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

Ameki felt suited as a Samurai in her Kawarime. She marveled at the sight of the force bubble above her ship. There was something very different about watching the progress with only the cockpit between her and space.

Ameki had completed her system check when she listened to her wingman and kept from laughing over the air. "I am fine Murasaki-Hei, but you may want to double check your information. According to my system, I show the Gunboats have four anti-armor turrets which can provide them with anti-missile protection. But you are right, we will have our work cut out for us. Don't worry though I will have your six." she replied.

Yaeko looked at the oddly colored bubble that had formed around the group. Flipping her comm so just Silic could hear she said, "You know something Silic? I think all of this fighter work as changed me. A year ago the girly girl in me would have found this to be so beautiful, but not anymore. I was supposed to be a communications operator, I never had any specialization in piloting small ships or with ground combat, but instead they have me flying fighters into high-risk missions, sniping from atop trees, pulling people out of tress. You probably remember, I used to be so happy and care free, but not anymore..." Her voice trailed off as she tried to concentrate back on the mission. "But that's for another time, right now we've got squiddies to kill."

Kenshin's face flushed scarlet in embarrassment as he ran a quick scan on one of the nearby vessels and confirmed Ameki's statement that it did indeed have four point-defense batteries. With a sigh, the young pilot mentally rebuked himself for the nugget mistake. Way to go Kenshin... just be glad the whole squadron didn't overhear that or they'd be razzing you till your ears bled.

"Ahh... thanks for the correction Tamahagane-hei. With any luck that might make our escort job a little easier than I'd thought it'd be... heh." Murasaki replied over the secure comm channel to the nekovalkyrja pilot. He peered out through the transparent barrier of the cockpit separating him from the hard vacuum of the void beyond. In the light of hyperspace he could easily make out the swarm of 21st Squadron fighters huddled protectively around the mission critical gunboats.

I'm bloody kidding myself, Kenshin thought silently. It's never easy. When those Mishie pods eventually get wind of our gunboats through the music played by the Teisatsu fighters, a great hairy furball will probably be the next item on the day's agenda.

The yamataian pilot shifted his position in the cockpit seat whilst he continued along his train of thought. We can only hope the NMX don't notice the gunboats through the sensor jamming and realize the threat they pose before its too late to redeploy enough pods to overwhelm our squadron and blast the Hayai into oblivion.

Fold bublle was always something to look at. Anne had her eyes wide open scanning the space around herself. The light-show was quite comforting and relaxing. But there was still work to do. She opened line to Shoi, but let others hear it too. She said "sir, me and Elisto-hei got an idea. If we combine our wavefronts we can keep more of our squadron under jamming umbrella. For example while he can jam enemy targeting systems I can focus on jamming their comms." She said. She should have talked to Levine-san first but in the end it will be Ramirez-san who must decide.

In her typical fashion Lynn said very little throughout the launch and fold. She merely kept poking at her instruments with her mind, making sure nothing showed up to make her Pilot's ride unpleasant.

Lynn quietly wondered why Ira-Shoi hadn't said anything about what had happened after the hostage rescue. Did he even remember? She'd like not to remember. But she did, and if he did... Should something be said? Perhaps it was better if nothing were said.

Ken sat in his cockpit, eyes forward waiting to make contact. Not really dazzled or lost in the fold, instead ready and willing to deal with what they were bound to be face on the other-side.

"You know what I have always wanted to do Hoshi?"

"Take one of these fighters up, with a really pretty girl, and spend the night making out and being romantic."

"Almost reminds me of the last person I kissed."

Ira was making small talk, trying to ease the tension. He had no recollection that he had ever kissed Hoshi, but the topic of conversation he had chosen would no doubt prove to be awkward for the young girl.

Ira's channel opened up, and he listened very closely. "That is a brilliant idea, I will let you give it a try, but no funny business. I don't want you betting your lives on this." He said calmly responding to the suggestion that was presented to him.

"Any way Hoshi, what about you? Do you like space and flying?"

"Hidoi." Lynn said, using the Yamataian word for 'Horrible'. "Ramirez-Shoi, with all respect can we please talk about that later?"

Even if Ira hadn't meant to make her feel uncomfortable, Lynn took it the same way. She thought it was a come-on, and she -- in her youth and inexperience -- didn't know how to handle it. Flirting wasn't taught in Socialization.

It took Silic a few seconds to reply, his head still buried against the back of Yaeko's seat. “Kid, that's just part of getting older. Consider maybe that you aren't growing darker, just more mature and stronger.” Silic chuckled a little before adding “Though you're still a few too many years behind me to become grumpy and mean.”

Yaeko thought about what Silic said, but still managed to laugh at his last comment. "Tin Man, as much as you think that I'm a child, I'm pretty sure that you could barely read by the time I was born." With ease she pulled up Silic's file. "According to this you're...26 years old? Well, that's still a few more years than I would have given you, but that still barely puts your birth at four years to mine!" Immediately she regret saying this, and hopped Silic wouldn't pry too far into her past. That was one road she hadn't gone down in quite a while.

Silic's eyes were still closed against the back of Yaekos seat. "Sometimes these things are a state of mind rather than being." he said simply.

Anne was extremely happy when Shoi said it was briliant idea. Althoug she reported that it was both her and Elisto-sans idea it was only hers in reality. This praise made her exteremely happy and prideful.

SHe smiled and open channed to Elisto and Ken. "Okay Elisto-hei please monitor and jamm enemy targeting system, I will take upon myself their communication. Levine-hei it would be nice if you would try to be in center of our squadron so we can-" she was saying when it struck her. She was just instructing her masters. Both Levine-san and Elisto-san were higher ranks. She had not bussiness in telling them what to do. It actually shoudl be Elisto-sans bussiness to direct them and give assignmetns.

She quickly went back to apologize. She had quite panic attack right now and neede to get over it quickly, "I am really sorry Levine Nitô Hei and Eliso Ittô Hei. I overstepped my bounderies right now." Her voice in comm was quite panicked and she was talking fast. "I will accept any punishment for this!" she said. Her eyes were widened and she could see on her own monitor as her own hear-rate went up.

Elisto couldn't help but let out a snicker at Anne and replied to her. "Don't worry about it, sometimes when an idea comes to us, we get caught up in the rush and forget things that we shouldn't," he then turned his attention to utilizing the wavefront and gave a light nod of the head.

"Levine-hei? Anne-hei does have the right idea, let's both try and stay in the center of the squadron so that the wavefront module that Anne-hei has, and the one I possess, can cover the majority of the squad. However, we must also make certain to continue to provide fire support. My suggestion also is to monitor NMX ships, figure out any blind spots they may present to us, but also keep an eye for any of them that may try to make an attack run on the Heitan," he then stopped and let out a sigh. This isn't as easy as it sounds, trying to cover the entire squadron won't be that overly easy. Originally, I was going to ask Levine-hei to cover one squad and I'd cover the other. But Anne-hei makes a good point, her jamming comm's while I jam their targeting.

Across the HUDs of the 21st and the other squadron's the following flash message appeared.

Attention attack groups. We are arriving at destination. Once fold completes begin moving towards your designated targets. Good Luck Numa Taii.

Click to expand...

Fifteen seconds later, the fold bubble flared brilliantly and then dispersed. The fighter sensors started registering additional vessels and the IFF systems designating them as hostile. None were in range at the moment, the primary target was painted by the system. And myriad smaller targets started to appear, battlepods and fighters deploying from a number of the NMX ships and the station.

Ken listened in on the conversation, up until he was directed in it. He nodded to himself in his seat, weighting in on the situation. "It's fine Anne-hei, you're input is just as important as the higher ups. However if you're looking for punishment," he paused smirking boyishly on the video feed, "I might have to dish out some playful spankings after we're through with the sortie," he said playfully over the comms with a not-so-serious chuckle. "If that's the will of the wing though, I'll hold up in center for the initial attacks. But once they make it into gun range, they'll be going off visuals and I highly suggest we break off into our assigned pairs at that point, it'll get messy if we try to stay in form once things set off," he gave a word of experienced wisdom, with a nod on any sort of video feed.

Then he turned his attention to the Ittô Hei's comments. "Well with all due respect sir," Ken said addressing his superior; Elisto, "command clearly said our mission is to clear the path for the Gunboats to that station. While it is important that we protect our carrier, I assume mission ops would have sent us on orbital defense if that was to be our objective. However the ship will be amongst the gunships, and I'm sure there will be squadrons assigned to the defense of the Heitan. Not to mention the Mecha, who will be mostly concerned with defense. It's up to us to blaze a path for our ships, though it'd be nice to find some openings, we'll most likely be flying into fire and looking for whatever target we can manage to thin out until we've reached our objective at point bravo which then we will shift to disable the NMX command and control station," Ken relayed the mission, making sure that his squad-mate got what they were here to do.

Then at that point they finished their jump, coming clear out of the FTL fold. Ken gripped his flight stick pushed up his throttle to move up in the center of Anne and Elisto's countermeasure range. "Zero-zero-seven-three, tally-ho on target. Also tally on intercepting units, no count. Waiting on your engagement orders lead," he said professionally to the flight lead, holding his formation firm until order otherwise. A few sharp breaths filled his lungs and he readied for the next part; combat.

EWOs

There were three waves of targets streaking towards the Heitan's Force. The first wave were quickly identified as consisting of Type 30 A Battlepods flying in three ship clusters, tactical showed 60 craft.

Fast on their heels were another group of targets identified 60 Bomber Pod (Type 31A) in pairs.

The third group of ships were not heading directly for the carrier, but were flying on a trajectory that would bring them around to try to flank the group. NMX Battlepods (Type 33) which then vanished from sensors as they winked out as they activated their FTL burst drives.

Silic went back to working his console as they flew out of FTL, quickly scanning the contacts in front of them. “Oh goody.” he commented, voice dripping with sarcasm as he saw the numbers coming at them. Silic reported to Yaeko “Sixty fighters, about as many bombers, plus another group that just rabbited. We've had worse, but not by much.” he said, forwarding the important stuff to her and filtering out the superflous data.

Elisto just gave a nod of the head before the fold completed; his sensors right away picking up on the fighters and bombers. He began to type in a series of commands to his onboard sensor suite, more powerful than those used on the kawarimes, he was trying to figure out plausible interception trajectories for the bombers ahead of them.

His other concern were the other bombers; he looked off to his left and though he couldn't physically see him, his sensors naturally could. Using his digital brain compiled with the onboard sensors he began to run through plausible attack runs those bombers could undertake.

He then brought up a display on their forces current positions in relation to those bombers. "Let's see," he rubbed his chin thoughtfully with one hand while the information started to feed in.

Elisto waited to hear the lead was about to tell them; half hoping he would be sent after those bombers who had the gull to try and flank them, his jamming systems would play royal hell with their ability to target. Though he knew that Anne and him were the most vulnerable here, if the NMX found out they were the only two with jamming capabilities, they could become target numero uno real quickly.

When Kenshin's Kawarime came out of hyperspace fold with the rest of the task force, his eyes kept glimpsing to the sensor feeds -- taking note of all available data such as enemy numbers, pod types, velocities and formations that his ships basic sensor suite was able to detect. With one hand he brought the ships aether drives to life, dialing up the acceleration to maintain his position in the escort formation around the squadron of Hayai gunboats. His other hand gripped the control stick, causing his fighters port and ventral maneuvering jets to flare with brief tiny spurts of aether plasma as the aerospace craft reoriented itself towards the incoming enemy waves.

Once he was sure he was in the right spot, Kenshin shifted his comms back to the squadron's frequency. "Now is all that for us? Dang... but this is going to be a very busy morning." He felt a bead of sweat slide down his shoulder blades. This would be his first taste of real fighter combat.

Fighting down the fear, he forced a brief smile and thought to himself, Well... if you want come kill me you'll need to stack the odds more heavily than that you slimy squid-wannabes. The young pilot exhaled sharply and ran back through some dogfighting basics. Avoid flying in straight lines, vary my acceleration and jink often. Keep an eye on threat indicator so I'm aware of an enemy missile lock and know when to deploy countermeasures.

Kenshin then chose to speak aloud once more to his wingman, though this time over the squadron's open frequency. "Eyes peeled Tamahagane-hei -- The ones that jumped may try and bounce us any time now or when we're distracted with their friends..."

Akemi was already monitoring the situation via her SPINE implant. The tactical and sensor data streaming into her consciousness. Her engines flared as she moved forward towards the objective.

"Do not worry Murasaki-Hei I got your six. But I suspect they are not coming for us. Probably hoping to get lucky against the Heitan and the other ships in the Task Force. Ke-T8-W3103 Active, don't forget to keep your stores in mind Murasaki-Hei. I plan on living through this." she said with a hint of a chuckle to her voice.