The Cutlass-9s juke around and release a volley of concussions missiles, two striking the Intrepid, with a jolt that can be felt on all decks. The destroyer’s shields are some help, but this ordnance is designed to breach such defenses, and the warheads take their toll.

If it is to be a battle of attrition, the imperial ship is sorely behind, even if the Renegades’ Blood cannot bring its broadside to bear this time around!

12 hours ago, Shlambate said:

“There is a luxury shuttle exiting the Intrepid.” Drogos could be heard over the groups communicator, he was speaking to everyone in the task force, “Velana is on it, My Pilot, disable her ship from further flight, she is not to get away.”

"On it!"

Somar brings the Phantom around to target the escaping shuttle. The blasts fail to make contact, but cause the shuttle quickly perform evasive maneuvers to avoid being struck.

As the Yacht left the Intrepid, Val watches it go with slight confusion.

"Ah... Ok?" He says with a frown. "I thought we were gonna...?"

Too late to take it while on board, hopefully whatever the Inquisitor did will make a difference. At least for now there was one less thing for him to worry about. He turned his attention to the rest of the commotion happening within the Hangar. He took off towards the Queensguard, cutlas swirling in circles before arcing up towards the first one scoring a deep cut.

“Aahrrgh!!” The wounded queensguard cries out, somewhat to the satisfaction of the Zeltron swordsman. Though he has spent some time in the company of pirates, this is the agent’s first time hearing the infamous utterance.

Recovering from his insufficient party, he lunges at his dancing adversary, but is clearly outclassed. Turning the thrust aside, Val Kaan sends the tip of his adversary’s sword to the deck. Off-balance, the armored queensguard falls on his sword, the awkward angle causing it to break.

The four stormtroopers feel quite naked without their signature laminate, and seeing their mate in the pirate queen escort fall drives home their vulnerability. Still, they are the last line of defense between the queensguard and the queen. The fire they lay down with their mismatched weapons glances harmlessly off the closing pirates, whose return fire is far more devastating. One of the Intrepid’s trooper’s is riddled with blaster fire and falls to the deck, while another takes a hit to his shoulder, leaving it smoldering. The stormtroopers hold their ground, but they cannot prevent two of the queensguard from pressing through to the Stormcrow and charging up the ramp.

”You heal quickly,” one of the queensguard says through his helm’s distorted vocoder, when he spies the blonde trooper Evon has just rescued. Pulling the trigger, the trooper again crumples to the deck, but there is no time to react. The queensguard’s next shots strike a control panel behind the imperials, which explodes and sends them flying. The unarmored troopers are thrown to the deck, shielding the pirate queen from the blast to some extent. The ISB Interrogator tries to avoid the explosion, but the pirates have other plans. “Where are you going, Doctor. Our queen needs you.”

Meanwhile, the duel in the cold vacuum of space continues. The Renegades’ Blood is forced to spend valuable time recovering its heading after it is knocked off course, and for a short time it is unable to bring any of its cannons to bear. Its beam projector, however, can strike from nearly any angle! Targeting the nuisance that is the Phantom starfighter, the cruiser captures it in its powerful tractor beam, holding it in place.

Hale checks his fire as the Queensguard rush past him and over to the shuttle. He quickly runs to get a clear angle, countermanding his previous "order" to Briar. "Briar, hold off on the shuttle!" He gets his angle, settles in and lets loose, "I said COME!" As it bucks in his grip and riddles the pirates, the Z-6's whine gets much more high-pitched until it overheats. Hale sags to his knees, breathing heavily. He says, "Briar.. Shuttle's c-clear. Just.. gimme a..." then collapses forwards, passed out unconscious.

Banshee Squad sees the sergeant-major go down, but he looks like he'll be fine. They try to focus fire on the last one, but the Zeltron Hale dubbed "Pinky" is busy dancing in their line-of-fire. "Aw kriff, Pinky. DUCK, why don't you." Mutters Slowdive as the few shots they fire go wide as the Banshees try to avoid friendly fire. They fan out to cover him, rifles raised, "Outta the way Pinky. We got this guy. Hands up!" Griff commands.

The final queensguard sees the last of the others mowed down by the rotary cannon, and the pirate queen herself, mask cracked open at the bottom of the pile of bodies. Does she live? No matter. Can’t serve her if I’m dead, and won’t be taking the shuttle by myself...

Quite alone on the field of battle, the wounded queensguard spies the Inquisitor approaching this final duel in the hangar, and knows it is over. It is time to surrender. The pirate queen’s last guard lets the pistol drop, and flips what’s left of the broken sword around to proffer it hilt-first. “The ignominy of being bested by Pinky the Swordsman shall be with me forever.”

The gray helm with the sorority’s skull face conceals the defeated marauder’s features, but even through the vocoder’s distortions, the pitch of the voice sounds distinctly female.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Intrepid’s gunnery crews have arrived at their stations, and manned their respective turrets. The quad cannon crews rush their opening salvo, and fail to land any solid hits on the pirate cruiser. It is the ion cannon which strikes again, slowly but steadily wearing away at the enemy ship’s systems.

Briar crosses the hanger towards the shuttle, as quickly as she can. Getting closer she fires towards the queensguard shortly before Hale does, but her shot goes wide into the shuttles deck plate. Well this isn't good. she thought to herself, shortly before Hale's salvo reduced the two queensguard to corpses. That solves that problem. Seeing the last queensguard surrender, Briar starts to look around to see if they've secured the hanger again.

Drogos would find his way to one of the ships communicator's and tried to get the Pirate Queen's ships to stand down, "Your Queen is down, Stop this attack, or her life is forfeit." He would announce trying to convince them.

Evon finally can catch his breath, as he drags the soldier into the Stormcrow. Continously firing across the deck, the Queen's guard made it to the ramp and makes short work of the guarding Stormtroopers. In the chaos, a blaster bolt hits a control panel which explodes out of its place. Evon, propelled by the explosion lands not-so-gracefully at the feet of the Queen's guard. “Where are you going, Doctor? Our queen needs you.”

Fortunately he doesn't need to answer as Sgt Hale opens up with his signature cannon and takes down the pirates. ,,Thank the Emperor for his oversized toy. It came handy this time."

Evon sits up and tries to calm down. The cruiser is still shaking from the occasional hits but Evon can't do much about that.

Though it might seem strange, intelligence agencies do have listed contact frequencies; after all, they are in the business of gathering information. Such calls originating in the Suolriep Sector are routed to the offices of Colonel Wullf Yularen, or rather his numerous aides. Few civilians wish to draw the listening ears of the imperial intelligence apparatus, but Venlana Sipal has already been approached for recruitment, and wishes to get in front of the storm heading her way.

“Yes, just put me through directly to the colonel. I seem to have lost my handler, so I’m handling myself. Your boss will want to hear what I have to say. Time is of the essence, lieutenant. This situation is still unfolding, and the outcome is far from certain.”

There is a pause, as the intelligence officer digests the message, and decides to take the call herself. Switching to a more heavily encrypted frequency, they continue their conversation in private.

The sorority’s Cutlass-9s make another pass, opening up with their turbo lasers this time. The Intrepid’s shields dampen most of the impacts, but the small fighters continue to harry away at the destroyer unhindered.

The pirate queen stirs. It hurts when she opens her eyes, one eye in particular. And there are several bodies, still warm, which she must wriggle out from under. It is a struggle for her, but she disentangles herself from the fallen of both sides, and climbs to her feet.

“That won’t be necessary,” she motions to the Inquisitor and the trooper with the rotary cannon, in turn. Her voice seems smaller now, as she removes the masked helm to reveal a woman in her thirties, olive complexion like that of the girl. A metallic shard is lodged in one of her eyes, causing obvious discomfort. The words and gestures, as she holds out her hands, do not bear the weight of her former actions.

Evon seeing the moving bodies, stands up and readies his blaster once again. He flicks it to stun and warns the queen: ,,That's not up to you to decide! Now back on the floor or I make you!"

By this point, Hale has regained consciousness and is standing up. He is holding his pistol now, the Z-6 sitting at his feet.

The pirate queen looks at the shuttle deck, the bodies and the shattered electronics from the exploded console. “I would really rather not. Doctor, is it? My guards are quite dead,” she continues, letting her eyes linger on the rotary cannon at Hale’s feet, “but there is life yet in some of these troopers.”

Spying the last of her queensguard, taken captive out in the hangar, she smiles sadly. “Stand down, Lavina. It is over. You made the right call.”

Drogos turns to face the queen, "Come to your senses have you." The inquisitor says walking up to her and Evon, the full force of his aura of fear bearing down on each of them. "Let her be, she calls off her men." He looks squarely at the Doctor. Then his hand goes to his ear, "My Pilot, is Velana neutralized? Or do you need gunnery support from the Intrepid."

“If you will permit me to use the comms, I can end all of this right now.” The pirate queen addresses the Inquisitor, then turns to the doctor. “And perhaps after seeing to your men, you might have a look at my eye?”

"Of course. Doctor when she has called her men off tend to her eye." Drogos said and gestured for her to use the communications station he was using before, not being completely trusting of the Queen Drogos kept a hand firmly on the Sword he picked up from her earlier, "Tell them to Stand Down."

“My Veiled Sorority, this is your queen. I order you to stand down at once, cease all hostilities against the empire, and render assistance in neutralizing the traitor’s yacht.”

As the queen calls of her men the grip the Inquisitor had on the sword loosens yet he keeps it close by should the need arise. "Once she is healed by the Doctor, Stormtrooper take her to an empty Cell." He said looking straight at Hale.

Hale casually salutes, "Okay, boss."

He checks around the room taking stock of his men, then remembers the Duros and opens a comm channel, "Luks, where are you? What's your status?"

"Sorry, I'm a little stuck at the moment. Locked in a tractor beam. Really should report this to the designers..."

Looking at Hale, Evon asks for some help. ,,Seargent, could you give me a hand? Watch the Queen, while I tend to the wounded. Hopefully they are not beyond help." And with that he puts away his blaster and opens his medical case.

Hale shrugs and walks over, "Sure thing, doc. Hey boss," he addresses Drogos, "should I go ahead and take her to the cell? The doc can check on 'er in there, can't he?"

The Inquisitor looks back to Hale, "Escort her to a holding Cell, the Doctor will tend to her when he is ready."