RP: 21st Fighter Sq [Mission 2.0] Rescue with a side order of Calamari

Yaeko glanced down at the shuttle. "Damn it! You're right Silic, the shuttle's untouched, they're trying to distract us. "Munkata to escort party, the drone's are a distraction, cover the shuttle." Yaeko barreled to the side, blasting down a couple drones as she went, and accelerated to full speed to catch up to the shuttle.

Saori jerked her fighter about trying to keep up with her flight lead through the swirl of combat. Cutting engine output, she opened up the distance some on the track and to allow for a clearer shot if a drone tried to come up behind Atsui.

Always she kept one eye on the clock, ticking down the seconds until the cavalry arrived.

OOC: (Still not entirely sure what's going on buuut))

Ren, sitting in her fighter parked in orbit, noticed the FTL footprints on her scanners. She bit into her binky, and gnawed on it thoughtfuly. "FTL footprint" she tells the others, somewhat redundantly "At least two drone carriers, remainder are unknown classes." She begins to try to get a better read off of the ships, especialy the drone carriers. There might be a way to disrupt or hack the carriers to get the drones to turn against the other NMX. Ren racked her scant memories of the technical specs of known NMX vessels to see if she could work something out.

(OOC: Drone = automated right?)

The breakdown of the enemy warships was seven destroyers and one battle ship. The battleship hung back with the destroyers forming a picket line between it and the planet. The Type 30A Battlepods were closing on the squadron position rapidly.

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Atsui pivoted her fighter to face the incoming threat, "Hoshi, keep an eye out for our earlier contact, they do not seem intent on attacking us at the moment, but they could always change their mind." she said looking over her shoulder.

"All Diamonds, stay with your wingman, and engage the enemy, stay close to the planet, remember our job is to protect the shuttle, so do not let them lure you away." she sent to the squadron. She started accelerating towards the enemy, switched to cannons, and fired all four at the closest battlepod. It was with satisfaction that she watched the battlepod explode.

One down, clock is ticking, hurry up Heitan. she thought.

As their fighter approached the shuttle Silic radioed it, checking up on the crew “Rescue-One this is Diamond-Four-One, how are you doing in there? Over.”

"Diamond Four-One, we are sixty seconds from touch down. Scope clear, nothing out of the ordinary below. We are picking up a two ground vehicles 15 km out, but they are not heading this way." As the shuttle flew over the wreckage of the Youkai, the pilot could see how badly the ship was damaged, as parts of it lay twisted and broken along the impact path.

"Diamond Four-One, we have visual on the Youkai. That anyone survived is a miracle." the pilot sent, as they brought the shuttle down hear the main fuselage. "Rescue-one is on site, EMS personnel proceeding to evacuate the survivors." The pilot sent again as the shuttle doors opened and four soldiers climbed out. Two other soldiers took up positions in the door with weapons out scanning the forest for anything suspicious.

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Above the planet the NMX battlepods continued to streak towards the squadron and unleashed a storm of missiles towards them.

Yaeko widened the scope on her sensors and set them to detect movement of large ground objects. "Rescue One, we will do a sweep of the vehicle. We should make sure it isn't a transport that has deployed troops or something of the type. Report immediately if you notice anything unusual or see an incoming on radar." Yaeko accelerated and headed towards the vehicle at a slight angle and then did a slight bank over the vehicles location as she turned around, making sure to peek out her window to identify the vehicle.

Tai was doing her best to avoid being hit by the smaller drones, practically pushing her skills to the limits, especially when the missiles popped. She hoped she had something on this fighter to combat that beyond shooting them down and dodging, turning about to try and launch a counter attack while trying to outrun the missiles. "Rapier here, not sure how much longer I can last with out some kind of back up." she reported on the channel, knowing she might not get any due to the sheer amount of drones and battle pods that were out there. Right after she said that, her fighter shook with an explosion on her right wing, rattling her a little inside.

Yeako and Silic's fighter dispersed an aether plasma flare from its countermeasure pod every few seconds as it approached and then passed the vehicle.

A number of the atmospheric drones, followed Yaeko and Silic's fighter, but were no longer firing. As they flew over the vehicle, they saw that it was a ground transport, attached to it was a trailer with a number of large logs stacked upon it. In the distance they could see what appeared to be lumber harvesting operation.

Silic began recording sensor data about the vehicle and the logging facility for later review, keeping an eye on the drones tailing them.

“Diamond-Four-One to Rescue-One, vehicle appears to be harmless, but we've picked up a few tails.” Silic's eyes turned to the back of Yaeko's chair, he could never quite tell what the crazy neko was going to do so he cut the call there. “Over.”

Message sent and recording's complete he turned his full attention to the drones behind them, he stopped the aether flares for now and aimed the tiny weapon at the drones behind them. Using the countermeasure pod as a tail gun was perhaps not the most orthodox way of using it, but it had been somewhat effective against drones in the previous battle as a distraction.

Yaeko curved towards the shuttle and sped back towards it. At roughly 5km from the shuttle she banked to a 90 degree turn and then started slowly curving. "Rescue One, we will circle the shuttle from a 5 kilometer radius to help detect any incoming unfriendlies. Watch out for the drones, you never know what they may be carrying, when they'll decide to attack, or who they're sending data about us to. Over!"

Nobutora stifled a snarl of rage and instead slammed his fist against the frame of his main displays. Worthless canned subroutines! he thought to himself venomously. He had taken his EW systems down upon the Chui's order to reconfigure for NMX, but the system had gone even farther and decided to do a complete diagnostic reboot. Trapped in automated start-up processes, the system had proved unresponsive to his ministrations, leaving him to try to hide with his stealth systems from the wall of battlepods. Finally, the last loading command line disappeared and the normal input screen popped up. His hands flew as he reconfigured the EW specifications with the sensor input he had been collecting in the interim. With any luck, the tailored electronic attacks would prove more effective, but at this point he was too desperate for any ECW or ECCW function to care. Finally prepared, he slammed his hand on the volumetric key and brought his systems back to life.

“All units, 0101. Buzzers and music are back up. Going active with all systems.” His task complete, for the moment, he returned his attention to his fire control systems. Uncharacteristically emotional – namely enraged – he was ready and eager to kill something.

Ira stayed managed to reunite with his wingman, and began sticking to his six like white on rice. "Sorry about that, things got a little hectic." Ira said to Nobutora calmly.

"You still hanging in their?"

"Roger that 0041, Rescue team is working on opening the hatch. All quiet..." the pilot of Rescue one signaled. At that moment, Yaeko's threatcon went off. A surface to air missile was closing rapidly on her six.

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The rest of the squadron now were in a target rich environment, with hostiles on all vectors. Atsui was flying evasive more than offensive, firing only when she had a target of opportunity. She unleashed a volley of missiles closing on Saori's fighter.

Meanwhile Nobutora's electronic counter strike bought the squadron a brief respite, as the drones changed operating modes to deal with his interference. A group of four drones streaked past Ira and Nobutora.

Yaeko jumped as her sensors started going off. "Rescue one, rescue one. Incoming enemy missile on my rear, be ready to deploy countermeasures if the missile changes direction or more missiles appear inbound." She tucked into a barrel roll as she yelled back to Silic. "Get that thing away from us, the last thing we need is to get stranded in the god damned forest again!"

Their fighter was already responding, a mixture of chaff and flares leaving a bright trail as the fighter rolled. As it reached the peak of it's roll a third system on the countermeasure began lining up a shot. As the missile approached the 103M section on the pod readied itself, if they couldn't avoid the missile, they were going to blow it out of the sky.

The chaos of the situation was nightmarish, but Nobutora was briefly satisfied to see his EW working to turn things in their favor. Then, the four drones zipped right passed him. Slewing his Teisatsu hard around to a hot aspect, he opened up his comms. “Leakers, leakers. Four leakers moving through the defensive shell. Splitting to engage, over.”

He opened his throttle completely up, fighting to overcome his previous momentum and gain velocity in pursuit of the drones. The maneuvering had left him in a perfect position for a quick snap-shot, so he rapidly designated the four targets, setting his weapon guidance systems to infrared to track the aft-thrusters of the enemy units. With a murderous grip, he squeezed the firing stud on his control stick, sending a quartet of mini-missiles tearing downrange. “Fox-two, fox-two. Four away.”

The missile streaking towards 0041 diverted and struck the flare detonating harmlessly behind the Kawarime. A moment later the threatcon detected another launch, this time Silic could see that the point of fire was a hill to their starboard. A ground vehicle with what appeared to be a missile launcher attached. A moment after the first missile fired, a second plume indicated another launch.

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Nobutora's missiles struck the battlepods, impacting on the engines of the pods. Causing them to spin out of control briefly and flip over to close on their attacker.

The shields on 0044 flared briefly, Ira's craft was rocked as it was struck by two of the turrets from a pod. 0044's shields stabilized at about 60% of strength, and the pod unleashed all of its missiles. The missiles began searching for any target.

With the chaos ensuing it was hard to get a handle of every thing that was coming his way, and his fighter shuddered when the pod's turret struck his craft and slowed him down. "This is 0044 I am hit, all systems are green, shields are at 60%."

With that Ira stabilized his craft and was hot Nobutora's tail. Ira found him self acting as a kind of guard to the odd little craft that had actually managed to give the squids so much hell.

He fired up his throttle in order to tail Nobutora, as he did this fired off his fighter's countermeasures in an effort to halt the tracking of those missiles.

Racing after his wingman, Ira soon found another pod moving in on Nobutora, Ira veered off slightly, and opened up on the offending ship with his Aether cannon.