Fun Flight

We are all sitting around trying to determine the next best course of action. Vanya is adamant that we need to rescue some farmers, but I am afraid that if we do not take care of the monk infestation that it will be worse later. I am overruled. Apparently, the battle we fought was a distraction to keep Baize from helping the local farmers from being robbed and taken into slavery. She thinks if we hustle, we can catch them before they are hurt. I am not sure about that as it will depend on when the second group left the base and how the storm impacted their plan. Spook texts me that the X-Wing is all safe and ready to go. I suggest that we head out and finish planning on the way as we are under a bit of a time crunch. We load up and head out.
 
When we arrive at the location it is easy to see that we are too late. I am about to ask which way we should go; known base, possible slave location, or somewhere else, when Davish comms in to say that the So'Zen is taking the lead and has a direction for us. He also recommends that I get the weapons set up and ready to fire. I grumble - out loud of course - and he chimes in with some crazy talk about cookies? Anyway, I have Spook get things fired up and ready and we follow the shuttle. Then in front of us we see a troop carrier with one escort ship. I call the escort and head out - ready to take out some frustration.
 
I swoop in behind the escort and target his engines. I fire the lasers, but he manages to dodge - with some fairly decent flying I can admit. I get a call from So'Zen telling me that he has managed to lower the shields. Then the troop carrier fires - on ME?!?!? I dodge and do my best to get in line to take a shot at the Arc, but it looks like they managed to get the shields back up - at least half power. I fire my lasers and it is a hit. There is an impact and I manage to get through the first layer of hull. What the?!?!?! Looks like they have a double hull! That explains why they have such a good reputation from the clone war era. Since he seems to be a decent pilot with a good machine, I am going to have to figure out some way to get a benefit in this battle. I am a bit off-center to the Arc, so I decide to fly over him, spin to face him, and then fire. Sadly, he is able to mirror me, and we are flying cockpit to cockpit.
 
His turn to fly fancy and he attempts to slide and spin to get behind me. Which means it is my turn to mirror him! While we are sliding past each other, I get a glimpse inside his cockpit, and he is mashing buttons - maybe shields? I send a message to Spook to see if we can hinder that in some way. Spook tells me that "Yes. The R5 is already out of commission. Someone else from the shuttle is keeping that 170s shields turned off. But if the aft left engine's power fluctuates ... it will permanently disable the shields until it has been repaired on the ground." Sounds like I have an objective.
 
I think about doing a feint towards the troop ship, but that would leave my flank exposed so I determine to do a loop behind him with a barrel roll mid-flight. He attempts to mirror me but can't quite manage it. I am sure it is because of the aft port engine fluctuations. I aim my lasers at that engine and manage to take it out. He is still flying of course, but I have managed to take down his maneuverability some. The next step will be to either ground him or get him to break off and head for base - might be able to follow him???? Maybe. Then the troop ship fires on me again, but the shields hold - this time. The other pilot takes my momentary distraction to spin around and fire along my centerline. I see this out of the corner of my eye and drop below his line of fire. Spook has a few things to say about shots going right over her head, but I tune that out.
 
I do a quick loop to get behind him. It is not exactly in line, so I fire a torpedo with the thought that even if I don't hit anything vital, it should do enough damage to cause him some hardship in piloting. I must have managed to get a lucky hit as the ship disintegrates in front of me and I fly through a fireball. So much for following him back to his home base. He was a good pilot, and the universe does not have enough of those, but in a battle involving me, I want to win. Davish does some nice flying and forces the troop ship to land. I follow making sure that no other ships are incoming. I do a quick check with Spook if there were any communications, but she tells me that the mentat foiled the attempt. Speaking of the mentat, he tells us that the droid So'Zen captured has the coordinates for the meet - as well as self-destruct instructions if anyone captured it. Good thing our group is smarter and faster.
 
We begin to chat about what our next mission objective should be. I keep insisting that we clear out the tunnels. I don't like the thought of leaving an enemy behind me. There is a lot of talk and So'Zen repeats (several times) that the catacombs is not an immediate threat so our priority should be saving the other farmers. Vanya put Baize in contact with someone that can probably help clear out the tunnels until we can either assist or applaud a job well done. Next up was a conversation with the chancellor and then more talk about what to do and how to do it.
 
We finally head out to track the second set of kidnapped victims. On the way, I do three different search scans to track the pirates. I can ascertain that the pirates are further ahead of us than anticipated. They appear to have captured their victims first and headed back to base (or the alternate base). We go past Port Etmar and continue south but do notice that there is a lot of traffic around the temple and heading up to the rift. We continue to find that there is a race happening now in the needle forest - as well as a patrol. Within the canyon itself - there is fog. There is a faint sensor reading. Someone is using a shield to camouflage a cavern opening.