, hitting the unshielded behemoth so hard, it is knocked off course. Equally unprepared passengers are thrown about from the impact. The second cruiser tries desperately to course correct.

When the found the imperial engineer, pushed Tok aside, grabbed the naval tech by his collar and growled in his face. Despite the ferocity in his gesture, the engineer wasn't budging. Fortunately Veltok was able to handle the situation with more delicacy than he was.

By the time they had set the charges, Garon was ready to leave the ship. So they made for the egress with haste. However, the Force was not with them. On their way to their escape, they had run into a particularly nasty looking Sith.

Electric energy crackled from Garon's gloves. He grinned as turned to Tok, a fire in his eyes. Take the others and go. I'll handle this one.

The Jedi cruiser fires one last volley at the closer Sith cruiser before it devotes as much of its power to the shields and hyperdrive as safety protocol allows. The volley hits the cruiser and deals a nice bit of damage to it. "Nexu Squadron," Captain Millster calls over the fleet communications, "Return to the hangar posthaste. We are going to need your Guidance with our astrogational array if we're going to get out of this system before those energy waves strike. If we tarry any longer, we may lose more than this starship."

"Acknowledged, captain," Micc'm replies with a pained voice. "You heard the man, Nexu Squadron. Retreat to the cruiser at once. We're getting out of here."

Nexu Squadron, weaker than it was before the battle, wings back to the Jedi cruiser at all speed. Kellen, Sonya, and Ren-Do manage to decelerate and land accurately in the hangar bays with their wings. Xaramis and his wing decelerate in time, but Xaramis forgets to lower the landing struts on his X-1, dropping the small craft onto the deck plate with a crunch. Micc'm and Rin are far less lucky. While Nexu Wing One lands precisely, Rin's ship almost over shoot's the hangar bay entirely. The port wing of his craft is torn off by the edge of the hangar entry way, and it slides to an uneasy halt halfway across the chamber. Micc'm, his astromech destroyed and his ship badly damaged, has to judge the landing using the Force and his own instincts to land. His ship enters the bay at speed and slams into the deckplates. It slides all the way across the hangar bay, taking out a rack of repair droids and smashing into the far wall.

He tumbles weakly out of the shattered cockpit and lays, panting on the deckplates as fire suppression crews arrive to extinguish the flames on his ship. "If I didn't like flying so much," he gasps, "I would never fly again after that landing..."

Aboard the second Sith cruiser, the Sith Master is thrown violently from his feet by the impact of the turbolaser fire. He hits the deckplates fairly hard and tumbles a short distance before coming to a stop.

The Jedi pilots are elated as they exit their craft to have survived the dogfight; they appear to have gotten clear away. Xaramis clambers somewhat shakily out of his own cockpit, unsteady after the shock of the crash. A brief inspection reveals that his fears were correct - enemy fire had slammed into his ship's undercarriage, fusing it in place despite the best efforts of the mechanism to deploy it prior to landing. As he straightens up he is nearly doubled-over again as a vast hand slaps onto his shoulder.

"You fly well for a novice," the Whiphid says. "I know not who you are, but you bear a lightsaber, and are strong in the Force; that is enough for me," he extends a hand to Xaramis, who shakes it, his own appendage disappearing into the mighty being's comparatively vast paw. "My name is Jedekh. Should you have need of my assistance in the fight to come, you may have it."

"Thanks very much, but I think you have the wrong Falleen. I don't carry a - " the feeling of an unfamiliar weight at his hip brings Xaramis up short. A short metal cylinder is hanging from his belt where his sword ought to be, one that he has not seen before yet still feels a strong attachment to. His confusion is still full in his mind when the Togruta Jedi comes bounding up to him. She throws her arms around his neck, the shock of victory still running through her, then on the spur of the moment she leans in and kisses the stunned Falleen.

"Should have given you that beforehand, but it seems you don't need any luck," she grins, and Xaramis makes a very great effort to wipe the surprise from his face and to resume his usual expression of cool satisfaction. He almost succeeds, and she laughs at his obvious efforts. "I'm Vyanya, if you want to get better acquainted later on?" she laughs then, and Xaramis finds himself caught up in it, the shock of success - and more importantly survival - too great to ignore.

The other two Jedi from his flight come over as well, the Iktotchi - who is noticeably limping; evidently her stabiliser was giving her even more trouble than she thought - and the Toydarian, who shakes Xaramis' hand but gives him a very questioning look as they consider one-another. He looks about ready to challenge Xaramis over something - though what it is he isn't sure - before shaking his head, and fluttering off to consider his craft. Xaramis excuses himself from the other pilots of his flight, and crosses the hangar to where Micc'm is emerging.

"If I didn't like flying so much," he gasps, "I would never fly again after that landing..."

"Well that's reassuring. You do know how to inspire confidence in your pilots don't you?" Xaramis helps him clear of the wreckage, as the other Jedi cluster round near the door exiting the hangar. "Come on, we need to get to the bridge, unless any of you have anywhere more pressing to be. I'm sure they can find something for us to do," he turns, and sets off through the door and up the ship.

Rin heard the call for navigation help over the open com channel [thats me they are calling, bloody flying off to be the hero when you should have been back on the ship really helping, I need to take a few risks...] "Mate they need us, we're going in fast, hopefully this bird will pull up in time to not cause too much damage"

With than the little fighter skimmed through the debris, small pieces glancing off the shields, big pieces getting a little close. "No Mate I'm not slowing down, at least not until the very last moment." The hanger looks small from this distance, but coming in so fast doesn't leave much room for error... Error that Rin makes. Right at the last moment the Dressellian pulls back on the stick, narrowly avoiding a head on collision with the outside of the ship, but manages to rip all the landing gear off [bit close!].

The ship crunches onto the deck plate, scraping half way across the hanger, leaving a trail of damaged floor, before coming to a grinding halt in the middle of the giant cavern. But before the ship has even stopped the nimble navigator is up and out of his seat, canopy open, leaping off at a run.

Xaramis calls "We need to get to the bridge" as Rin bolts past

"Too bloody right" Rin calls over his shoulder "I'll see you there" and he is off down the hall headed for the bridge.

Ren-Do is delighted to be out of his fighter with the solid deck of the cruiser under his feet. He stretches his legs and arms after the cramped confines of the fighter. "Nice work, B2. See if you can fix her up a little. There were some lights blinking in the cockpit, but I think she'll be alright. What? Yes, I'm mildly surprised myself, to be totally honest. The Force was with us out there."

He walks towards Micc'm and Xaramis and watches Rin start to run. "Well done everyone. All in all, things went better than we could have predicted. Shall we head towards the bridge?" He gives Xaramis a strange look. "Where is your fancy blade, and who did you steal that lightsaber from? Jedi tend to be touchy about such matters, I would advice you to give it back before someone notices it is not where it should be."

"I...don't know," Xaramis is shaken, as much by Ren-Do's sudden aggression as by the presence of the strange weapon. "It's just there, I don't know how it got there or when, and I don't like it. Especially since my blade's vanished. Do you know how long that weapon was in my family? They don't have numbers for that many generations," he shakes it off, looking ahead instead.

"Let's just get moving. Rin's right, we need to be on that bridge, or at least somewhere with a viewport," he considers the confused faces of the Jedi around him. "Well there aren't many of us who can contribute unless the Sith somehow get aboard, so we may as well enjoy the view, and the bridge is as good a place as any," he sets off up the ship, moving at a brisk stride. He fails to notice the cloak of a Jedi Knight billowing behind him as he walks.