At this time FSCorp's fighters had arrived and began their duties. The 3 missile freighters began collecting salvage, the recovery ship launched it's FTL tugs, and the rescue freighter launched it's
starbryte shuttles to begin search and rescue efforts of U-1 pilots and ship crew.
Alex's wing was battered, but with his enhanced reflexes he managed to transform in time, ducked below the fighter and unloaded his ammo pack into it point blank before matching its speed and grabbing onto a spur sticking out from it. He then used the spur to yank the fighter around into a shield like position, using it to absorb any fire that might come his way. Stowing his rifle gunpod on one of his wings, which in mecha form were down by his side, Alex began to open fire with his light pulsed plasma cannons, which were mounted in the arms of his mecha.
The fighters shrugged off most of his shots, and Alex had no choice but to activate, or rather deactivate a system built into the Unicorn custom. The power balancer inside the Unicorn was deactivated, and the workload of the system was placed upon Alex's already busy mind. The increased blood flow caused blood to start to well up in his eyes.
A startling transformation took place, as the plasma conduits inside the body of the Unicorn began to glow bright sky blue, and the horn on the head of the mecha split into two, forming a delta shape on the forehead. From this blue particles of plasma began to spew forth, and Alex began to reconfigure the balance and distribution of power within the craft to favor his weapons systems, increasing their damage and fire rate.
This, combined with his increased reaction time, allowed him to whirl around, placing stronger shots on the enemy like a whirlwind of death.
The fighters took several hits as Alex performed his deadly maneuver. The pursuer was split down the middle, the rammer simply disappeared in a shower of debris, and the bait fighter's pilot did something heroic as he died. With his shields fully thrown to the rear emitter he had only a moment to react, just enough for the pilot to fulfill his duty as bait. He hit the 'brakes' and closed his eyes as he awaited his rebirth.
Alex Tasuki's fighter plowed through the debris that his weapons had made from the enemy fighter, blasting through with a fiery explosion now behind him.
The veteran squadron was no longer. Their effect, however, remained as warning indications filled his cockpit. While he looked immensely cool doing it, plowing through the debris of the bait fighter was damaging to the unarmored U-1. Among other little things his major issues were hydraulic loss, multiple oil leaks, and loss of transformation abilities due to the debis that was now lodged where his main hydraulic pump used to be. The vacuum of space now tried to harshly suck the remaining pressure from his reservoir. Now stuck in Mecha form he needed to land and soon, before losing all control of the mecha's limbs.
Fortunately USOS Excalibur was very close.
At the sight of the super freighter going dark the Excalibur ceased fire. The space battle was almost over as the massive freighter was crippled leaving the question of whether the captain would now turn his massive cannons on the ball of intertwined, PA infested escorts and end the threat with a mercifully painless pass to their sought after rebirth or leave them to fight the cold impersonal incarceration of Vier's drones.
"Oh, good. You're awake." The wing-like form was... It felt off, was the best description. Quite cold to the touch, but there seemed to be a fair bit of power within it still. Araxie managed to keep her cool not only because she couldn't feel what she'd normally feel from someone ruffling her feathers around, but the pressing battle took precedence over what did come around. Shakily accelerating, the passenger-bearing U1 charted a new course towards the chaos.
"I swear, you people need to be more careful! First there's you," Letting the craft drift a moment, Serai bent her arm over her back to waggle five digits at Jack, "And now this guy is getting himself caught after playing chicken with missiles!" She made sure her communication network was active to the best of it extent in this icy tunnel as the two pulled up closer towards the tangled Yinsar and re-transformed into mecha form. Grumbling to herself as the Elysian began to tear-and in some cases shoot- the wires free while using the debris to the best of her extent as cover, everyone listening was treated to a salty rant about "Charging in like drunk idiots with no respect for self-preservation" and something about needing to "keep the attention off the people who clearly can't handle weapons being shot their way". She sure as hell wasn't giving this guy the same voidwalk treatment as the last one.
Yinsar gasped slightly as his craft caught in the net of wires, the momentum snapping his body forward before he could brace himself.
He took a moment to simply hang out, and relish his survival. His saga was not over, not yet. Yinsar Kine resolved to stick more armor on his mecha if he ever reached the rank of Sky Knight.
After allowing himself to be distracted for a small while, he sighed heavily and stretched inside the cockpit. Transforming into a mecha right about now would only serve to tangle him further, and so, he simply spent his time adjusting some settings and assessing his fighter's status, noting the ally coming to his aid.
Yin frowned at her complaints.
"Yeah, uh, I had to make a tough decision. I wonder if you could've done the same, hmm?" He snickered and coughed. After clearing his throat, he began to observe the state of the battlefield via his datascreens, listening closely to the communications passing between allies while he awaited the newcomer to free him from the web of connections.
"So, um, the battlefield isn't looking at that fantastic at the moment. Mind speeding it up over there? We've got things to do!"
Yinsar impatiently waited until his craft was freed, turning slowly to face towards the battlefield once more.
"Who are these guys, anyway?" Jay said, obviously annoyed, as he overloaded his ECM pods to fry the sensors of the enemy PA - but burning out the pods in the process.
"I mean, seriously. No one gives a damn about your kill count if you die in the process."
Jay skillfully switched to mecha mode and maneuvered to hide himself in the debris field.
"Alright. I've knocked out the sensors on some PA - marked 'em on the HUD - but they need to all be taken out before anything of them can react. Although, it would seem these two rookies have everything tied up..."
At this point the three fighters were still in the clear as the rest of Caliburn's fighters had been immensely successful in eliminating the IKK fighter wings losing only two fighters, of which both pilots ejected safely. The squadrons coordination would merit great honor at the approaching end of the mission.
As for the 6 PA troops guarding the crashed bundle of destroyers, they now had a problem that could be neither seen nor heard. Though the odds were favorable that no one was watching someone obviously was.
The shields of a soldier lit up brightly as something nearly invisible to the eye hit him heavily in the chest. The soldier naturally corrected his magnetic footing on the hull and turned to see what- his helmeted head flew off.
Another flash of shields and that armor's breastplate was split down the middle. At this point the other four began taking up a 'defensive formation'… flash of shields and an arm flew off with space finishing the job via it's intense vacuum. Now the last three were especially panicked as they made a flying dash for the wrecked hanger Arx had taken cover in.
Two made it to said cover.
With her threat alert buzzing with missile and or gun locks, Errowyn broke them by either dodging behind debris of other destroyed ships or just plain space junk that were mortally crippled enemy fighters to take brunt of the enemy destructive energy heading her way. Even debris from the Super Freighter helped. By keeping close to the Freighter, made the enemy fighters more hesitant in just spraying and praying method. Thus allowing her more maneuver time.
She still took hits that drained her shields energy. Her decoys were running low to break the enemy missiles locks on her. When she came across enemy fighters that she came upon with surprise, she blasted them with her 4 Aether cannons, turning them into more debris and obsticles to the two fighters that were working as a team.
With every trick in the book she used and even made up a few to use enemy fighters to shake off the pair of fighters that was dogging her. Errowyn wished she had her old squadron mates or even a wing of other Yamataian Neko fighter pilots with her. As she flew past the giant exhaust ports of the Freighter, she sent a few stray shots at them to even add more problems for the Super Freighter and to sucker 1 or both into the path of the Super Freighter super heated exhaust that even shields of the fighter class couldn't withstand.
As Errowyn passed the enormous engines she would find them powering down as the EMP rockets had sapped them of their of their aether supply. It made no difference as one of her two pursuers burst into flames as his shields were simply two low for his proximity to the heat. All three were simply too close to handle such immense heat. The shields of '5' were reaching a critical point and she would find that it was simply a game of attrition that unfortunately her last opponent was willing play in order to score her fighter as a kill as he lined up a finishing shot. Then, for no apparent reason, the fighter never fired. It just simply continued straight until disappearing into the solid purple mist of gas, a flash of fire emerging from the hole it left in the frozen cloud.
Corgan's soldiers made a heavy landing as they made tight, accurate bursts of munitions into the enemy's crew who before the missile strike were trying to form a defensive formation. Suppressive fire from the Arccos' point defense guns made it completely impossible. Not a single PA soldier was hit as they secured the disheveled hangar.
A pair of Corgan's men trained as technicians were able to open the partially closed hangar doors to grant Arccos a wide debris filled space to land in.
Candon, who had been coasting to the location, began replacing the empty magazine of his GSR not a moment after putting boots on the deck of the hangar. His HUD quickly identified Corgan.
"Boy, is it good to see you," he laser radioed as he approached. Corgan could assume he was referring to the battered armor plating on Candon's PA. It looked like it had been through hell, which was fairly accurate. "The bridge is gone so this should be easier, we need to go straight to the reactor and put it into emergency containment. That'll stop them from being able to overload it for at least forty eight hours... And in guessing that the drones will speed this up."
