RP: 188604 B7R, Operation Roach Hotel

188604 system, high orbit
The bridge of the Broadsword class Cruiser, Excalibur

Alex stood on the bridge of the Excalibur, and readied himself to address the Sky Guard fleet. A technician nodded to him, indicating that he was clear to begin talking. He held his hands behind his back, and tried to appear more sure of himself than he was.

"All hands, this is Sky Warden Tasuki. In a few moments we will begin the mission to drive the Rixxicor off B7R. Our fleet of forty seven cruisers will use their FTL drives to jump into the B7R system. From there the fleet will approach the side of the planet from which it cannot be fired upon by ground defenses."

Alex pointed to a holographic projector, which put up an image of the fleet and its route into system B7R604 as well as the route it would take to its sheltered orbit.

"From there we will launch half of our fighter wings, which we will use to deploy tankettes to support the Ragnarok ground troops. With that done, our fighters can serve as air support for the ground forces as needed. Any questions or strategic decisions your captains or flight leaders make supercede my orders. Good luck and good hunting." He said, before the feed clicked off.

Alex then made his way down to the hangar where the rest of his wing should be waiting for him, and looked around. His custom U-1, the Unicorn, was first in line to the catapult, and was loaded up with a single gunpod, two ammunition racks and four submunition dispensers loaded with mini missiles. There were also four tankettes loaded into the back of his U-1 for deployment, as they were in every other U-1 for this mission.

As the fleet entered FTL, Alex turned to his flight.

"Are you ready?"

Excalibur mecha launch hangar

"'Good hunting'? I didn't know the I'ee were involved!" Araxie hugged Alex as she teased him, dressed in a loose shirt and skirt which matched her primaries nearly perfectly. Of which there were still not many usable, the girl's wings quite exposed from the last time she was in a space battle.

"Now remember. These guys," essentially turning Alex to make sure he was looking at the other pilots in the hanger, "are working with you. Don't try anything crazy by yourself." The silver-eyed girl smirked. "Okay, maybe try to share the crazy instead. Keep them on their toes."

B7R604

The fleet would start exiting FTL, Vier's drones exiting first and coasting towards the planet. The handful of expendable ships would start fanning out and approaching the safe side of the planet, confirming that no ambush was awaiting the fleet.

Then the rest of the fleet started arriving in-system. 70 combat drones arrayed out infront of the Skyguard's own ships, intermixed with the sleek black dropships of Ragnarok, the slightly orange tint of the Pumpkin Eater, and in the middle of it all, the Queen's Slave. The last time they had been at the planet, they had taken to running away from the handful of Elysian and Rixxikor ships present... but now they had returned in force.

As the ships approached, their sensors would start building a better picture of the planet they were approaching. The Rixxikor shield bubbles had popped up in a large cluster on the main continent of the planet. The human colony was still managing to hold its own position near the coast while the Rixx expanded around it and towards the interior. Thick green jungles and prefabricated resort-style areas seemed to expand right up to the water's edge.

Vier would then update everyone's mission plans, providing an approach vector that would take the transports down close on the safe side of the planet where they could then fly towards the beach to drop off soldiers while the starships slowly crept up behind them using the curve of the planet to shield them from the majority of the enemy's anti-starship weapons...

Yinsar Kine was trying to argue quietly with Jay, trying not to draw attention to himself while trying to pay some minor degree of attention to what Alex was saying over the intercom.

"Listen, I just think that the IDCEL type program would be more efficiently installed if you gave it some sort of support program to help it unpack all those files. Are you really trying to tell me that..." He cut off as Alex approached in the hangar.

He tried to pretend he remembered everything his commander had said just a moment ago over the comms system.

He blinked at Araxie a few times, frowning. "Erm... I think... I can handle myself out there... sir. We'll watch each others... umm.. backs. "

"And sir... I was born ready to fly these mechas." Yin almost looked offended.

Once the Broadsword came out of FTL, Yin paid attention to the instructions Vier was dishing out, memorizing the vast majority of the messages and plan details.

The Mouse moved over to his assigned U-1, loaded with the heavy W3900 arm-mounted gunpod, and 4 ammunition racks, and ogled it, his eyes nearly sparkling with anticipation.

Jack checked his diagnostics on his newly repaired U1. He liked the mini tanks the most in addition to his sniper cannon and gun pods. He listened to Alex as the systems checked out. "Jack let's do this right.", He said to himself.

Jay walked over to his own fighter, parked next to Yin's. It had been outfitted with two ECM pods, a gunpod, and 2 spare magazines.

"Yes, I am being the voice of reason here. I mean, after initial setup, it's completely useless. All it would do is slow down read/write."

Space above B7R:

Cyrus and his personal units were sitting inside of lead Corona Gunship. His company was split into 5 teams of 10, split among the 5 dropships. Each dropship armed to the teeth. "Sir! We are about to begin the landing!" One of his men called.

"Roger that, alright men! Button up and prepare for combat." He ordered, placing his own helmet on his head and locking it in place.
The soldiers that made up the Ragnarok group did as instructed, the trained PMCs quickly getting their helmets in place, while the trained locals who had recently joined over the last few months did the same, taking a bit longer than the pros.

Arrayed out infront of the gunships were Vier's drones, body-blocking for the drop ships as they approached the planet.

The tactical map was showing that the Rixxikor were catching on to what was happening. The black shields covering up their forces began to shift, starting to move down along the coast towards the Ragnarok landing point.

"Alright Cyrus, they know we're comming... lets get everyone on the ground!" Uso said over the all hands channel.

"Roger that." He locked himself in place and instructed the others to do the same. "Alright pilot, I want a hotdrop on the enemy. Take us down as fast as possible. We will jump once we are close enough to the ground." He ordered.

"Roger Boss." The pilot change frequency to all of the soldiers in the dropship. "Thank you for flying Dragon 1-1, we know you have your choice in dropships, and you picked the wrong one." He said with morbid humor. "We are about to hotdrop. Hold onto your lunch and enjoy the ride..." With that the dropship dove down towards the atmosphere.

Space above B7R:
The Sky Guard fleet followed the Ragnarok soldiers in and began to take shelter behind the planets curvature. The Rixxikor defenses began to fire wildly, as if unaware that the would be unable to hit anything. The cruisers reached orbit without incident.

Then kinetic shells howled upward through the atmosphere, their trajectories wild and innacurate, but the volume of fire was enough to smash the shields of the foremost Broadsword into oblivion, and damage its left engines. Following the attack, sensors were able to focus on three giant legged machines, fortress like in their construction, armament and defenses. Though each was constructed slightly differently, each was in general 100 meters long by 50 meters wide with six giant insectoid legs, several batteries of anti ship artillery and lots of anti aircraft guns. Alarms began to sound throughout ships in the fleet, and Alex dashed over to his fighter while indicating for Araxie to follow.

He hopped into his custom fighter, and offered his hand to Araxie to help her up. Meanwhile, he opened a channel to the entire fleet.

"Attention all hands, this is Sky Warden Tasuki. I want the flights from the nearest ship to join my flight and the flight from the Excalibur. We're going to take out those walking fortresses so that the rest of the fleet can continue. Everyone else, continue with the mission as planned!"

Jay hopped into the cockpit of his own fighter.

"Alright, Mouser, looks like I gotta keep this guy alive." He said, tilting his head in Jack's direction with a grin.

"Just show a little restraint and you'll be fine."

Excalibur

"That cruiser's taking way too much damage for its own good... I think I trust your piloting more than the helmsmen's. Just try not to do anything too stupid, please." The hummingbirb took Tasuki's hand before sliding easily into the passenger seat.

"Besides, Vier can probably handle things from the sky. we need someone to figure things out down there."

Space above B7R:

The Arccos hung back behind the Ragnarok dropships. Beside it, there was a brand new Sand Demon Dropship, the Claire. Corgan sat in the cargo bay wearing his custom Impulse armor, looking at the seven tanks that were the backbone of his Company. Half of the Reavers company was all around him, most wearing Styrling-Muur armor. They were essentially strapped to the deck to keep from moving around in the event of a direct hit.

Currently, he only issued the Impulse to the highest ranks. They just didn't have enough to go around, and most were being used by the infantry. They would be inside of some pretty tough ADNR coated with titanium alloy, then covered in hardened tungsten alloy, ceramic plates and Durandium Alloy that are interlocked for rigidness and strength. The Impulse armor was more in case they needed to get out of their vehicles.

He looked around the cargo bay at the 5 APCs that would be accompanying them. Another Company would be riding in those. They were here too, the whole Company sitting in another group next to the Reavers. Corgan didn't know their CO but he looked like a grizzled veteran. He felt intimidated by the guy despite being able to bench press him.

The rest of the cargo bay was empty, but even with a seemingly light load, the central area of the cargo bay was extremely cramped. In the side areas, they managed to fit half of the Company's ten supply trucks. They were loaded with ammunition and supplies, mostly for the vehicles.

Inside the Claire were the other five supply trucks, five mobile artillery vehicles, and five support vehicles. The rest of the Company was onboard as well.

As the ships descended into the atmosphere, they dodged incoming fire the best they could. Thankfully the U-1s and Corona dropships drew most of the fire. A few times the Arccos took glancing blows resulting in hardly any thanks to the shields. The Claire took a direct hit, and the shields managed to hold. Another hit and they would be defenseless.

The Claire fell back behind the Arccos, using the relatively unscathed ship for cover.

Space above B7R:

While the ships of the sky guard weathered the assault without losing any of the cruisers, many took severe damage though. As fighters dropped down near the surface, many began to fall as the anti aircraft fire from the walking fortresses tore their formation apart. About a three quarters of the force sent to land the tankettes survived their descent, and were able to drop their payload. A third of those were blasted by cannons from makeshift bunkers and gun emplacements.

Ramshackle armored vehicles seemed to swarm from behind the behemoths, and the autocannons on the tankettes were all but ineffective against their thick armor, though a few of the seemingly thrown together tanks, trucks and APCs were immobilized. The trucks began to tear through the lines of tankettes. Heavier ground forces and firepower would be needed to remove that threat.

Most of the surviving fighters transformed into mecha mode and began to skim on the ground, delaying the advance of the armored vehicles. Their gunpods were able to pierce the enemy armor with relative ease, but the mecha on the ground began to fall back as the tide of armor started to overwhelm them and the cannons from one of the walking fortresses was brought to bear on them, shredding the mecha.

The remnants of the sky guard forces began to perform what could barely be called a retreat as morale plummeted.

Alex loaded himself onto the catapult with a grimace. How could everything have gone so wrong, He wondered to himself. He turned around to Araxie while he began to prepare to take off.

"I need to know where the ragnarok troops will do the most good, and I need to know if those monsters down there have any weak points."

He then opened a channel to Corgan and began to speak. "Corgan, I need your troops down there immediately. Araxie will let you know where to go. Your job is to stop our mecha from routing. We have the advantage in mobility, but the pilots down there are fresh and panicking too much. Without a dedicated ground force to relieve them they're done for. And watch out for the cannons on those behemoths."

Alex then throttled up and launched himself out into space, holding position while he waited for the rest of his flight.

"First thing's first, those cannons are too large to work up close. If we were literally on top of one they probably couldn't hit us. I don't know about those IAVs, the construction is too irregular. We'll need to take them out one by one, or in small groups."

The Elysian braced herself for a dive before continuing, "The forces down there need to regroup. They're everywhere and nowhere, and they're not trying gurella. The Ragnorok infantry should go somewhere where they can do the most damage. If that's flanking or dropping onto the front lines, I'm not sure right now."

Privately, she spoke to Alex again, "What are the odds of trying to take control of one of those death spiders? We're going to need something heavier than a few mecha to smash the beachhead clear."

Yinsar turned to Jay with a retort hot on his lips before stifling it, squinting over at him.

"Alright... We'll continue this later, damn you!" He jogged over to his mecha and took a moment to rub a hand over its hull, enjoying the feel of it's tough surface, before hopping into the cockpit and readying himself. As this was still not a personal mecha - he'd not reached Sky Knight quite yet - Yinsar began his usual process of changing much of the base settings. He flicked switches, turned dials, and adjusted values on a large portion of the settings that were by default built into the U-1.

The Mouse grumbled to himself as he made certain the communications on this system were perfect for receiving and transmitting signals to the commanding officers. He'd gotten chewed out when the people on the bridge has figured out he'd purposely fuzzed the communications between them as an excuse to deploy against orders. He was lucky he got to keep his ass in the cockpit, attached and all.

Yinsar needed to figure out a better excuse next time he decided to do his own thing. The chain of command has it's place - he figured - but there are just some things that a rigid system can't handle appropriately.

But none of that mattered right now.

Yin was in the cockpit of a U-1. He was separated from the world by a mighty layer of armor. What happened in the world now was irrelevant to Yinsar. The only thing he cared about was what happened within the cockpit. This... was his world.

Yinsar revelled in the touch of the built in datapads' screens against his fingers, and the firm grim his fingers got over the controls. He took a deep breath, and opened his comms to most of the open channels, listening to the stream of chatter that began to stream from inside his cockpit, listening for a few moments to get a general sense of the battlefield.

His mecha moved to the catapult, and he prepared himself for take-off.

Yin muttered to himself, under his breath. "'Just show a little restraint' he said! Restraint?! Here?! HAH!"

Vier's drones would start to part ways, skimming just above the atmosphere to try and watch over the landing while still remaining behind the horizon of the planet, the large black shield orbs of the Rixxikor approaching closer and closer.

An intense bright light would lance forward from the first few drones, hitting the top of the Rixxikor shield and quickly depleting it. Under the shield was what looked almost like a spider, a spherical body with four large legs extending out and down, another four arms extending upward, each outfited with a large beam cannon. The Rixxikor seemed impatient... unwilling to wait until their targets were within line of sight.

Their counter-fire would lance out, digging massive trench along the surface of the planet, the scar visible from space as the beam hugged the curve of the planet and continued outward, passing just over one of the Ragnarok dropships and then right through one of the drones, turning it into a rapidly expanding cloud of gas.

Cyrus and his team struggle against the massive amount of G forces their bodies were enduring as the pilots dove towards the ground at an almost 90 degree angle.

"We are nearing the drop point! Hold on boys." The pilot said as he pulled up rapidly, now skimming the ground.

The dropships would kick up a wall of water behind them as they passed over the planet's salty oceans, The dropships quickly making it to the jungles and beaches of the world while the space war above them started. Each beam passing between the drones and the massive, walking fortresses was bright bright enough to blind anyone who happen to be looking up without eye protection.

Cyrus sighed as the G forces let up and he stood, as did the other soldiers. "Alright! Open the hatchs!" The doodrs of the dropship and the tail ramps opened to show the world below.

"Be advised, try to keep your altitude low for this operation. Space to Ground fire support is currently being used at full capacity, and I will not be able to spare ships for close support just yet." Vier said over the all hands channel, updating the skyguard's HUDS with information regarding the firing arcs of the walking fortresses. Bright beams passing back and forth overhead, each fortress taking a few drones down with it as it crossed over the horizon.

This would leave dozens of small vehicles, approaching the landing site. The tankettes that the Skyguard dropped earlier would start using their EMP weapons to disable the less well constructed ones, however the flying Rixxikor deathclaws would easily leap past them, coming crashing down right infront of Corgan's reavers.

Each deathclaw was basically a single, massive, heavily armored bunker, round on top, with two anti-aircraft turrets on either side and an array of anti-personel weapons in the front. Engines on the underside would send it flying through the air, and an arm on the bottom would act as a shock absorber for the fall, anchoring the bunker and pulling it down flush against the ground so it could begin shooting!

Jack drew his U1 into formation hoping to avoid a repeat of his last tactical error, "Come on man, strategy is your thing remember, that's why you made officer in the Nepleslian military.", He muttered to himself.

"This kinda combat, may not be your forte, but there has to still be principals that apply.", He continued.

Jack last mistake almost got someone killed, and a paid bar tab for two drinks was just the start for trying to correct his recklessness.

:: Excalibur ::

Errowyn sat amongst the other pilots crewing the ship. Keeping the ship on its stately approach and steady to allow the Dropships and U-1's to depart as safe as possible for their assigned missions. She had mixed feelings as she wanted to be out there with the other pilots, yet she missed her sleek Kawarime that was awaiting missiles and decoys for the craft. But then it was also a win situation to her as she was learning how to fly the bigger ships that took a crew just to pilot them.

Jay began taxiing his fighter over to the catapult.

"Alright Jack, looks like I'm babysitting you today." he said over the comms as his HUD lit up with information.

"Just do what you do best, and I'll cover your ass."

No sooner had he said that, his fighter shot out of the hangar and into the void. With a bit of a mischievous grin on his face, he wheeled over to form up with his squadron.

Space above B7R:

Alex waited for the rest of his flight to form up with him, then he began to dive down to the planet, jinking and dodging anti aircraft fire and distracting the gunners on the enemy fortresses to clear the way for his comrades. He then began a strafing run on one of the legs of the foremost spider, causing that leg to shudder and shortly thereafter, begin to buckle.

"Alright everyone! Go for the legs!" He shouted as he transformed and continued to draw the fire of the enemies while evading most of their fire in an intricate dance until his shield went down, prompting him to pull back and begin to fire on the anti aircraft guns.

Atmosphere of B7R

Flames engulfed the Kouken-class Escort 'Phoenix' as it passed through the atmosphere making a quick dive for the ground. The Mimicom pilot of the freshly restored ship flew the vessel of similar manufacturer with precision as it narrowly evaded the shots from the monstrous Rixxicor mecha and artillery. The large ship's agility was only impressive in relation to the sheer number of munitions it evaded as any vessel with it's mass was bound to soak up a fair share of munitions.

As it approached the combat area in which the Sky Guard was retreating from its velocity from entry was far too great to perform a landing, but naturally that would only be an issue if they were landing. The nose of the ship pitched skyward as it shed a small amount of speed for the eight Ashigaru mecha to jump, which they did.

Eight if them, seven piloted by skilled mercenaries in the same dire situation as the ones boarding the Kuvexian superfreighter, all armed with prototype laser weapons from the new FMS laser division and a shield in their off hand that carried spare streaker rockets on the 'safe' side.

Mr. Donovan accompanied this team which began opening fire on the targets that seemed most dangerous in their time of falling.

Before their mecha would hit the ground Phoenix leveled out into a sweeping bank that passed by the huge spider mecha quad wielding laser cannons. The battery of missile launchers opened, but the missiles loaded were intended for space. The Escort ship pushed its engines up to their maximum output as it passed by the mecha and released a swarm of missiles that fell like inacurrate bombs across the target.

It was a distraction to allow the mecha to reach the ground. If all went well the enemy mecha would be stunned or confused enough to let the low flying ship run for the cover of terrain.