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RP: 21st Fighter Sq [Mission 1.1] Defense of Ryou

Behind Yaeko, Silic yelled too, first in pain as he slammed against his harness, head snapping forward painfully, then in panic as the Kawarime began falling.

"Sorry," Yaeko shrieked. She quickly started diverting power away from all the systems and to engines and steering. She switched off of SPINE, grabbed the steering console, and pulled back with all her might. "Come on, go up, GO UP!!"

As the Kawarime status indicators continued to flash STALL.

Silic scream cut off as he gritted his teeth and got back in control, his fear turning into anger. He quickly looked over Yaeko's slap dash power settings, “Push the nose down!” he shouted, fiddling with a set of buttons on his console. His plan was simple use the manoeuvring thrusters designed to vacuum environments to pitch the nose down and hopefully get air flowing over the control surfaces again, allowing Yaeko to regain control.

The nose thrusters forced the Kawarime's pitch to change which combined with the additional power Yaeko was applying caused enough smooth airflow over the wings and controls that the fighter started to respond. The stall warning lamp extinguished and as the Kawarime continue to gain airspeed the craft stabilized.
 
Yaeko let out a sigh of relief. "Sorry about that Solitaire, taking you wing now." Yaeko piloted the craft back into position beside the Chui. "Can you redirect the power and get everything back to normal?" Yaeko asked as she picked out a target and got ready to fire.
 
"Solitaire, to all Diamonds, tighten up formation. Lead fighters will engage any fighter that crosses their flight path, wingmen will cover their six. We made a small dent, and at least for a moment the Mishhu are scattered. Let's make the most of it. Munkata and Ramirez take point, Tarrim and I will cover you. Then we'll switch off."
 
Silic gritted his teeth again as Yaeko pulled up, a bit of hard gee pushing him into his seat. As they stabilised he replied “Can do.” and began working away at his console, after a few seconds “Power balance restored, no damage. Nice recovery.” he commented, his head already swivelling around looking for hostiles.

The set up he'd adjusted was fairly conservative, again with slight boosts in gee resistance and engine power. He'd kept it flexible for the fight, just in case.
 
"Hai!" Yaeko shouted to the Chui. She adjusted her formation ad chose a target. "Thanks Vas-Hei, firing!" She pulled down on her triggers and fired at her enemy as she sped past it. Once she was clear she looped around and lowered her speed, allowing the other two fighters to take point. "Solitaire, I've got your six."
 
If Minoru had bothered to look out of the canopy at the trials Yaeko and Silas were going through, he would likely have lost a decade of his lifespan from worry. As it was that job was all too happily taken up by the large numbers of Mishhu battlepods whirling about a populated civilian airspace.

He tried not to think of what the wreckage falling from the sky was doing, nor the likely countless mid-air explosions, sonic booms, and such. His stomach did another lurch as another high gee maneuver was pulled. Right now he didn't bother with the power settings. Honestly, he didn't have the technical know-how to make heads or tails of what the settings actually did. And for another, he had his hands full just operating the countermeasure module, attempting to fire an aether flare at any blip that headed their way on the sensors.
 
Atsui had followed Yaeko as they cut a swatch into the battlepods. She kept any battlepod from trying to get in behind his fighter with a healthy dose of pain from her cannons, by her count they had taken down another four of the blasted pods. But the air was still think with them.

"Solitaire, taking point." She said moving into the forefront of the formation. She banked and lined up on a cluster of battlepods. She headed towards them firing her cannons as she targeted a battlepod, and followed up with four missiles from her pod to finish it off while she shifted her cannons to the next one. She made note of how many more missiles were in the pod as it would not be wise to run out at a bad time.

---------------------------------------------

As the formation flew on Solitaire's trajectory, several of the battlepods took shots at the fighters with their cannons. The fighter shields flared with the hits but were still holding for now.
Cutter in the back of the fighter unleashed another streamer to divert a pair of missiles fired towards them. He finished the missiles off with a series of shots from the Starfire. Streamers down to ten, have to conserve them. he thought.
 
Deep breath, deep breath. Minoru calmed himself. After all, he was still in one piece. Mentally going over the 17 Principles helped to clear his mind, allowing him to look up. Yes, they were still alive. Which meant he still had work to do. Heat monitors in the fighter were showing a build-up in the starboard engine, maybe due to faulty wiring or something jostled in the coolant system. It took him a bit to find it, but he was able to locate the engine settings controls, lowering the starboard engine's load to take some of the heat off and compensating by shunting the excess over to the port side.

"Juni, the starboard engine has a heat buildup. I'm having the port side take up the slack, but we should probably try and keep the engine load a little lighter."


His eyes caught the vitals monitor as he went back to his controls. As the medic, he had heard maintainance had wired crew vital signs to his station. Better to monitor them and all that. one more thing to try and keep track of. He thought he saw a flicker across one of the feeds, an irregularity. He watched for a couple of seconds. Yes, there it was again. He flipped on his headset's mic.

"Cutter, this is Doc. I'm showing some irregularity in your vital signs. Everything alright over there?"

Waiting for an answer, he let his eyes drift to his other monitors. He couldn't make all that much of half of them without thinking about it for a second or so. A couple were more intuitive. One of which was the external sensors. He switched his mic to internal.

"Juni, Battlepod comm traffic just showed a spike and I'm getting some odd energy fluctuations from them. I'm not sure what to make of it."
 
Yaeko followed in behind the Juni and fired on any battle pods that tried to close in behind her. Once the Juni had cleared the cloud of battlepods Yaeko fired a few shots at a pod in front of her before zooming out the other end of the cloud. She quickly half-looped the fighter back towards the enemies and barrel-rolled to level herself before accelerating. "Munkata-Hei, taking point." She fired her cannons at any battle pod she could see, fluctuating her speed every now and again to make sure that the enemy she was firing at was finished off.
 
Silic groaned as the manoeuvres took a toll on his stomach, he gripped the sides of the cockpit desperately while his face turned pale. As the plane came out of the barrel roll Silic recovered slightly, at least enough to grunt “If man were meant to fly, he'd have been Elysian.”, swallowing an unmentionable substance. Talking to Yaeko as he returned to his console “There are too many of them, I can't keep track!” he exclaimed, eye's darting, unable to watch all the contacts on his screen.
 
"Doc, Cutter here. I'm having some difficulty breathing. Getting a bit light headed. One sec." Yoshi took a moment to check his equipment, as he shifted he could hear a hissing sound. "Doc, I've got a problem, looks like my air supply cable has a nick, its causing me to lose pressure. I am going to try to effect some repairs and adjust my O2 levels to compensate."

-------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile in the space above Daichi the battle between the warships continued to wage. The Audacious an Arashi-class Escort was heavily damaged and floating dead in space. The space around the ships was filled with fighters and battlepods. Blatgroflp the commander of the NMX forces was seeing his glorious victory fading. The large flat object that he took for a station, had deployed an unexpected number of fighters and surprisingly no power armors. The fighters were decimating his battlepods. He ordered his forces on the planet to divide. Two thirds were to rejoin the NMX ships and help protect them while they withdrew. The others were ordered to ram into any viable target.

---------------------------------------------------

The NMX battlepods suddenly changed tactics. Several of them instead of trying to maneuver for firing solutions began accelerating at maximum directly towards the Kawarimes.

Atsui accelerated and pulled a high gee roll to narrowly avoiding being struck. Yoshi unfortunately distracted by trying to fix his airline slammed his helmet against the side of the cockpit stunning him.
 
"Wha- What is this?" shouted Silic, looking at his screens for a second before he realised the change in the battlepods behaviour "Get us out of here!" he screamed at Yaeko desperately.
 
Minoru quickly braced himself as the Kawarime suddenly went through some acrobatics to avoid the incoming battlepod kamikazes. He silently thanked whoever had made the cockpit a little small for him, as it allowed his large frame to more easily press his limbs against the sides to anchor himself for the wild ride. The result was that it felt rather like an amusement park ride. If said ride were going in excess of supersonic speeds while making hard angle turns and a meteor shower was going on combined with an impromptu fireworks celebration.

He checked his vital monitor again, seeing if Cutter had gotten that air intake fixed and his oxygen intake back to normal. Solitaire's vitals were within acceptable limits. Elevated heart rate, increased adrenaline in the bloodstream, and increased endorphin levels. All indicative of a body on high alert, and normal for a combat situation. It would be more unusual for the vitals to be "normal". Which made Cutter's current status all the more alarming. Heart rate had slowed dramatically, as had breathing. Adrenaline levels had dropped off while endorphin levels were abnormally high and very slowly decreasing. It took less than a second for Minoru's medical instincts to evaluate the symptoms. Sudden shock and trauma, followed by unconsciousness. Probably a head wound. And there may be a concussion. Just perfect....

So many things could go wrong in this situation. A concussion could be very dangerous, even in perfectly normal circumstances. More so if the person was unconscious in a jostling aircraft in combat, unable to brace himself. Minoru didn't know if Cutter had loosened up to check on his air intake. And since he probably wasn't conscious Cutter wouldn't be able to fix that either, which meant he wouldn't be getting enough oxygen. And if he wasn't secured....

Swiftly he took a hand to switch his mic to external.

"Solitaire, this is Doc. Be advised that my monitor reads your EWO as incapacitated, probably unconscious. Please confirm and ensure he is secured."
 
Yaeko executed a snap roll in an attempt to avoid the battlepod. The pod unfortunately corrected and struck the Kawarime just aft of the cockpit. Multiple warning indicators started flashing, as the fighter shields collapsed. The wounded fighter struggled to recover as Yaeko fought at the controls. The control surfaces on the starboard wing were sluggish at best. She was using the throttle controls to help her regain control of the fighter. "Solitaire, we're hit. Its not good but I think I can keep her flying ma'am." she sent over the comm, switching to intercom she said to Silic, "Vas-Hei see what you can do to help with the control systems."


-------------------------------------------

Shit. Atsui thought. She looked at the monitor that showed her Cutter. She took a second to observe if he was strapped or not. She rocked the fighter and Cutter's head and body moved with it.

"Doc, Solitaire, Cutter is definitely out cold. He's strapped into his seats but he apparently loosened the upper restraints trying to fix his air supply problem. His helmet is open. I can try adjusting the cockpit environment, increasing oxygen levels if you think that will help." She replied.
 
Minoru continued to monitor Cutter's vitals, silently cursing to himself that they couldn't show him more about the situation.

"Solitaire, Doc. Please do so. I also recommend keeping to the outskirts of the fight and avoidance of sharp maneuvers. Since we don't know how severe his injury is we should assume that it is serious. So if this keeps up for much longer I will send a request for medical clearance for you to exit the combat zone and get Cutter to medical facilities. Tarim-Juni and I can try to cover you until we can get him out."

He switched to internal.

"Juni, Solitaire's EWO is incapacitated with a head injury and loose in the straps. We should cover for her until she can get out of the fight."
 
"I copy, Doc." Kail said, banking around.

She moved the Kawarime's path so that her field of fire covered the area above Solitaire's fighter. She also pulled back on the speed and inched the nose up slightly to gain altitude gradually.

Checking systems once more, Kail raced back toward her CO. If Battlepods could think, Kail hoped they would be praying if they came anywhere near Atsui and Cutter.
 
“Wow!”cried Silic as the battlepod crashed into the fighter just behind him, instinctively ducking down as far as his loose shoulder straps would let him. Quickly recovering, he got back to work “Shields are gone, hold on, I'll up the CFS!” he replied, too busy tapping buttons to watch the air space around them “We should probably bug out, we might not make it home as is!” nerves making him talk loudly. His breathing was fast but not ragged, he was scared but still in control.
 
Atsui adjusted the controls for the cabin atmosphere, "Doc I've increased the oxygen level by 20%. As for the maneuvering no promises. Once we are out of this mess I plan on diverting to Ryou. They have medical facilities and are a hell of a lot closer.
 
"No, I've got it." Yaeko yelled to Silic. She struggled to regain control of the fighter and gently pull it out of the dive. Suddenly she panicked and pulled up on the fighter a little too much. Red lights started flashing everywhere as they started plummeting even faster. "Shit, it stalled, there's nothing more I can do, ejecting!" Yaeko smashed the glass over the eject button and punched it.
 
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