Tressa seals the chain of command with a single gesture. The two Pirate Lords peel away, hurrying for their flagships as the Silver Winged Revenge breaks cleanly from the poisoned network.
Pirate Lord 12
Scouts are out. I’m taking the right wing and going dark.
Pirate Lord 3
Send the route buffer to my ship. If the feed wakes up again, I want my hull gone before it bites.
On the bridge, the Relay Tech yanks the navigation arrays fully manual. The verified rewrite path still pulses red on the command display, but the ship no longer drinks from it.
The Relay Tech
We are off their leash. Blind running now, Tressa. I’m holding us on old pirate charts and dead-zone beacons.
Mike Stone
Good. That feed was meant to steer you into the kill box. Keep the turn shallow, and don’t trust any green status from the city.
Tressa drives the fleet toward older, half-forgotten hideouts buried in cloud and static. Behind them, the city’s command glow fades, and the hidden interceptors lose their clean lock.
The Lord
Clever. But the net still knows your shape. Let’s see how long darkness helps you.
✓ Quest Accepted
Escape the Victorian Lord’s closing net
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the older pirate hideouts
“*we take a wide birth heavy ships in the middle crews working around the clock doing repairs on every ship reloading making our limited supplies count if we get into a fight we try not to though we move in a column formation scouts on the edge watching we put as much distance between us and the old burning station as possible* "so um Mike was it and how did you get on to my ship without anyone knowing in the middle of a battle?"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled -2)
Tressa takes the bridge into a holding pattern and the fleet answers. Heavy hulls settle into the middle of the column while scouts feather out on the edges, all of it moving under manual charts and rationed thrust. Repairs start immediately, crews crawling over scorched plating with weld torches and patch foam as the station’s burn dwindles behind them.
The Relay Tech
Column is set. I am spacing the heavies to keep the smaller ships from getting boxed in. Nobody wastes a shot unless they have to.
The Lord’s hologram watches in silence, the same cold satisfaction still hanging under the static. Morrow Nine keeps his mouth shut, eyes fixed on the deck, as if silence might make him disappear.
Mike Stone
Mike Stone. I got on because the battle made your guards look outward, not inward. I rode the noise, then followed a maintenance blind until I found the bridge access.
Tressa
So, Mike, how did you get on my ship without anyone noticing in the middle of a battle?
Mike Stone
Same way traps get sprung, by looking ordinary until the moment they do not. Your network was being rewritten, and I did not like the shape of it.
The ship keeps drifting deeper into cloud cover, leaving the burning station smaller in the viewport. On the display, the rewritten path stays dead, but the fleet still has to choose how close it runs to the dark edges.
“"ballsy move ... I respect The bravery so what are you going to do after this I assume you don't want to know in the crew of this ship?" *We continue to move as fast as we can once we put enough distance we split up into smaller fleets taking erratic routes losing the imperials who are trailing us but are out of gun range*”
SUCCESS (Great Piloting, rolled -2)
Tressa shoves the Revenge harder, and the whole fleet answers in one ugly surge. Engines flare across the column, then break apart on command, every ship peeling into a different lane of cloud.
Tressa
Bold move. I respect it. What do you do after this, Mike, stay with the ship or vanish into your own hole?
Mike Stone
I vanish. If I stay visible, they use me to trace you. You already bought the only window that matters.
The Relay Tech snaps the last manual override into place, and the column fractures cleanly into smaller packets. Scouts range wide, heavies drop shadow behind debris and vapor, and the Imperial trail loses its straight line.
The Lord
Calculated, but costly. One hard turn like that burns fuel, and burns trust with it.
A warning tone chirps from the route board, not for a hit, but for strain. One escort hull coughs coolant into the dark, and a repair crew drags a scorched cable clear before it starts a chain flare.
Ahead, the sky-lanes thin into blind pockets of static and broken traffic. Behind them, the closing net is still there, but it no longer holds a single shape to bite.
Quest Complete
Escape the Victorian Lord’s closing net