As their peaceful cruise turned into a fracas, Argyle gave a half-hearted "well, what do you expect" grin. He wasn't on this mission to stay out of the frying pan. If he wanted to be an ace one day and become a knight, he'd need a list of accomplishments long enough to merit it.
He pushed his Sparrowhawk's thrusters to the max alongside the others, dodging and weaving through incoming plasma, missiles, and whatever other oddball weaponry the dregs of the sector could pull together. He'd taken his shots where he'd seen them and tried to provide cover where he could as the fight began to unfold, waiting for the battle to turn into the sort of organized chaos that he could take advantage of.
In the periphery of his awareness, he tracked the fighters he was most familiar with - Bubbles, Copperhead, and Harpy. He had a vested interest in their safety. Outside of just
liking them, they were an opportunity for group dynamic efficiency gains. Stronger together and all that.
Argyle twisted his fighter around a drifting lance of aether, close enough that it sent neon bands of reflected light across his hull.
"-shoot the shiny ones first, then the less shiny ones-"
That earned a smile.
He sent a simple
ack response to Specter 1, then took the data from his sensors and the Harpies' Nagamaki. His awareness expanded to the space around him, now full of red and green streaks of trajectories and projected paths. Priorities were assigned to the blips he had friendly-foe data for. It was time to hunt.
His thrusters roared as he streaked towards the source of the aether fire, a shining golden fighter. Others shot at him and were shot at by him as he zeroed in, but they weren't important.
One fighter was insistent about getting in his way. It fell in behind him, spraying bullets towards him. He juked and rolled, then suddenly he was
behind the other fighter. At the speeds they were moving, it was like he teleported. Before the enemy pilot could figure out what happened, a halo of bullets pushed him into a straight flight path - and then a missile closed the distance before he could react.
Argyle deftly flew through the expanding cloud of debris.
Another fighter shot towards him from one side. Argyle
tsk'd and spun his fighter to face the newcomer. He cancelled the system that made his movement non-relative, sending him screaching
sideways across space. His torrents opened up, directly in the path of the oncoming fighter, and it was soon just another cloud in the sky.
The Sparrowhawk's engines did
something, their thrust coming out of the fighter at what looked to be the wrong angle for just a split second. The fighter was back after its golden opponent right after, ignoring conventional dynamics again.
A flash of worry struck him as one of his tracked allies was in trouble. He was too far from her to help - something he'd have to weigh against his current, greedy piloting - and he felt a pang of guilt as the data told him that Bubbles was about to be taken out. A well-timed assist by someone -
Jessie 117, he noted - got her out of the situation. He made a note to buy the pilot a beer
(a common natural bonding technique, he had read) next time they ran into each other.
At last, he reached his target. Other dross had met their end on his approach, but they weren't the sort of thing he could claim as a worthy contribution. The one in front of him was clearly a different breed; he'd seen it tag more than a few of his fellow pilots before he could get close enough to intervene.
His approach wasn't unnoticed, of course. Just as he got a weapons lock, the gold fighter made a dramatic, tight loop that left the two fighters facing each other at an astronomical range considered "way too damn close". A split second later they'd exchanged the first round of weapons fire, juking and rolling until they nearly rolled over each other on passing. Argyle was
almost sure he could make out the pilot in the other cockpit. He'd review it later.
The Sparrowhawk burned into a tight U-turn; his earlier trick wouldn't work if he wanted to catch back up to the enemy pilot any time soon. The enemy's fighter streaked in back around in the distance, a mirror of Argyle's own, a brilliant energy figure-8 in the stars. They each launched missiles this time, then fired off chaff and bullets to intercept.
Again and again they clashed, dodging fire from distant opponents and lighting up the sky with ordnance.
Another warning flashed in Argyle's mind. Another ally back in the thick of things, removed from his exhilarating dance. He sneered at it, but he was part of the flight
first. He might have found a fantastic whetstone for honing his skills, but it meant nothing if they lost the battle - or lost
anyone, really.
The next time they passed each other, closer than even before as the two pilots pushed themselves to the edge, the golden fighter's belly was unexpectedly lit up with a clean line of bullet holes from tip to tail. It should have been an impossible angle for a fighter to shoot at, but the evidence was there.
The gold fighter exploded in a long streak, a gold and purple brushstroke of cirrus.
Argyle's Sparrowhawk stood in its humanoid form, its Torrent held in one hand. The change from fighter to mecha was something most pilots outside of NDC space simply didn't expect. He had decided to keep it as a hidden ace for situations like this, only using the fighter's transformative properties when he'd get the maximum effect.
The mecha spun about as parts flipped back into the fighter configuration. It drifted for a moment as Argyle gave his defunct dance partner a two-fingered salute, then the thrusters flared to life and he was on his way towards his training partners.