RP: YSS Miharu Mission 3: The sound of machina

As the planet's atmosphere drew closer Nyton thought about how they could detect the enemy's reported orbit directed energy beam. "Hinoto-san, could you possibly fire off a wide scale penetrating radar pulse across the surface to try and detect weapon emplacements? And would stealth mode still function within the atmosphere given its torrential nature?" he asked.

Miyoko outright cringed as the barrage began to strike Miharu's surface in honest. Just what Kotori was thinking, the sensor specialist hadn't the slightest clue, but she hoped it was incredibly brilliant. At the command, she fired the missile while watching the sensor feed from outside apprehensively, looking for the salvo that would destroy the ship... or some sign that the Taisa hadn't doomed them after all.

"Shields raised. Weapon pods configured for anti-ship combat and ready to be released," Aoiko reported as Nu 3 and 4 closed in. A little longer, and the two Ketsueki corvettes would have a firing solution on Hoshi.

After that, Hinoto turned to answer Nyton's question: "A quick atmospheric entry or active scans is going to make us show up as bright as a bonfire at night on their FCS, Taii. I don't think we can hide with our timetable and yes, we can risk the scans -" Pale eyebrows came together in a frown. "But it might make it ridiculously easy for their FCS to get good target locks on us, not to mention we already have hostiles closing in."

* * *

The vessels attacking Miharu did not relent their attacks. The reinforced ventral shielding and zesuaium plating warded away the worst of the attacks until Kotori implemented the shutdown-startup sequence. In the delay between the shield collapsing and Miyoko triggering the subspace detonator warhead's launch, three AS-5 torpedoes hammered into Miharu.

One smashed into the subdeck's port escape pod compartment, destroying it and savaging the insides of the damage control room before emergency atmospheric fields sealed off the hull breach. Another struck the wing-like fin that was Miharu's port-side gravimetric engine, hard. Hull armor and structural struts explosively flaked away, showing the blackened inner-workings of the drive's exhaust components - Yukari's display showed class-C damage on the port drive. Finally, the last torpedo struck the ship right over the port ventral hatch, spearing right into the multifunction bay beyond. A brilliant explosion impaled the ship, creating a vertical hull breach and opening up the scorched remains of the bay to space.

As Yukari struggled to retain control of the ship, the electronics grizzled with the effects of the subspace detonator warhead. Barely four seconds past that, Miyoko's FCS displays showed enormous internal damage being done to the bridges and computer suites of the Yui destroyers and Ketsueki corvettes that had been attacking them thanks to the Masako's Five-Mindy team teleporting into each of them and releasing all the missile payload thier Death Blossom configuration held. Mu 1, 2 and 4 along with Nu 1 and 2 were labeled 'disabled'.

Which left Epsilon 1, the Obakemono, Eve's former flagship before she left it in favor of commandeering the Takumi. With Miharu's loss of inertia control and Yukari struggling to get her reins back on the ship, the Ayame-class cruiser lurched forward with its thrusters in an attempt to ram Miharu between the twin booms of the charging Legacy Cannon. The ship's navigator obviously scented blood and was totally willing to take advantage of it to bring the battle to a quick end - if it succeeded, Miharu would be pincered between the weapon's two pronged booms and destroyed by the maelstrom of energy crackling between them.

Kotori let out a snarl, baring her teeth. Because of the damage suffered while their shields were dropping, the restart sequence for engines and shields had stalled and reset. On the displays, the Obakemono's crackling prow was getting imminently closer. "Use thrusters to evade! Release weapon pods and fire everything we have on the Shosa's mark!" We can't afford firing AS-7s at this range, but we have three main gun shots left. We can't play their jousting game, but if Yuka can get our nose turned on their flank, we win.

Thrusters were too slow. Yukari knew it as soon as she heard the order. She had already thanked every star in the galaxy that her controls had not faded, but maneuvering thrusters would barely get them out of the way of both prongs, and the navigator on the other end would see what she was doing the moment the first thruster fired.

Sparks from the controls had nearly flown in her eyes.

One more risk, she thought.

Life support systems outside the the Monitor Room were shut down so fast anyone inside them might have died. The gravimetric engines' restart sequence might have been delayed, but the CDD was ready at a moment's notice, and it only needed just enough power to move them one kilometer a few degrees off the port bow. Just one kilometer! The calculations were blazing through Yukari's head as the energy from the life support was shunted toward the partially functioning CDD system. The prongs of the Legacy Cannon were aimed for her eyes.

Chiharu save us! Yukari punched upward, forcefully blasting one of the dorsal thrusters far past what it could take. It barely held for a second before burning out, but the momentum was enough to throw off the Obakemono and make it commit with its own engine thrust. Now it was headed toward the planet's gravity again, and would have less time to move. Just a few seconds!

She slashed her finger across the minimap in her personal display, drawing the path and destination.

The CDD snapped to and hurled the Miharu along the line.

The displays dragged through the slightest of blurs, and snapped to flawed life.

And then the Miharu's bow was pointed at the Obakemono's aft.

"MARK!"

Nyton took his options as quickly as they came. The two enemy ship markers were not quite paired up but they were close enough. "Then perhaps our hosts will be gracious enough to guide us. Have Red 1 and 2 break off to swing wide and engage Nu 3 from it's starboard. Shoi, begin to bring us about hard to port. Hinoto, have Black 1 and 2 launch and come around our starboard side to engage Nu 4. Chui, launch all weapon pods and prepare to use the CFS, we will try to catch Nu 4 between us and the shuttles. Aim for the engines, I want to make sure Nu 4 won't be going anywhere." he said as the markers for Nu 3 and 4 closed in.

If the two fighter/bombers could destroy Nu 3 then all they could all swarm Nu 4 and disable it enough to use in his plan. Otherwise they would have a tougher fight on their hands then anticipated.

"Hai, Taii!" The young Ketsurui scanned her consoles and her floating screens, checking to make sure that there wasn't anything impeding the Hoshi's ability to turn to the left. Impact would probably kill us.... looks like we're clear though. Nothing has opened fire on us yet, so here's hoping!

She took a deep breathe as she quickly began to "wheel" the Hoshi hard to the left as she slightly slowed the ship down, keeping her eye on the empty space where the bulkhead of the auxiliary ship was going to go.

Miyoko deployed the Miharu's full complement of weapons pods, simply ejecting them as they were--a load-out of nothing but pods configured for transplanar phased pulses would probably have been most effective, but in such a situation, they couldn't afford the time to create more. The pods scattered around the vessel as she waited for the order to fire, apprehensively watching the slowly-turning Obakemono's fore drift into place. The order couldn't come soon enough for her.

At Yukari's mark, Miyoko triggered the counter-barrage, every weapon pod lancing their attacks toward the enemy while the Miharu followed suit... and all of them coordinated to fire at the same point on the ship's core, hopefully negating any chance of its shields or armor saving it.

Two shuttlepods emerged from Hoshi as the auxiliary vessel came about, skimming Bowhordia's upper atmosphere to face the two Ketsueki corvettes that were closing in on it.

As Hoshi's discoid weapon pods deployed from its underside, the Ryusei and Uriko closed in as commanded to try and flank Nu 3. To the credit of Nu 3's commander, the corvette made a CDD-assisted spin to face the two fighters and unleashed two AS-5.

In an eyeblink, it was decided. The Ryusei had swerved away just in time to avoid one attack, but the Uriko was not so quick, getting caught head on by the two anti-matter warheads. A white plume blossomed in orbit of the planet.

"Red 1 destroyed, pilot lost," Hinoto reported, somehow keeping her cool despite her reporting the crew's first KIA, even if it was just a sprite. As Nu 3 opened up on Red 2 with weapon pod fire, she added: "Red 2 under fire." She suddenly gasped. "Torpedo l-"

Hinoto and Sora had too little time to react to the torpedo attacks of Nu 4, whom hammered the shields and scorched enough through them to blacken Hoshi's dorsal armor. "Moderate damage to dorsal armor," Aioko reported at the sight of the armor diagram showing yellows. "Shields down to 60%."

"Incoming!" Hinoto yelped, though the CIES' warning came too late - without WARMs - to react in time to beam cannon fire from orbital artillery down on Bowhordia. Clouds parted as the cannon speared through Hoshi's ventral shielding to lance at its underside.

"Moderate damage, ventral armor. Shields down to 40%!" Aoiko reported with more alarm. Without permission, the Chui opened fire on Nu 4, the particle cannons catching the Ketsueki corvette once on the starboard engine pod with their cerulean lightning, the other shots missed low. Weapon pods opened fire as well, but only did minimal damage to the corvette as Nu 4's shields rippled, mitigating the worst of the barrage.

* * *

Obakemono's maneuvering thrusters jetted furiously, with as much desperation as Miharu had a moment before. While the command carrier swung around with a speed belying its bulk, it was too little too late. Light flared as Miyoko decisively unleashed Miharu's armament.

The weapon pods savaged at the centerline of the Ayame-class carrier's hull, riddling the unprotected hull - now lacking zesuaium plating in that location - with heat-impacts. The phase-pulse cannon under Miharu's nose followed an eyeblink later, three brilliant energy bolts slamming into the weakened armor.

The first saturated the armor to its limit, overwhelming it to the extent where its state changed from solid to gaseous in a tremendous explosion that made the Obakemono reel drunkenly away, its hull breached. The next shot gouged the insides, widening and deepening the crater from the first shot significantly. The third plowed through, impaling the Ayame cruiser through and ripping off the base of the pylon on the opposite side, divesting the dying carrier from one of its CFS units.

Four projected lightning strikes from the particle cannons finished the job. One strike was close enough to send a positive energy backlash on the Obakemono's main aether generator. The generator's containment field electronics failed, causing a minute amount of aether to bleed out.

Minute, meaning aether flooded and consumed all matter within a 322 meter radius. It was a brief flash that was superimposed with the Obakemono's disintegrating silhouette... and then nothing but drifting debris. There was no sign of any escape pod.

"Epsilon 1, destroyed," Miharu's AI chimed.

Kotori exhaled, only noticing now that she had been holding her breath. There was no time to exult in their victory as the damage display began flashing, showing that the unshielded Miharu was sustaining minor hits on its ventral side, collectively turning the prow's armor from green to light green.

"This isn't over yet!" Kotori growled out, understanding two hundred or so Lamia armors were trying to gun them know with their aether-powered beam rifles, closing in using their anti-gravity engines. Shields don't seem to be coming back yet. If any number of them get to our hull, those hull-cutting energy swords are going to finish us off. "Shosa, execute an FTL jump to Hoshi's location. Heisho, load two AS-7 transphasic aether warheads in the rear launchers and fire them at the Lamias before they recover, on the Shosa's mark." Preferably once we're not in the blast radius, that is.

Nyton tensed a bit but kept himself steady. He had really not wanted to lose any of their escort. Things had gone bad and now they were at a serious disadvantage. Unfortunately now there was only one fighter against a corvette while they had the other corvette on them. And there was very little their own weapons could do. He couldn't risk the shields any further by projecting beams from the CFS.

"Hinoto, have Black 1 and 2 support Red 2 against Nu 3. Aoiko, shut down those turrets and divert weapon power to the shields so we can maintain speed. We'll just have to try and lose them on the planet's surface. Run active scans on the planet's surface so we know what is down there. I don't think its a question now about whether the orbital guns have spotted us or not." Nyton said rapidly.

Nyton looked directly at Sora and pointed at her as though to greater emphasize his next statement. "Full speed ahead into Bowhordia! Punch it Sora!"

As Kai waited, the Hoshi began shuddering and shaking, as if something were hitting it. Somewhat concerned with what was happening, he asked exactly what was on his mind "Does anybody know what's going on outside? sounds like we hit something."

The single sublight engine Yukari had was able to accept power again, and thankfully the generators feeding that engine were also responding properly, now that her controls had stopped fizzling at her. A large portion of that engine's power was put into the CDD; Yukari's finger drew another line and the ship was there almost instantly, leaving the Lamia armors behind with aether rifles snarling and grasping for them.

Hoshi was close, as were its pursuers.

"Mark!" Yukari called.

This situation was a little harder, with Miyoko needing to find some nice compromise between the torpedo's blast radius, its velocity, and that of the Miharu and the Lamias. She was busy enough that she didn't even have a chance to watch the Obakemono's destruction triumphantly, not that it was time for a victory celebration just yet. Rather more quickly than she would have liked, she plotted out the torpedoes' trajectories, cutting them as close to the Miharu as she could dare while still encompassing all of the power armors. She'd barely completed her calculations when Yukari gave her mark. Almost instantly, the torpedoes were away, and she finally had time to catch her breath.

Sora took a millisecond as she readjusted herself and put the figurative "pedal to the metal" to get the Hoshi going top speed again, instead of slowing the auxiliary ship down for the turn. Oh shit...oh shit...! Mom, please don't let me hit anything! She pointed them towards the planet again and flew as fast as she could get the Hoshi to go, keeping her eyes moving at the displays to make sure she didn't hit anything.

Into the planet! CRAP. Doesn't mean hit the damn thing but still... She was trying to keep her growing anxiety from clouding her vision but the adrenaline was starting to make her hands tremble as she focused all of her concentration on flying.

Tom Freeman was bracing himself in his armor.

"We're being engaged," he said calmly, gripping his rifle. "When we hit the ground, we probably have to hit the ground running."

Bowhordia was getting closer. A few more moments and he would have to confront the past, once and for all.

His grip tightened.

((SHOOT REPOST FOR FRED))

Two torpedoes to wipe out swarms of power armor was a bit on the overkill side, but with only small armor assets at Miharu's disposal, Kotori really couldn't afford them taking any chances. Transphasic aetheric explosions swept across the space the Obakemono had formerly occupied, sweeping hundreds of M1 Lamia armors aside like a tidal wave, leaving no further signs of life behind.

The Fire Control System confirmed to Miyoko the death of 200 nekovalkyrja in power armor.

Ahead Miharu, Hoshi veered down sharply and made a rush into the planet's atmosphere, its shield bubble flashing fiery red as the auxiliary ship plummeted down. Nu 4 pursued, releasing a torpedo volley that hammered Hoshi's rear as well as weapon pod fire and projected energy beams. The Hoshi's shields appeared to collapse, the beam weapon fire digging scars in the descending vessel's dorsal hull. A beam firing from the planet, narrowly missing high thanks to Sora making the auxiliary ship plunge towards the planet.

Meanwhile, the Ryusei fighter and the shuttles fought a desperate battle to stall Nu 3. The Ketsueki corvette's weapon pods alone seemed sufficient to score occasional hits on the shield systems of all three crafts, forcing them mostly on the defensive. Nu 3's shields had been compromise to a degree with shield collapsing warhead and it had sustained armor damage, but that made the escort corvette merely bloodied rather than wounded.

Kotori knew things were going downhill for the fightercraft, but she couldn't allow Hoshi, already in a piteous state, to sustain further damage. She gave the fighters engaging Nu 3 the command to widen their engagement range and ordered: "Shosa, stand ready for evasive maneuvers and keep both hostiles to our fore. Heisho, open fire Nu 4 with particle cannons and weapon pods. Lock and load two anti-matter AS-7s on Nu 3 and fire when ready."

* * *



Hoshi seemed to be shaking itself appear as to was wreathed with anti-matter explosions. "Shields are down," Aoiko reported. "We lost two weapon pods. Class-C damage to gravimetric engines, dorsal armor breached - emergency forcefields activated in the lounge."

"Ground artillery located," Hinoto called in turn. "A Projected Energy Cannon in the mountain range close were our objective is. We have 16 incoming contacts closing in - ground-to-air anti-ship tactical missiles. Delay-to-impact at present course is thirty seconds. Detecting Air-to-Air drones being deployed from ground launchers - numbers 200 and increasing."

In the launchbay Mara quipped: "Thank you for choosing to fly with Hoshi Airlines. For your safety, please keep all limbs inside the vehicle while we are bombarded with Anti-Ma- aiyee!" There was a little cough. "Bit my tongue!"

Nyton had to set aside his thoughts to stay focused although one that managed to wrest free was that of excitement. The thrill of the battle had begun to fill him even as he listened to the grim report. "Shoi, aim us straight down into a steep dive. Keep it as long as you can before pulling out of it as close to the surface as possible. Chui, converge all remaining weapon pods forward to our bow. Concentrate fire on the missles and drones to cut us a path. Hinoto, see if you have enough power to use the graviton beams. Snatch any missiles that get past the pods to redirect them around us toward Nu 4 or the drones."

Hopefully the gravitational pull of the planet would boost their speed enough to help them compensate for the damage to the gravimetric engines. Maybe even throw off the missle trajectory enough to overshoot around them before they could correct themselves. If they couldn't clear the air a bit then they would have to slingshot the Armor teams away from Hoshi. At least the ground mission would still have a chance to commence.

"Understood, Taisa." Bridge duty might not have been quite as emotionally demanding as being on the frontlines, and it certainly wasn't as physically demanding, but Miyoko still wasn't getting much of a reprieve, her every moment filled with calculations, trajectory plots, and targeting sequences. She had the Miharu begin the series of preparing another pair of torpedoes to fire, while she began raining punishment down on one of the unlucky Ketsuekis with the ship's cannons and the weapon pods, concentrating on the starboard side where it had already taken a good hit from the Hoshi. The moment the interface informed her that the torpedoes were away, they were off, and the Heisho went back to directing the bombardment of Nu 4.

"Going down, Taii!" The Shoi replied as she aimed the Hoshi downwards into a dive towards the planet. She was sweating in her chair as she kept her eyes on the steadily approaching ground and her proximity warnings. She figured she might only have a few seconds to pull the nose of the ship upwards once she got into range before she risked crashing the Hoshi.

Mother, Miss Chiharu, and whomever is listening out there, please don't let us splatter against this mountain side! Please, please, please, let us survive this mission!

Hoshi veered up sharply from its dive, leveling up a scant 800 meters off the ground, stirring up loose dirt from cracked badlands covering Bowhordia's surface. The 10 weapon pods floating by the auxiliary ship's side opened fire at the targets Nyton had ordered, quickly mowing down the incoming missiles and beginning to pick at the drones - pyramidal p-like constructs roughly as large as a power armor's torso.

"328 drones detected. 292. 391. 359. Still closing in." Hinoto reported as new drones sprang to replace those whom were destroyed. "New missile launch: sixteen more coming our way in 21 seconds and counting."

The horizon before Hoshi lit up with explosions, though the destroyed pyramidal drones and cruise missiles could not compare to the flashes above Bowhordia's atmosphere. The 2 AS-7 torpedoes Miyoko targeting at Nu 3 struck true, completely breaching past the corvette's already weakened shielding before consuming it in its entirety.

The particle weapon fire from Miharu struck Nu 4 twice over its starboard engine pod and dorsal armor. Man-made blue lightning crackled angrily over the impact points, splintering armor plates and hull supports as well as ruining half the Ketsueki's FTL engine and shielding capabilities.

However, Miyoko's next particle cannon shots failed to hit. Nu 4, in an attempt to evade Miharu's attacks, had dived everybit as sharply toward the planet as Hoshi had. While it did not manage to find any good targeting solutions on Hoshi with that kind of high speed maneuver, it also left a healthy bit of atmosphere between Miharu and it, so causing the lighting to discharge into the upper atmosphere, short from the intended target. Weapon pod fire did hit the Ketsueki corvette, but that much the smaller vessel's shields could cope with.

Kotori frowned in confusion as Nu 4 leveled off from its dive and screamed over the badlands in pursuit of Hoshi. Something about the defensive measures being employed for the ground outpost's sake felt off to her. Something's not right - I don't see why they are making so much of an effort into stalling this much. They could have used the drones a lot better if they had hoarded them until Hoshi got closer. Aside from adding up pressure, the missiles are pretty much useless if they have such long delays-to-impact.

"Shosa, inform the Black Knights that they and the remaining fightercrafts are to provide air-to-air cover for Hoshi," she paused, the uneasy feeling still nagging her and then added: "Ask Hoshi to be on the lookout for the activities of the outpost itself." Kotori's amber eyes then turned to Miyoko. "Heisho, switch main gun to beam mode and finish off Nu 4."

Yukari angled the ship toward Nu 4, but kept the CDD field up, even as she was using sublight power. The field was her transmitter, allowing her to fire off the tachyon pulses that would provide communication.

"Black Knights, Miharu,," Yukari said aloud for Kotori's benefit. "Scramble. Cover Hoshi." The message was transmitted easily, as the Knights were close. "Hoshi, Miharu. Watch the outpost. Report activities when able via tachyon pulse." The short-burst transmission hit Hoshi without interference, mostly because the vessel had gone higher into the atmosphere.

Yukari throttled forward and closed in on Nu 4, noting shields had not come back yet.