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

Akemi juked her fighter to the side and trusted down to keep up with her wingman. That thing has more firepower than we do. We need to concentrate our fire power if we are going to have a chance. "Murasaki, look at their wings, they are loaded for bear I would say." she sent to her wingman, as she routed power in her fighter to stabilize the shields.

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The Teisatsu sensor array showed that the craft were formidable. Their sheilds were comparable to those on the Gunboats the Diamonds were protecting. The sensors showed each carried eight missiles, Ke-Z1 class or equiv.

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The Hayai sensing the danger started firing on the closest of the bombers with their Ke-E1-W3200 Positron Accelerator Cannons.

Elisto smiled slightly, thankful that there was a chance to possibly capture one of the bombers to study later but his mind was also on his own fighter right now.

Data was scrolling in, running across one of the screens off to his left. He was parsing the information and collating it together into a report he would file later. "Tereane-hei to all fighters, data coming in from unknown hostiles. Shield systems are on par with those used by our gunboats, I am also reading eight missiles on each.

The missiles appear to be in comparison to our own anti-starship missiles," Elisto finished but then started running a more indepth scan of the new hostiles. He already figured they were bombers based on their payloads, the profiles however betrayed that and made them look more like oversized fighters with turrets. He couldn't help but be reminded somewhat of the Hayabusa. "Contining scan," he then sent and glanced back through his cockpit to try and see if he could see that warhead but couldn't.

"Emiyu, keep an eye out for Battlepods." He sent to his wingmen. "And thank you," he added quickly.

“Watch it Diamonds!” Ira said as he rolled his fight to the left. Ira’s hands jerked with the controls as he attempted to keep his craft from spinning out of control. Steadying the craft he acquired a target lock and began pulling in to engage. He fired his Aether cannons at the target. Ira held no hopes of getting a kill, but he was hoping to distract the target so and prevent the target from taking down one of the other Diamonds. "Keep it coming!" Ira said to Lynn, as he stuck to his wingman like glue.

"Attention all Diamonds, the Heitan and its escorts are under attack by new NMX attack craft. Do not attempt to return as we have closed the landing bays. If your craft is severely damaged, eject the cockpit and away S&R to come and retrieve you after the battle. The Second wave will be arriving shortly." Came Atsui's voice over the communications channel.

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The situation with the Diamonds remained precarious. Two of the bombers rotated on their axises and opened fire at one of the Gunboats. Caught in the full fury of the two craft the Hayai was reduced to a mass of twisted burning debris.

"Diamonds this is Raikou CO for the Emeralds. Most of the Emeralds have been shot down. I am advising the Gunboats with us to hook up with you... Get through to the stat......" the signal was cut out by a loud squeal and then a burst of static.

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Elisto gave a nod as he rolled in behind a battlepod and blew it to pieces before turning his attention toward one of the nearer contacts. "These things have considerably more firepower and defenses than we do...." he rubbed his chin as he shunted more power to the jamming field.

His concern was still on the warhead, but he had no desire to eject in the middle of the battlefield and risk an NMX ship capturing him. Being turned into food, or being interrogated, wasn't something he relished on his very first mission with the 21st. Then again, he knew that if he was taken, he could easily commit suicide and deny the NMX that small victory.

Banking his fighter and moving toward one of the unknown bombers, he glanced over at Emiyu and sent. "Emiyu, concentrate your fire on the rear of the bomber. Try and stay out of it's turret arcs." With that he opened fire, spewing aether fire toward the bomber, in the back of his mind, he was ever concious of watching those turrets and then evading at that moment.

Errowyn sighed as the gunship she tried to protect exploded into zillions of little glowing bits of metal. A rush of failure filled her as she worked the controls of her fighter to bring it back under her control.

"Errowyn, I've already hit one of them, go for the same one. Save your aether missile if you can, but use it if you have to."

Errowyn blinked at the new voice calling for her as she regained control over her fighter.

"Miaow, yeah...sirrr ama'am!" Her voice soft and distant, Errowyn darted after the damaged NMX ship, aiming with her aether cannons at the newest sphere like ships, getting ready lay into it with deadly cannon fire right up it's tail.

"Errowyn, Elisto has asked if we can try to disable one of the unknowns. If you can, aim for the engines and let's see if we can keep it intact enough for us to haul it back to the Heitan."

"Meow! Why not just lay out the red carpet and invite it aboard the Hietan?" Voice nuetral and soft, without the proper tone to make it humorious Errowyn dialed back on the cannon's output, but still deadly. She let loose with a deadly salvo from all of her cannons, watching the deadly stream of energy tear into it's exposed rear thrusters, sending hull plating and parts scattering outward with explosive gouts of flames as escaping air hit the overheated molten metals.

"One ship on a silver platter!" Tone indicating she wanted to do more than just disable it. Errowyn zipped by it, shooting the exposed cannons off one side of the newest NMX battle sphere, causing more massive debri to shoot from the exposed interior of the battle sphere. And clipping a fully laden wing off the newest MNX fighter. "You want it served cold and cut up to bite sized bits?" With forced levity in her voice.

She looked over her weapons payload, frowned. She had 1 anti-ship missle to the ship payload and her cannons. She made adjustments to spread out the power requirements to the ship's system.

After several passes Yaeko could tell that her weapons weren't doing very much damage. "If these shields really ARE on par with those of the gunboats, then shooting them with cannons might take a while. Diamonds, everyone team up with another wing pair, 4 fighters to a bomber and one pair is just gonna have to go solo. Anne , Levine, join up with me." Yaeko paused to wait for the other two fighters to relocate before banking around for another pass and unloading her cannons on one of the bombers.

Anne did her best to jamm enemy missiles but now the threat changed. THe bombers were now here and they already destroyed one of the gunship. Anne's fighter did not have much firepower but she still turned her ship and headed towards the two ones who just shot down one of the Haiais. While she opened fire on the closer one it was not the main reason. She wanted to get those two into her jamming cone to confuse their targeting system.

"Shoi, diverting more power to weapons and engines... Please make the best of it!" Lynn said, hoping that the trade off would mean more damage to the enemy instead of the fighter she so conveniently found herself in.

She could do little else.

Elisto grumbled when he saw that his aether fire was doing little, he thought for a few moments. "Emiyu, change of plans, concentrate your fire on the rear. Watch those turrets though," he commented and dodged out of the way of some of the bombers turret fire.

Errowyn watched the others make their run at the newest NMX Bomber and seeing the non-effects of their weapons fire. She snarled softly and bagan her run at the one Yaeko started on then followed by Elisto.

She divereted all power from the shield to her two most forward cannons, effectively killing her defencive shields and dove at the Bomber that was giving everyone troubles.

At effective extreme range with target lock on the Bomber in her sights, she opened fire and continued to send a steady stream of cannon fire at the Bomber. Doing her best to keep hitting one single spot on the shields of the enemy bomber

-= Enemy target lock =- Came the soft computer voice and HUD displayed text message began to flash.

She stopped the concentrated fire and engaged shields, rolling the ship on the length axis as enemy cannon fire whipped by her ship, missing her, but skimming her shields on both side of her Kawarime, causing them to flare brightly, rendering her blind, both visual and electronically.

-= Shield failure emminent =- came the soft voice of her computer and HUD text message flashed.

Collision aproximity alarms sounded...

Then she was directly behind it by the time she could see again, hitting the braking thrusters to avoid ramming the rear end of the NMX Bomber. She opened fire again with all of her cannons at same spot on the shields, matching the Bomber's evasive manuevers as she stuck to it's rear.

One of the NMX Immolator's rear turrets let loose a firestorm of aether bolts towards Kenshin's fighter -- forcing him to jink out of the path of the defensive fire. He had little choice but to abandon his attack run without doing much damage other than making a few glancing hits upon its defensive shield with his main guns.

The young pilots thoughts mirrored those of his wingman -- attacking such a heavily protected craft in a single fighter would be extremely risky if not borderline suicidal, and trying to penetrate the ship's defenses with his single torpedo would likely be a wasted effort as the chances the projectile would survive until impact were slim with all that concentrated point-defense.

"Yeah Tamahagane... its definitely designed to carry a large missile or torpedo payload, and it's turrets are also ideally positioned to repel fighter interceptors," Kenshin sent over the comms to Akemi as he brought his ship about for another pass, "Reading it's shield integrity at 82%-- at least our guns can make a mark, if not much of one. Either we continue whittling down its defenses together, or one of us can try and get the attention of those turrets in order to give the other a clear run at the ship to do as much damage as possible without taking all that flak. Your thoughts?"

A second Hayai was destroyed but the tide of battle for the 21st was starting to turn around. The Gunboats from the 22nd started hammering the bombs broadside while they were busy attacking the ones with the Diamonds.

Akemi stayed on Kenshin's six as best she could, and if she strayed she returned to it as fast as possible. "Looks like the Gunboats have taken down the bomber shields Murasaki-Hei, I say we make another run on the closest bomber and finish it off.

Yaeko continued to loop back and forth, making passes at the bomber she had been shooting at and firing as much as she could before passing by, looping around, and making another pass. Damn, these things can't have that much longer before they're gone... "Silic, you holding up back there? I don't think anyone will be happy if they have to clean up after you again."

Elisto heard a wearl in his headset, his sheilds were down to 24% and his armor plating on the right wing was registering some damage. He wasn't trying very hard to weave in and out of the unknown enemies turret fire, mainly because he was attempting to chip away at the shields as much as possible before disabling it or perhaps even destroying it.

"Emiyu, status?" he ordered, he hadn't heard from his wingmen in awhile now and that was starting to become worrisome. He watched the bombers shields flare with it consecutive hit, he glanced around his fighter to check on his fellow companions before turning his attention back to his target. Come on now, he kept an eye on the shields but also was watching the technical display, showing thousands upon thousands of lines of code and sensor data pouring in from his scans on the enemy.

His readings, all being compiled, he was still trying to find its one weakness - something that could help them out. Has to be here somewhere... everything has a weakness, just gotta find it, he said and boosted what little power he could to the sensor suite in an effort to improve the chances of finding that weakness.

Errowyn flew her fighter with precision, doing her best to avoid the cannon fire from the unknown NMX Bomber, trying to keep up with her flight leader, but her ship was taking hits and finaly coming around, her shields flaired one last time and died.

She aimed her Kawarime at the unknown bomber and fired her only and last anti-ship missile and locked her cannons on continuous fire at the Bomber as her ship followed that right at the NMX unknown Bomber.

Her Kawarime began to shudder and shake from multiple hits. Feeling the ship system overheat and shut down, She reached and grabbing the ejection handles and gave a hard yank.

Errowyn felt the harsh kick of her being ejected out of her fighter as it followed it's anti-ship missile directly into NMX newest Bomber.

On coded frequency, her locator beacon began to transmit. Watching her Kawarime get chewed up by the NMX Bomber aether cannon fire, finally exploding in a brillant flash of light.

V8X2 32-0053 disappeared in the vastness of space in an ever expanding glowing molten metal ball. Soon that faded into nothing as she watched with trepidition who would reach her first. Enemy of Yamatia or the Star Army of Yamatia...

"Alright then. Tamahagane-Hei, follow me in." Kenshin directed his fighter towards the unshielded bomber that was lurching out of the weapons fire originating from a Star Army gunboat. The NMX ship unleashed its fury towards the gunboat and the pair of fighters now approaching in a last and likely futile effort to stave off its own destruction.

Kenshin bobbed and weaved his fighter through the storm, returning fire. His Kawarime's guns let loose a blaze of deadly energy in the direction of the enemy ship, some of which impacted the hull causing hull plating to buckle and melt under the intense aetheric flame. It probably wouldn't take more than a half dozen direct hits from either Akemi's or Kenshin's main guns before the NMX bomber would be reduced to a pitiful field of charred debris.

Elisto's jamming via his Wave Front system were playing havoc with the missiles. The deadly projectiles were flying off in tangents and missing the squadron.

As for scanning the bomber he found a possible exploitable weak point in their shields it was not much, but a shot there could if fired at the right angle immobilize the bomber for a few seconds.

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Akemi followed Kenshin on another pass at one of the NMX bombers, the two Kawarime spewing deadly aether bolts at the craft. Their final volley mortally wounding the craft and it exploded.

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Emiyu recovered from his evasive manuever that had put him in a brief uncontrolled spin, having recovered he returned to his wingman Elisto. "Sorry Tereane-Hei, Lost control for a minute when I went evasive."

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As Yaeko and Silic's fighter flew past one of the bombers, a missile affected by Elisto missed them by less than a meter as it streaked over their canopy and slammed into the bomber. A second later as they moved away the bomber exploded.

Elisto analyzed the data and began to tap his chin thoughtfully. "Emiyu, cover me, going to test something," he spoke as he jerked his stick and flew his fighter off to the left to avoid a hail of turret fire, then he headed upward.

When he was at the right angle as according to the data that was still scrolling in, he smiled, turned his fighter 'upsidedown' in relation to the bomber and then opened fire with his two cannons, spewing out a plethora of aether fire toward the bombers shields and the weakpoint that was being reported. Let's hope this works, he muttered.

Behind Yaeko, Silic replied “Yes, mother!” voice strained from all of her aerobatics. Silic instinctively ducked as the loose missile streaked over the cockpit, letting out a small breath as it caught the unfortunate bomber. “We've had one bail out, but everyone else is still flying.”