RP: 21st Fighter Sq [Mission 4.0] - Breaking the Dam

Elisto's experiment confirmed his suspicion, a precise hit at the coordinates he found, caused the exploit he wanted. The bomber's systems seemed to falter as a feedback was created by the blast. Elisto had the satisfaction of seeing his shots wound the bomber while its shields collapsed.

The Gunboats were continuing to hammer at the other bombers, while another of the Hayai succumbed to the assault. When the smoke and debris cleared, the fighters showed there were no enemy craft in firing range at the moment. The Diamonds had a brief respite and could resume their course.

One of the Gunboats that had joined the Diamonds moved away from the others and within grappling range of Errowyn's cockpit pod. Using the graviton beam they brought the pod into their cargo bay and regrouped with the Diamonds.

Once pressure was in the cargo hold of the Gunboat, one the ship technicians came over and cycled the canopy. "Welcome aboard the Lucky Hand, you okay?"

Yaeko cursed loudly as she watched the friendly missile narrowly miss them. God damned computers, they almost got us killed.... Seeing one of the bombers being taken out so easily she radioed in. "Eliso, two things. First, watch your wavefront, you almost got me an Tin Man killed. Secondly, how did you manage to take out the bomber so easily?" Yaeko continued to make rounds at a separate bomber, since hers had been taken out by the stray missile.

Emiyu broke her radio silence shortly after Ellisto test fired his new theory on one of the new bombers. Her voice was garbled over the intercom " Sorry Sir, I had a little trouble with a Pod back here ." she said, looking over her shoulder at the wreckage of a battle pod, sticking her tongue out before she formed up behind her wingman.

Her heartrate was through the roof and her system was flooded with adrenaline. She was under considerable emotional stress at the moment, but rather then panic it was more like anger. Several scorch marks dotted the side of her V-8 from glancing blows of the pods, but she had no serious internal damage. " Forgive me, sir. I'm a bit shaken right now. Good work on those bombers, sir." she said, her voice a bit shakey. Even her craft seemed to wobble a bit in reaction to her enraged state.

Elisto grinned at the bomber that he had just attacked, and the successful experiment he had just performed he then went about disabling the bomber further by taking out its engines. That was when he heard Yaeko's call and winced when she mentioned the missile that almost hit them. "Apologize for that," he spoke apologetically and turned down the power he was putting into the jammer, though he actually had no way of actually telling the missiles where to go or who to hit, it was all chance... and luck.

He glanced back at the bomber, floating there in space, he gave a thoughtful nod before sending off another message to Yaeko

"Sensors picked up on something with the bombers shields, had to perform a little test to see if it worked, to my surprise. It does." He sent the data from his sensors to his squadmates. "There is a small weakness in the shields that you need to exploit from a certain angle, time it properly, and you'll blast the shields apart and disable the bomber temporarily, that'll give you the chance you need to either fully disable it or destroy it." When he was done speaking he heard the message from Emiyu and lightly shook his head before responding.

"Not a problem, just calm your mind and take in a few deep breaths. Don't let your adrenaline control you, while that might be great in a ground battle, up here it is not. It can cloud your judgement, cause you to make mistakes. Regardless, you're doing great, just take a few breaths," he wasn't going to chew out the pilot for leaving his side, mostly because he was in a good mood right now.

"Sending data to Heitan," he sent and transmitted his finding to the Heitan. Hopefully, perhaps the gunships and other squadrons in the area could exploit that same weakness - but he knew that the NMX may find a way around it, or even, patch it completely.

With the area cleared for now, he allowed himself a moments respite to take in a few deep breaths of his own before going right back to work in analyzing sensor data. His mind, however, was stlil on that missile stuck in his wing.

His damage panel was showing the breach, but there was no indication of it being armed, so he would just ignore it for the time being. Parsing the data, analyzing it, then he seperated it into assorted categories.

One category was for the bomber, and detailed its statistics, speed, power, shield rating, and loadouts that he had detected. It also showed where the shield weak point presently was, and how to exploit it, he also went as far as quickly drawing up an attack vecture for use by his squadmates, which when he was done he sent that along as well to the squad.

The other for the battlepods. Although they had plenty of data on the pods, he was being thorough, nothing seemed different about the pods in terms of their shield ratings, weapons, speed, and agility. Normal pods, as far as his sensors and eyes could see.

Finally was the last category, which held sensor reports on nearby debris, unspent munitions that hadn't exploded and were just lazily hanging around in space. He tagged a few destroyed battlepods, and even the bomber he had just hit for later salvage. He also went about tagging pieces of other bombers in the area, though not intact, he knew they could still shine some light on thier design and construction and perhaps even, assist them on bettering their own weapons.

Last, but certainly not least, he checked to see where Errowyn was. During the battle he had only caught a glimpse of one of fighters being destroyed, it worried him since he couldn't really do anything but when he saw that her pod had been picked up he let out a sigh of relief and went back to his work.

Ira gritted his teeth as saw Errowyn's fighter get destroyed. Her beacon began transmitting noting she had made it out alive. "Errowyn is down, but she managed to eject."

Ira snarled as he fell in behind that enemy bomber. "Say good night." Ira hissed as he opened up on the bomber with his Aether cannon.

::Gunboat Lucky Hand::

Errowyn opened one eye at hearing the familiar language and concern in the voice of the Technician. Miaow!" Full of bluster and bravado, yet clearly shaken as she opened her visor once it registered it was safe to, "I though I would trade in my Kawarime for a gunboat. And that you guys needed a real pilot to fly this crate!"

Eyes showed much relief and thanks as she unstrapped herself from the cockpit pod. She gracefully accepted the help out of the confines of what was left of -0053. She looked at it as it flight recorder info would be reviewed by the Board of Inquirey. Would they find the recordings of the gremilins that plagued her assigned ship.

She reflected, as she stretched to get the blood flowing properly, of her past encounters. She had gotten lucky and these NMX were definitey seasoned veterans of past encounters of a determined enemy and survived.

Errowyn sighed as her words in the interview with the Chui, now Taii, came back to haunt her,..."Yumeoibiti Santo-Hei is honored to be accepted by Numa-Chui into her squadron. I'll do my best not to soil this momentous occasion." . She sighed softly as she assisted the ship technician tie down her pod so it wouldn't shift in flight.

Kenshin rolled his fighter away from the path of the enemy bomber that had been his and Akemi's target, pulling back towards one of the gunboats they were meant to be escorting.

"Ouch... that's gonna leave a mark." the pilot said, whilst looking at his sensor information for the dying NMX ship. Enough weapons fire from both Tamahagane Akemi and himself impacted upon the target to cause its demise -- the bomber's hull was rupturing, spitting our brief spurts of fire that quickly died out when starved for air. Electricity crackled over the hull and metal shards began to break off and spin away out into the depths of the void. Finally there was a blinding flash, as the ships reactor blew and took the bombers deadly torpedo payload with it. The destruction of the projectiles added fuel to the fire, sending out a teal blast-wave of aether energy that would devastate anything too slow to avoid its path.

After the explosion settled, leaving onto a smattering of charred and melted debris, it seemed that the space in the immediate vicinity was clear of combat for the moment save for the Honcho taking his vengeance upon the straggling bomber that had taken our Errowyn's fighter-- the other enemy craft seemed to have withdrawn outside weapons range.

"Okay Tamahagane-Hey, let's regroup with the gunboats and the rest of the Diamond's before those squiddies come back to hit us again." Using this brief respite, Kenshin diverted energy from his ships engines to the CFS, increasing the recharge rate slightly -- he was going to need it when those bombers and pods came back.

Akemi boosted her Kawarime out of the expanding debris blast of the bomber she and her wingman Kenshin had finished off.


"Right behind you Murasaki-Hei. I don't mind saying, I hope we do not run into any more of those bombers." she sent following him back to the squadron.

Once she was sure they had a few minutes of quiet time she sent the commands to her fighter to recharge the CFS, while she took stock of her munitions and the fighter's status. There were a number of yellow indicators on her status board, systems that had sustained some damage but operating good enough in her book.

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As Elisto compiled his data on the bombers for transmission, he noticed an anomaly in his data. Of the bombers they encountered only the one he destroyed had the shield issue. It was possible that the craft had some defect. He would need more data before making a recommendation to try to target it.

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Once her cockpit was secured, the technician looked at her, "Come with me, our commander will want you on the bridge. The Lucky Hand is built for speed and maneuvering. With some tricks most Star Army ships don't have. I believe he is going to want you to take the helm, so let's not keep him waiting."

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Behind the Diamond the other surviving fighter squadrons fell into position behind the 21st. A third of the fighters launched from the Heitan were gone, as well as that many Gunboats.

On their sensors it showed that the Heitan and its escorts were taking a pounding but holding their position. A series of teal spheres started forming behind the carrier, as the second wave of the 2XF assault began to arrive.

"Numa-Taii to all fighters, proceed to target, repeat proceed to target. Those stations need to be hit so the second wave can take care of them." came Atsui's voice over the comm channel, the sound of explosions and alarms sounding in the background.

"Ramirez-Shoi, we should press on like the Taii is asking..." Lynn recommended uneasily.

She boosted power to weapons and engines, letting some bleed off of the shields. Likely, very soon Loverboy would be using them.

"Forget what I just said," spoke Elisto to Yaeko as he looked at the data. "Seems' the weakness I found was purely for the bomber I was targetting," he glanced away from his screens and toward the group. "I'll continue to collect and analyze the data, my apologies for the misinformtaion there," with that he silenced his comm.'s so he could think.

Mentally he slapped himself for the amatuerish mistake of assuming that because one weakness existed on one ship, it existed on all. He quickly remedied this mistake by transmitting a message to the Heitan, alerting them to his blunder and that the weakness was unique to just one bomber.

Then he changed his fighters course and began to head in the direction that the Taii had ordered, all the while he was still checking on the data from the other bombers, what little he currently had that is.

::Lucky Hand ::

Errowyn nodded and followed the tech to the bridge. Once there, she nodded respectfully to the Ship's Captian, "Thanks for the pick-up." Her Bravado badly shaken, yet she showed determination, by coming to the bridge. "Where do you need me?"

Feeling out of place, yet she wasn't out of the fight by a long shot. If she could do good here, at least she wouldn't be in total disgrace with her squadmates. All she had to was get the gunboat to it destination so the crew could do their thing. Even if she was the last surviving member of her squadron, she would ram this gunboat down the nearest NMX throat.

"...One can always hope..." Kenshin replied to Akemi, "Honestly, I wouldn't mind facing the bomber's again so long as the squiddies don't have an even worse surprise in store for us today."

Kenshin's fighter reached the rest of Diamond squadron, and then the young pilot shifted his ships position into an escort formation beside one of the Heitan's surviving gunships. Whilst the ships flew en route to their target, the pilot briefly examined the damage his ships systems incurred during the previous skirmish. Once satisfied his ship was still in good enough condition to press on, Kenshin leaned back in his chair and stared out the cockpit window towards the squadron's ever-approaching objective -- as well as the NMX pod and bomber defenses which protected it.

"Well... here we go again." The teenage Yamataian said with a sigh.

Anne was trying to survive through out the battle with the bombers. At one type she was behind one trying to take some power of its shields with her aether cannons while jamming him, but it started returning fire from its turrets quickyl so Anne need to get away. She then started jamming localy instead of using cone. It was very chaotic and she just found herself flying around trying to not hit anyone with her fighter.

When she got her reasoning back, it was over with bombers and Numa-taii was ordering them to attack main target. Her lead was nowhere to be found and Errowyn's fighter was shot down. Both Errowyn's and Ken's vitas were still fine though.

Anne made sure to get back into formation. WIth no lead around she just get behind Elisto's tail. "Elisto-san! I have an idea, before we get too close to station let's try analazying it's shieldiong and scan for turrets. Better know what ot be ready for right?" She commed to second Teisatsu in squadron.

"That was my original plan, but wasn't to certain what was going with you," came Elisto's response as he followed the Honcho and the other member of the squad.

"Alright, as we get closer, we'll concentrate our scans on the stations. Tag turrets, look for any enemy ships that may be hugging the station to stay outside of detection range. Also, keep an eye out for enemies trying to flank us," ordered Elisto to Anne-hei as he banked his craft a bit to line himself up.

Typing away on his console, he redirected power to his sensor suite and, as they got closer, began to scan the station and its surroundings.

"Roger that Elisto-san!" Anne said and she did not even cared that she used his first name. No time to think about that. She focused her wavefront forward to confuse enemy, while trying to work miracles with her scanners. Her fingers danced across the screens puttind different settings in motion.

"Hunter!" She started another comm-conversation. "Me and Tereane-san are running deep scan of enemy station. We will try to determine theri weaknesses and offensive power. Please try to keep us covered, we need to concentrate! It should not take too long!" Anne said to her leader and went back to her work.

Elisto glanced off to his side in thought before sending a message to the XO and Honcho. "XO? Honcho? Anne-hei and I are in the process of scanning the station to determine it's strengths and weaknesses. We'll be tagging any turrets we find and will send that data along. Hopefully we can find a weak point and exploit it, perhaps giving our side a bit more of an edge."

With that he closed the connection and shook his head before glancing off at Emiyu. "Emiyu, cover me please while I scan that station, the NMX will most certainly 'not' like what we are going to do," he said to his wingmen.

"Aye!" Ira responded to his EWO just as that enemy bomber flew apart under Ira's guns.

Ira came about. "Copy that Taii."

Ira then received a message from Elisto. Ira's jaw stiffened. 'Copy that spook! You send us any data you can get, Then you get your tail out of their, we are going to bring that thing down."

"All wings, stand by, We are going to get a weak point on that machine from Elisto Hei, so start priming your Torpedos!"

"You ready for this Lynn?" Ira said as he began moving to form up with the rest of the squadron.

"Shields and weapons boosted." Lynn said with a nod Ira couldn't see.

She did what she said she would do, and rerouted the power. Silently she hoped that Elisto would succeed -- being lined up like this otherwise would be almost suicide.

The sensors of the Teisatsu easily identified the turret positions. But more importantly the communications array and the anti-FTL field emitters.

Also they clearly showed a picket line of NMX warships that were in position to engage the attackers.

However on the sensors there was some spurious readings between the fighters and the stations. Dozens of small ion trails that started and stopped at random intervals.

Elisto tapped his chin as he read the reading, he had a positive lock on the communications array and the anti-ftl systems but it was the other readings that were puzzling and also concerning.

Rubbing his chin for a moment he looked up from his scanner readings, various ships were displayed from the NMX picket line and he tagged those ships for easy identification. "Got a lock on the Communications array and Anti-FTL Emitters, however," he spoke to his squadmates as he zero'd his scanner onto the spurious readings. "There is 'something' else there as well, scanners are having a hard time picking it out, Anne-hei, boost power to your sensor suite please and help me in trying to narrow it down," he said.

He was hoping Anne and him could figure out what those readings were, in one case he pondered whether they were mini-defense drones or perhaps in the unlikely event that the NMX somehow managed to strap propulsion systems to their little parasites. That's a scary thought.