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RP: 188604 [1st Kuvexian Raid] The Narrow Path

R

Rizzo

Between Nebulae approaching System 87 F

The space between the nebulae was dense with heavy gas and dust. An astrogation hazard by any standards as there was no good way of moving through the purplish haze quickly. A slow approach was the way to effectively and safely navigate the cloud in space.

The joint venture of the USO's Sky Guard and FSCorp's shipping fleet would with any luck be a massive success as there was viable way out of the nebula, only the passage where the density was not as great surrounded by gasses dense enough to strip the shields of all but the strongest of ships. Sensors would be easily deceived in such a cloud, the jammer buoys embedded in the thick, icy gasses. Further down the channel three Caravan Heavy Freighters(Prosperity Dawn, Blue Caribou, and Belle in Red) laid in wait, submerged in the gas as they waited for the moment to spring their trap and stab their enemies in the back.

Further down the corridor hung a single dull silver power armor centered with the gaseous walls. Spectre, once the Anthedon of a proud Patrician was now the monstrosity of a renegade spy who's intentions were as cloudy as the nebula.
One intention remained perfectly clear, the man wasn't going to ask anybody to do a job he wasn't willing to do himself.

However, while Candon Suites seemed alone in the corridor his allies were indeed close, for to his left and right lay two Broadsword Light Cruisers submerged in the nearly solid clouds. Also submerged were landlines spanning the distance between ships for communicating clearly while smothered in the blankets of frozen gas.

At long last the jammer bouys detected gravitational disturbances, the enemy was close.

"Spectre to all units," Candon called, "the enemy approaches. Check in."
 
Alex, Jay and Araxie were inside one of the two broadsword class light cruisers lurking in the gas clouds. Alex's fighter was sitting on a makeshift catapult facing a hangar door. His fighter, the Unicorn Custom, was on the launch catapult, being loaded with its payload of a single rifle gunpod, an ammunition pack rack on each wing as well as two submunition launchers loaded with missiles on each wing, for a total of four.

They were on the USOS Excalibur, and Alex was up in the bridge with the rest of the pilots.

He paced back and forth, looking more serious than normal. People's lives were in his hands, and if he messed up, he would be responsible for harm that could befall them.

"This is the plan as it stands. When the FSC ships give us the signal, the Excalibur and the Caliburn will emerge from the gas and draw the attention of the Kuvexian ships. Jay, Araxie and I will launch along with the Excalibur's fighter flight, but the Caliburn flights will stay in reserve."

The hologram on the table showed the two broadswords, shown as green dots, emerging and engaging a cluster of red dots. There were several blue dots further down the 'stream'.

"Then the FSC ships waiting will open up on them with missiles."

The hologram showed the blue dots spitting out missiles at the red ones.

"Our job is to keep the pressure off of the FSC and friendly casualties. Any questions?"
 
Jay had personally outfitted his U-1 with two ECM pods and two ammo packs.

"Yeah. Will Miss Serai be riding with you again?" He said with a smirk.
 
Pumpkin Eater

"Ugh, Spectre? Really..." Uso said, more to herself than anyone else as she hadn't turned anything to broadcast just yet. '

Vier had two of her bodies manning the controls of the ship. Before they left Uso had 'tried to fly the Pumpkin Eater' herself and ended up firing a missile through the still closed front doors of the ship. Vier insistent that Uso could not safely pilot the ship and that she would need to take over.

So, all in all, things were going exactly as planned.

"... I mean, why doesn't he just use the name 'I'm a spy?' or 'We're totally going to ambush someone'? Its like the guy has never heard of infosec. This is why I pick the best code-names Vier, they are opaque and give nothing away."

Before Vier could respond, Uso would open up a channel,

"Pumpkin Eater is still here, and Ethics Violation is still ready to do stuff if we get into trouble, and shouldn't we be staying off comms right now? I mean, not like it matters now that we're already using them... but still."
 
Alex gave Jay a short response.

"No, she'll be flying a standard U-1, same as everyone else."

He turned to the rest of the group.

"Now are there any other questions before I let the FSC know we're ready?"
 
As the chorus of check-ins came over the comms Candon steeled his resolve. He was something like confusing bait for the plan. Hopefully to put the enemy on guard. Probably even make them chase, a good thing only because of the tight, uneven passage through the cloud. Grabbing his newly acquired and soon to be lost Liberator Pistol he began "backing up" slowly. His positioning would mean his life.
"All units, stand by. And fighter pilots, I'm sure you're aware but it's critical that you not hit the 'walls'. The gas is like ice slush, hitting it will crush your hull. Treat it like deep snow if you try landing on it, you'll sink. Here they come."

Pushing slowly through the purple fog the two escort destroyers appeared, their mirrored gold hulls blending in as they reflected the vast purple surrounding them. It was just as the informant said…
almost.
"Shit…"

Gas was blown roughly to the side as the super freighter emerged, it's width nearly touching on each side, guns bristling above and below it's centerline, this was no ordinary freighter. It was built for a brawl.

In moments the bold spy was being hailed in basic to identify himself, cannons training on his position. They knew he wouldn't be able to get a call out of the nebula. They'd gun him down if he didn't do something.


pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-click…


A flood of light engulfed the armor, dragging him roughly toward an open hatch in the monstrous cargo ship.

"Alright, this works too," he radioed, "Mission is a go, we'll board it here." Candon accelerated hard toward the ship, disappearing into the open hatch.


"This is Mr. Donovan. Sky Guard ships prepare to fire main weapons and launch fighters in five.. four.. three.. two.." the jammer bouys began flooding all frequencies but the ones for the USO. "..one.. fire."
 
The Excalibur and the Caliburn opened fire with their main guns, firing at the enemy ships furthest from the, putting 42 rounds a minute into the void with their four gun array. The Freespacer designed laser turrets swept their beams through space, dancing across enemy ships in intricate patterns, all the while the point defense guns gave cover to the ten fighters that launched from the Excalibur.

Alex, who was by now down at the flight deck, hopped into his fighter, checked the weapons and systems, gunned the engines and rolled onto the catapult.

"Alex Tasuki, Unicorn Custom.

Launching!"

With a roar, Alex shot out into the void, spiraling to avoid incoming fire.

"Wahoooo!"
 
Jay followed close behind Alex, jumping into the open cockpit of his fighter.

"Hey, leave some for the rest of us!" Jay said through the comlink as he moved his own fighter onto the catapult.

"And please, for the love of god, try not to die! Jay Nagato, U1-02a. Launching."

Jay's fighter launched into the Nebula, banking hard towards the enemy ships.

"Can I get a primary target here?" He asked as his HUD lit up with target tracks.
 
Birdy slid into her fighter's cockpit, slightly late to the draw relative to the other two pilots. Bringing along a single rifle gunpod and two ammunition racks, her lightly-armed spaceplane responded to her touch.

"Araxie Serai, launching." As soon as she cleared the artificial atmosphere, Arx set her orientation to drift in a misaligned facing, burning main engines to change her course before filing in to a delta formation behind Alex.

"Alright then, the best bet is cleaning up the more threatening targets first. We can use their smaller ships as improvised cover from that freighter if we can disable their weapons and mobility. The gas is too thick for us to try hiding in it now, so that's out of the question."

Thee Elysian took note of the number of targets. Specifically, she didn't want to deal with enemy escorts their size or smaller...
 
Alex Hart said:
The Excalibur and the Caliburn opened fire with their main guns, firing at the enemy ships furthest from the, putting 42 rounds a minute into the void with their four gun array. The Freespacer designed laser turrets swept their beams through space, dancing across enemy ships in intricate patterns, all the while the point defense guns gave cover to the ten fighters that launched from the Excalibur.
Click to expand...

Even with their shields at maximum output each escort destroyer couldn't withstand the salvo of 4 near-luminal positron shells at point-blank range. Their forward shields dropped after stopping the first rounds, the deflected explosion reshaped the narrow corridor into a wide chamber, uncovering the Excalibur and the Caliburn from their blanket of frozen gas and creating turbulent air patterns that would continue to swirl through the new void. The double tapped salvo sank the destroyers, burying into their hulls and splitting one in half while blasting apart the engines of the other. The two vessels continued past the Broadswords and collided with each other before slamming into the frozen gas. The crews were resilient, the survivors of the crash would soon be working hard to return to the fight.

The scene the U-1 pilots were launching into was very different from the one they'd seen. It was now a large chamber of stormy, debris filled clutter with aether fire searing from the super freighter as it launched fighters of its own. The heavily armored fighters were notorious for the beating they could take, could the U-1 pilots survive the 15 fighters deployed?
 
Alex saw Araxie and Jay fall into formation behind him along with two other pilots, while the other flight from the Excalibur assumed a similar formation to their relative left.

"Our job is to take out weapons systems and detonate incoming ordnance from the Kuvexian ships. The Excalibur and Caliburn can take hits, but the FSC cargo ships are far more fragile. "

As the enemy fighters launched, Alex marked them on his radar.

"Enemy contacts, marking them as our priority targets. The Broadswords can handle these ships. Sky Guard, break and engage, but remember to keep each other covered. Try and draw them into the range of our point defense guns!"

The first flight from the Excalibur broke away from Alex, Jay, Araxie and the two other members of their flight. They began to engage the Kuvexian fighters but ventured too far into range of the Kuvexian point defense guns. Two fighters were blasted out of the sky before they drew back.

"Stay out of range of their point defense!" Alex shouted.

Alex's gunpod let out a BRRRRT sound as it spat hot metal at one of his targets, which as it passed underneath him, he transformed into a mecha, fired at in a maneuver no conventional fighter could pull off, transformed back into a fighter, and began to chase it, firing six of his mini missiles, three from each pod.
 
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Just as the 15 enemy fighters were beginning to engage the Candon's Forces, A Lone Kawarime popped out the thick cluster of particles, frozen ice chunks and other Nebula debris, jumping right into the fray. Sudden appearance of her Kawarime came as a surprise.

Hellcat fired missiles as soon as she had target lock on the several of the enemy fighters. Before they could turn to engage her, she laid down a devastating Aether Cannon fire into the group of fighters, blowing chunks of molten metal off them. She went calmly about her business of engaging enemy fighters from the super freighter.

She stayed in close to the Freighter so that any shots at her missed would hit the Freighter that was their base. She jinked and dodged the enemies destructive energy at her.
 
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Jack Pine who had been sitting in his U-1 waiting for the launch go, had been becoming increasingly frustrated as his fellow soldiers were losing their lives and he was stuck waiting.

"Fuck it I'm tired of waiting, Caliburn this is Jack Pine U-1 02a launching into combat!" Jack said as he moved his unit into the catapult.

"Pine you are not cleared to launch, and are hereby ordered to RTS!" flight control barked through his comm as his U-1 02a was loaded, he responded to the order by simply closing the comm line.

He was then shortly flung into space and into the fray, his HUD immediately lighting up with hostile target markers. Jack began to open fire on a closely grouped cluster of three enemy fighters who were too busy being focused on the Kawarime to notice him, and managed to blow apart the first two before the third realized what was happening.

The last of the three was turned into a growing cloud of small debris as it attempted to turn instead of running, "Idiot, that's while you should have never have messed with the Skyguard." Jack said as looked for new targets.

He had apparently lost his element of surprise as two enemy fighter began dogging him, and responded with evasive maneuvers to dodge their fire.

"Well it seems I spoke too soon on who is the idiot, shit." Jack mumbled to himself as he tried to lose his pursuers. He maneuvered past Caliburn, and was rewarded by a couple of wrecks loosing speed behind him.

"Too close, the dream would have ended there, I've gotta be more careful." he let out with a breath of relief as he made sure there weren't more coming after him.
 
Yinsar Kine's face twitched as he waited in his cockpit, eagerly checking and re-checking that all of his system's functions were properly functional. His fingers skittered across the various data pads, conducting the final touches on some of his custom configuration options. He kept comms open, listening to the chatter back and forth between the flights. He wanted to ensure he was informed on the current conditions of the battlefield.

Engines? Ready. Weapons systems? Ready. HUD? Optimized.


It was then that a specific bit of chatter caught his attention. Someone had just launched without authorization...

Yinsar hesitated for only a split second. A grin spread wild across his face. He knew exactly what to do.

Speedily, his hands pulled through various menus, arriving at his comm controls. With just a few minute adjustments, he generated a thick static of noise between himself and flight control.

With a chuckle, he spoke through his Microphone, though he knew they would not be able to pick up what he said.

"U1 Unit O7 is launching! It's death on the wind!"

As his variable fighter rocketed out of the hangar, he spoke to himself in a silly, sarcastic tone. "Oh my! I was confused! My comms were hazy! I thought we were supposed to launch! Blah blah bl-"

His projectile warning indicators flashed fast and bright. Yin - more by reflex than skill - whipped his controls to the side, only barely avoiding a few hunks of singed metal that were careening towards him.


After reminding himself to pay more attention to his surroundings, he began to analyze the battle zone, noting the positions of nearby hostiles and their relative locations to friendly units.

Immediately he began to use his single W39000 heavy gun pod to lay down suppressing fire on any nearby hostiles that were approaching allies to limit their movement or to force a disengagement.
 
"Welp, looks like the command structure is going down the drain." Jay sighed as he flew up behind a group of three enemy fighters, working his way from back to front.

"Alex, I'm marking a group of six enemy fighters moving towards the freighters. See if you can draw them away with some fancy flying. When I give you the signal, switch to mecha and tear them up." Jay said as he switched back to fighter form and rocketed towards the group.

"I'll have your back."
 
"Roger that." Alex sent over.

He 'buzzed' the group of fighters indicated by Jay, whipping behind them to pick one of them off to draw them into the chase. He bobbed and weaved through the enemy shots, though a few made it through his shields and caused some superficial damage, but it wasn't anything that would effect his performance.

Hurt like hell though.

Alex flew in a helix to dodge some shots, and then looked back toward Jay expectantly.
 
"A little bit more..." Jay said under his breath as they headed between the two Broadswords.

"NOW!" Jay yelled as he overloaded their sensors with the ECM pods and morphed into mecha mode.
 
Alex transformed and let loose a barrage of missiles, which spiraled and looped in a beautiful fashion.
Then he mowed down the rest of the enemies left over from that while they were still "Dazed" from the ECM burst.

"Targets destroyed. Jay, you and Araxie hold down the fort here, I'm going to try and help those two rookies." Alex said, shortly before transforming, and bursting away towards Kisnar and Jack.

"You two, what's the situation look like?" Alex spoke in a voice that was not imposing, but nonetheless seemed to command respect.
 
"Two cruisers can hold fine against the thinning enemies! Besides, there's benefits to your stunts!" With an unexpected burst of speed, Serai shot forward towards the main enemy ships, gimballing all of her mobility to dance around the suppressive fire sent her way. Through the chaotic, unpredictable movement and luck, the fighter flew what could best be described as any direction but straight.

Taking advantage of out-of-atmosphere mobility, Araxie had opted to strafe the remaining fighters and the two corvettes while unloading cannon fire into their flanks, darting "beneath" the ships to avoid a portion of their active gunnery crew before popping between them, focusing on one in particular. Designating the specific corvette as "sparrow", the preyful elysian continued to orbit the ship chaotically and at close range whenever possible. The fighters may not be all cleaned up yet, but these corvettes had been causing trouble from outside the pit for far, far too long.
 
Errowyn's Kawarime indeed came as a surprise to the Kuvexian fighters as '5' tore through the frozen blankets of gas leaving her free to pursue any target she chose.
@Samanthia


Noticing the fighter of Jack Pine wipe out a third of the first wave of fighters the gunnery crews of the super freighter identified him as the primary threat to their own fighters. Every AA gun in range of him paused, reoriented to face the star fighter and resumed their normal functions with him as the target. At least thirty streams of aether bolts began converging on Jack in a desperate attempt to bring down the deadly ship.
@Jack Pine


Acting on orders from their flight commander on the super freighter, communicating via laser, the 6 fighter pilots who were seemingly headed for the ambush freighters had successfully drawn their pursuers into a trap. 5 more freshly launched fighters dropped in behind them, each lobbing scores of mini missiles in succession, a unified salvo favored by the pilots of the IKK. 'Fancy flying' would indeed be required now.
@Air Admiral, @Alex Hart

Araxie would find the surviving crew of the tangled destroyers armed and vigilant. While the crew's aim wasn't nearly fast enough for antiaircraft engagements she would find that the gold plated power armored soldiers were more than ready to engage her fighter. Three PA troopers moved to intercept her moving erratically to avoid returned fire as the sprayed aether bolts from their rifles. They were slower than her fighter for sure, but they were far quicker to maneuver than any full size fighter.

Meanwhile the Broadswords traded fire with the unrealistically shielded freighter. The vessel tanked every shell and returned with brillant beams of white hot aether from its cannons. It was at this point the battle was looking bleak for the Skyguard ships as the massive freighter drifted ever closer to them.

"Mr. Donovan to freighter captains, target is in range. Prepare to fire in ten.. nine.. eight.." three Caravan freighters emerged from the icy clouds, "seven.. six.. five.." the huge side mounted bay doors began slowly retracting, "four.. three.. two.." the freighters came to a stop, "one.. fire."

Hundred of rockets streaked outward towards the unsuspecting super freighter. With almost all of the AA batteries focusing fire on Jack the swarming salvo of EMP rockets had little difficulty striking home on the shields in an electrical shockwave that traveled across the surface of the shields, weakening their barrier across the entire ship.

"Prosperity Dawn, ordinance successful, reloading missile array."
"Blue Caribou, all rockets struck the target, rearming launcher battery."
"Belle in Red, good hits, prepping missile tubes."
The simultaneous calls went out.

The captain of the super freighter now realized that this wasn't a battle of attrition. Hatches along the hull flew open as they fired their entire battery of heavy anti starship missiles, 30 aimed at the rocket-spamming freighters and 20 at the Caliburn as 25 more fighters launched. As they launched the leading edged of the spear head shaped super freighter began to glow brightly.
 
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