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

His hand was still working on the jammer, alternating between different jamming frequencies to continue to confuse the NMX and create chaos in their systems.

He runned his fighter to the side and laid into the now vulnerable bomber with a spray of fire before before doing an eighty degree hard turn and focusing the jamming on the torpedos currently after the gunboats.

Elisto was partly grinning, he never had this chance before when he was a gunship captain due to the limitations and restrictions the orgniazation had forced onto them but here he didn't have to worry about any of those.

The hissing noise near Silic began to be accentuated with crackling sounds. The damaged canopy started to spiderweb as stress fractures spread out across the surface. A second later it failed and the air in the cockpit spewed out along with anything else not secured.

The side of the bomber was torn apart from the combined assault of the fighters. Then from inside the gash a series of explosions erupted, and spread with growing ferocity until the hapless bomber exploded in a mass of high speed debris.

The few surviving battlepods opting for survival engaged their burst drives and vanished.

Then approximately 1 light second away a massive teal sphere formed and when it faded the YSS Teikiatsu, the second Yamato-Class ship in the 2XF entered normal space along with its compliment of warships. From the rear of the Yamato two steady streams of fighters emerged as it deployed its entire compliment of ready craft in a minute.

Meanwhile the Teikiatsu and its battle group commenced firing their main guns at the station and any ships in the area. The Teikiatsu signaled the Sixth Fleet to engage the enemy from the other side.

Yaeko swore loudly as the canopy shattered. She covered her head to avoid being hit by shattering glass, which was futile because the air pressure forced the glass away from the fighter. After regaining control of the fighter she banked back towards the rest of the fighters at the Heitan. Just then she saw the Teikiatsu arrive along with its fighter squadron. Yaeko then patched into the comm with the ship.

"Wonderful timing Teikiatsu! We'll let you guys take it from here, we're so beat up that we can barely move." With that she patched back into the squadron's comm channel. "Alright guys, back to the Heitan. Our work is done here."

Silic heard the hissing of escaping air and desperately checked his faceplate to make sure it hadn't been compromised, his breathing suddenly heavy with near panic. He held his face with his hands as the rest of the canopy fractured and finally blew out. Naturally all the shattered glass flew out of the ship rather than in as the air pressure from the cockpit pushed it away.

By this point Silic gave up and just quietly covered his eyes, trembling slightly.

A battlepod Kenshin was aiming for and about to fire upon suddenly was enveloped in a brief flash of light, before vanishing from his sight and sensors. When Kenshin checked his Kawarime's scanners he saw that numerous other blips indicating enemies were suddenly beginning to retreat all at once into faster-than-light travel.

"Tamahagane-hei, looks like the squids are making a run for it." Kenshin said to his wingman over the squadron's communication channel with a smile. As he did so another sensor contact appeared and was automatically identified by his fighter's computer as the YSS Teikiatsu. Kenshin and the rest of the 21st Squadron were treated to quite the display of pyrotechnics as their reinforcements began pounding the NMX with everything they had.

"B-e-a-utiful. Now that's a sight to lift one's spirits..."

When Yaeko issued the instructions to return to the Heitan, Kenshin double-checked that the area around the two crippled gunboats was clear before he swiveled his fighter about and turned his craft on a heading towards the Star Army carrier.

"Heading home..."

The journey back through the battle to the Heitan was a matter of picking their way through the debris and carnage. Parts of 2XF ships were intermingled with parts of the NMX forces. Occasionally two pieces would collide, and then proceed on new tangents. There were intermittent explosions as unused ordinance detonated in some of the collisions.

The debris was denser the closer they got to the Heitan's beacon. Finally the squadron got a visual on the carrier.

"Heitan to all returning fighters. Alpha deck is out of commission, approach using Beta or Gamma. Be advised we have a number of battlepods lurking in the debris. Apparently they are damaged and can not leave, or their support ship was destroyed. They have been making suicide runs on the carrier and some of the craft coming in for landings." Came Atsui's voice across the channel.

Yaeko gracefully weaved her way in and out of debris, doing loops around some and slaloming back and forth around others. When the reach the Heitan her jaw dropped at the sight. "God damned squiddies." When the word came in from Atsui she quickly dialed back into the comm. "I need some Tessies scanning the area for enemies. We don't want any of us getting sneak attacked, not to mention that me and Silic have no cover so one shot and we're dead."

Anne was busy working with wavefront while they were battling battlepods and bomber. Too busy. But now when reinforcements have arrived she paid attention to health monitors of other squadron members. They seemed fine exept for Vas-hei whose heart reate climbed up fast. "What is your status Vas-hei?" Anne asked and flew her teisatsu closer so she could get visuals. She got there in time to see canopy over Hunters and Silics head shatter. Anne gasped as she saw what happened.

She flew closer and could saw that Hunter was fine. But Vas-hei held his head. "Hunter I suggest you go for landind first! Vas-hei seems in trouble." Anne radioed to Hunter and kept close so she could help in any way.

Elisto flew his fighter up to Yaeko's, seeing the damage to the craft and recording it for later analysis before transmitting the data to the Heitan so that the ground crews would know what they are dealing with.

As he flew toward the Heitan, flying in and out of the debris field, an explosion off to his left rocked his fighter. He glared for a moment before looking forward, he was staying close to Yaeko, while also scanning for any battlepods that might become active.

With a slight shake of the head he glanced over at Yaeko's fighter, he overheard Anne's suggestion for the XO to land first and he had to aree with that. Though he had to also wonder how he was going to land, given the unexploded missile in his wing.

Anne was still waiting for response from Yaeko when she noticed Spook. She remembered that he had missile in his wing. You never knew when it could go off. Anne frowned upon that fact. "Spook, are you sure you want to try landing with missile in your wing?" She asked him.

Elisto gave a nod of the head to Anne. "Yea I know, I'll ask flight control on what they want me to do," he said and then changed frequencies.

"Heitan-control, this is 0049. I have an unexploded missile in my left wing, I can either attempt to land or try and eject, please advise." he sent and waited to see what they would say.

"0049, this is Flight Control. Negative on landing. You are advised to eject your cockpit module and we will have S&R come get you. Our two operational decks are heavy and we can't risk you coming in having it detonate and taking out the deck. I know you pilots like your birds, but 0049 is going to have to be written off." came the response to Elisto's query.

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

"Hunter, this is Tamahagane-Hei, perhaps the rest of us should escort the damaged fighters in. That way if one of the squids gets froggy we can have your back?" Akemi suggested.

Elisto let out a muted grumble, he was afraid of that. "Roger that Control, 0049 out," he said as he as he transferred all of the sensor data to the blackbox so he wouldn't lose that data.

Then with a deep breath, he counted to three and hit the ejection switch.

The Kawarime ejection sequence initiated. With each step being highlighted on the display.

• Termination of Primary Fighter Systems - Complete - Shutdown of power and propulsion complete
• Isolation of cockpit module - Complete - Electronic connections severed
• Release of cockpit locking clamps - Malfunction - Locking clamp failed to respond
• Initiate thruster burn - Malfunction - Thruster can not engage due to locking clamp failure.

Elisto's fighter was now adrift and in a very slow tumble, leaving Elisto with no control over the craft.

Elisto raised an eye-brow when he saw that nothing had happened, the display giving out a warning about the system malfunction. "Well shit," he said in a concerned tone as he attempted to do it again only for the same thing to happen. With a heavy sigh, he glanced left and right and then opened comms with flight control.

"Flight Control this is 0049, my ejection system has failed. I repeat, the system has malfunctioned and I can not eject," he glanced off to his side, noticing the slow tumble that his fighter was in thanks to the movement of debris and the stars.

Silic sniffed loudly and lowered his hands. “Yeah, I'm fine.” he replied to Anne's concern “Why wouldn't I be?” sounding almost bored. Although he still made no movement towards his console and his heart rate never dropped.

"Good to hear," Anne replied to Silic. Looked like he just panicked. There will be medical staff waiting for him on Heitan. There were other problem at the moment. "I am going to help Elisto-san, you just land. Flying with open cockpit would be too dangerous." Anne said to Silic and Hunter.

She then turned her fighter and moved to catch up with Spook. It was not easy piloting, some of debris was around and that made it little dangerous. Anne matched her speed with Elisto's teisatsu as soon as she got to him. "This is gonna be tough." She said for herself. She altered her teisatsu facing so it will cover Elisto's cockpit from any oncoming rubble and debris. It took her about minute to got it right but she managed it.

She then programmed her ship to match Elisto speed and trajectory. "Time to head out," She said then and took survival kit from under her seat. She had to looked through it for a while before taking out Tomahawk and multi-tool. She looked at field shovel for few second before putting it behind her belt too. She then took out cord and fasted it to her belt. She was not crazy to go out there without lifeline.

She then balanced pressure of her cockpit and space. It took several second and then her canopy opened. Nothing now stood between her and space. It was not really nice feeling. Anne could see her own heart rate go up on her ship monitors. She sighed and released her seat-belts.

She slowly flew out into space and caught onto Elisto's teisatsu. She had to use Air shooters to slow down on lever Elisto's cockpit. She knocked on the canopy and laughed. "Yo, need a hand?" She asked jokily. Best was to release stress. She still needed to find out what she needs to do the get this cockpit open.

Elisto watched Anne-hei and felt the slight 'thump' when her fighter caught his, he was a little nervous that the EOD on his may go off but after a moment when it didn't he was able to allow himself some breathing room.

When he saw Anne come up to his cockpit and tap on it, he couldn't help but smile weary. "Would love one," he spoke but then shrugged. "System is fried though, damage probably even the canopy's eject system, so you'll have to be a bit creative in opening the cockpit.." he told her. "Just becareful please," he glanced over his shoulder toward the EOD he couldn't see.

Anne was inspecting the cockpit from outside. There have to be something she could do to open it. She could not imagine herself shattering the canopy with tomahawk. Not even on solid land. In zero G it was strickly impossible. But then she finally noticed something. "Looks like I won't have to draw my pistol after all," she said to Spook and smile.

She floated to little something she noticed eariler. It was outer manual release. "Beware of explostion bolts," she read out loud. That sounded dangerous. Anne hoped she will have time to get away before those explosives bolts explodes. It had to be some sort of safety device allowing mechanics to get into cockpit fast. How could she know about it sooner? She should not mention that to anyone.

"Okay Spook," she commed to owner of the fighter. "I am going to use emergency manual release. Close your eyes and put your head between your knees!" She said and waited for him to do so. When he did she pulled the lever and kicked herself away from canopy. She could do so, she still had air to maneuver and even if that failed, she still had her lifeline. Everything should be fine. At least she hoped.

Elisto braced himself as the bolts detonated, causing his cockpit to clear the fighter and float out into space. He waited a few seconds before opening his eyes and gripping the sides of where the cockpit had once.

He pulled the fighters ICP, which held all of the sensor data he had collected during the mission and secured it on his person, before making one final check that he had everything.

"Thanks," he commented as he floated out into space and then onto the side of his fighter.