Jax saw the other ships speed out into the cluttered asteroid field outside of the magnetic shield and powered up his own engines. His Quadjumper hardly matched their ships in speed, certainly that Z-95 of Caster, but made up for it in raw engine power and tractor beam utility. That was why he was selected to tug the twelve comm relays out. A fitting number, Jax smiled to himself, three per ship out there.
It was a mess out there and while quite agile while going slow due to the vector thrusters Jax had trouble getting the relays trough the field. Small rubble knocked into the ship and the relays, but luckily nothing enough to disrupt the tractor array. That only happened when, off all things, a frozen corps knocked into the eleventh relay he was carrying, knocking the last 2 off. He had just did a sharp pull to pass over a larger asteroid and one relay crashed into it straight away. The other drifted slowly away. Jax knew Captain Vikargo wouldn’t be happy, relays cost credits. He punched the oversized datapad he had on the co-pilot chair to activate the beacon that had been accidentally cast off. Jax couldn’t help but grin when he saw it was close to one of the pre-calculated drop points, the red line on the eleventh position, indicating the downed relay, quickly stifled that grin though.
“First Relay is up Captain. I, uh, lost one in the process though”-an audible gulp-
A few harsh mockeries ensued from Areem, but Jax praised himself lucky no one else could be listening in. He took the promise of what would happen should he lose more to heart, letting the datapad calculate the new locations of the relays due to the missing one.
As he was at his fifth relay he linked up with the comms of Valana and Caster. Check-up back with the Fortune gave a lot of static at the fourth relay.
“Jax here for Mister Wrenn, how’s it looking out there? Spotted anything good yet?” Knowing there would be some delay on the line he continued to message Valana as well on the same open comm.
“And m’lady Valana, what’s for dinner tonight? Captain’s lonely aboard the Fortune, only got me to talk to for all this time you were out. Give him some good news guys.”The channel should connect to the Swift Fortune as well but the Captain remained silent. Jax picked up the datapad while 2 others held the controls and the last tried to boost the signal. But a second red line had appeared on the twelfth position. Wether the others chatted or not didn’t register with Jax, he could only think of the flight back to place a relay on the key location again. He reminded himself to pick up the argument he had with the captain about letting the relay grid overlap more again.
He lifted his eyes from the datapad and started speaking while he saw something glint before him.
“Kark, first relay is out. Have to trace back to get the Fortune back up h-“At first Jax had thought it might be something worth scavenging, but it quickly grew bigger the glint came from the center of something shaped like an H and Jax tilted his head to see. Mid-sentence he realized what it was he gave a hard pull on the controls to turn the tug around.
“Valana, Caster, cosy time is over. got a TIE here!”Jax checked the weapons systems, but the Quadjumper was just a spacetug, never meant to be armed in the first place. The small autoblaster turret on top could dish out decent damage, but only at very close range. Running was really the only option for Jax. Having the TIE out of sight made him even more anxious since scanners couldn’t pick anything up out here.
“Don’t know if he seen me yet. Why is the connection with the Fortune out now of all-“The signature howl of a TIE-Fighter drew closer, maybe even a second. But what had really shut Jax up was the sound of laser cannons striking asteroid behind him. Judging by the shot the Tie was close.
“Kark, I could use some help over here!”At the same moment Jax reversed engine power to go full reverse, a unique function of the Quadjumper, as he steered his ship narrowly passed an asteroid. The Tie came into sight on his right, missing a few shots due to Jax’s manoeuvre. Jax tried to engage the front tractor array to pull the Tie towards him and let the autoblaster take over, but after a short slowdown of the fighter he broke off to away from Jax. It violently picking up speed again as it got out of tractor beam range and narrowly avoided getting a tree trunk through its cockpit. That was when Jax saw the second fighter opening fire, but that wasn’t what really made his heart sink.
“No, no no NO! Three man fighter team, one breaking off to report! He’s heading past your sector Caster, CUT HIM OFF!”Jax pushed the throttle up again, to go full speed ahead, trying to put some rocks between him and the TIEs but in the meanwhile he would have to hope for Valana’s aid. Three wasn’t a good number after all…
@cunfuzzler@Caster