RP: 21st Fighter Sq [Mission 5.0] Special Delivery

Lynn had waited patiently for the launch order, this was her first time actually piloting and she was looking forward to killing some NMX. When the order came she hit the thrusters and lit out after Hunter. "Hoshi is away, closing on your left wing Hunter." she radioed.

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Akemi tried to understand why she had been assigned one of the newer people. The Squadron admin at that, she couldn't help but wonder if the 2XF was that short of personnel. When the launch order flashed on her screen she radioed Kayo, "Kayo-Hei, just stick close to me and you'll do just fine. This is not going to be anything like the simulators." Hitting the engines to full power her craft streaked out the launch bay. "0097 is launched and all systems green, joining formation." she radioed to the squadron.

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Kayo watched the launch doors open, she triple checked all her systems, or was it quadruple. It did not matter, she checked them again.

"Roger that Tamahagane-Hei, I will stay as close as I can." she said replying to Akemi.

She throttled up when the launch order came in and hit the release, her Kawarime streaked forward. Thank goodness I did that right, she thought recalling her first simulation where she had the fighter in reverse thrust mode. Once clear of the fighter, she sighted on Akemi's V8 and closed adjusting her speed and closing to standard wingman position.
"0129 moving into position." she radioed to the others.

Kenshin's attention was firmly fixed upon one of his ships console panels, finalizing his pre-flight preparations. The fighters computer system verbally confirmed the status of each of the crafts primary systems as it completed the diagnostic routines.
Before long it was Kenshin's turn to depart. "This is Nitô Hei Murasaki Kenshin, zero-zero-nine-six. All systems green. Flight control, I'm heading out." The young Yamataian announced with his communications system. He initiated his fighters engines, propelling the ship forwards and through the hangers atmospheric shielding. Once clear, he retracted his ships landing apparatus and maneuvered the fighter into formation with the others headed into battle.

No longer busy, the young pilot contacted Anne by her comms channel. "Hey there, Spinner. Sorry 'bout the delayed reply -- thanks for the sentiment, and I'll do my best to keep you in one piece as well. Let's both of us get through this alive."

As Yaeko listened to calls come through of fighters launching she kept an eye on a copy of the roster. "I do not have a confirmed launch from 0053, 0118, and 0127. Everyone else, form into a wedge formation with myself at the lead, Hellcat and Scrapyard on the left, Murasaki and Tamahagane on the right. Keep a good distance between your wing pair and other pairs in case of large explosions. Stick close to your wings, support wing at the 5 o'clock of their lead wing." Yaeko then proceeded to slow down her fighter to give those who haven't launched time to launch and to give the squadron time to get into formation.

Silic turned to look at Lynns fighter as it formed up on their wing. "Man, of all the wingmen we get the crazy o-" he looked over at who he was flying with and then looked away again. "Forget it."

Silic sniffed and hunkered down a little more into his seat. "Hey, if all the other EWO's are flying, where's my fighter?" he asked to no one in particular.

"Somebody's got to be watching my ass," Yaeko replied to Silic. "If you got your own fighter then who would I have to illegally upgrade my fighter while giving me the security of deniability? Besides, how do you expect to fly when you have vomit in your helmet over half the time. Face it Tin Man, we need each other."

The scene before the Fighting Diamonds made the engagement at the North Gate seem like a skirmish. There were thousands of NMX vessels moving towards Yamatai at high speed. The tactical showed that the NMX vessels were essentially caught between an anvil and a hammer. In front of the NMX was what remained of the Central Defense Fleet and forces of the Forces of the Second Draconian. Attacking from behind the NMX was the forces of the 1XF. It was a scene of death and destruction as the darkness was illuminated by the all to frequent flash of ship exploding signaling the death of hundreds and thousands of crew.

Thus far the NMX were to busy fighting with the forces close at hand to pay the 21st and the other Heitan ships attention. But that would soon change once they entered effective firing rang.

The Urufu Cruisers under orders from Atsui had been formed into six groups of fix each flying towards in the enemy in a v formation to allow them to concentrate their fire power.

The targeting system of the fighters identified several possible targets, NMX Line Battleship, NMX Battle Carrier, and multiple NMX Cruisers

Kayoko Shii finally managed to form up on Elisto's wing with a little maneuver. For much of the time between launch and arrival to the combat zone, she had been inexpertly weaving in and out of the position. Now, however, she had it, and (now in her place) observed the battle with a grimace.

Elisto glanced at his console and typed a few commands into it, then glanced off to his left as he observed his wingmen. The sluggish flying made him sigh to himself as he made a mental note to take Shii through some lessons after the mission was over. Then again, given the importance of this mission, it might help curve that little issue, if you fly like that you'll get killed, he pondered quietly to himself as he glanced back down at his system.

His heads up display began to tag ships based on classification, but he found himself being drowned out by the hundreds of different combat chatter going on between the ships and couldn't yet pinpoint which ship was the command ship. It angered him that despite his fighter being designed for recon, there was just to much 'noise' to deal with.

Correcting a few errors in the sensor suite, he tried again to locate the ship but scowled as his sensors were pinging back multiple different possibilities, all of which he felt weren't possible. "Come on you son of a ...." he grumbled as he continued to search through ship after ship until one appeared on his display that looked promising.

A display appeared off to his right, showing a large NMX Quill ship but as he scanned it, saw very little actual chatter coming from it. If anything, his sensors were reporting that it was moreso 'receiving' and not 'sending'. "Ok, not it," he crossed it off the list.

To the rest of the squad, they would actually see the updates that Elisto was sending them, each one fading out a ship and signifying that it wasn't the main command ship. "Honcho, I might have located their command ship, but need to get closer to get confirmation," commented the operative as he began to cross-reference the signals he was getting all the while knowing that he could get picked out as a target of importance due to what he was flying and doing.

Off to his side, the image of a captured Chiharu appeared flashing with the words 'scan in progress'

Silic looked past Yaekos shoulder at the fracas that awaited them, taking a moment to calculate the odds. “We're doomed.” he said simply.

Yaeko rolled her eyes at the EWO behind her. "You know, for a Nepleslian, you really are a panzee."

As the Fighting Diamonds streaked towards the battle, the fighter systems started showing enemy ships now in maximum effective range.

Meanwhile the closest NMX ships started firing towards the 21st and the other ships that were closing in on them.

Anne saw the battle before her and she felt sheer horror. She did nto freezed but what was in front of her was just horrible. Hearing her wingmate helped her snap out of it. "Yeah, I am coutning on you," she commend back to him and fell into formation.

She hit her scanner full power. Nearest to their position was a Battleship, a carrier and several cruisers. "Hunter, I have enemy ships on scanner. Closest to our position are Battleship, carrier and number of cruisers. I am firing up my wavefront. Do you want me to focus it on jamming the comms or targeting systems ma'am?" She asked as she started maneuvering since enemy started firing.

Yaeko executed an evasive maneuver to avoid being shot by the enemies. Once she was back in formation she picked out her target. "Diamonds, go for the nearest battleship. Their carriers will be more likely to have fighters protecting them which poses the greatest risk to our squadron, plus the battleships will be more detrimental to our friendly fleets. The carriers firepower comes from their fighters and bombers, which will already be deployed anyways. Anne, go for their targeting systems. It's likely that nearby friendly ships are already jamming most of the communications."

Yaeko banked towards the nearest battleship and began firing her weapons.

Errowyn feltthe ship being moved into lauch position, began to transfering all power to the fighter. She was ready and softly purrrring as she opens coms looking at the mutli-psychedil display of colors of hyperspace. She smiled wondering what it would be like to blast into that malstrom of colors. But then colors of chaos settled into more orderly fashion of normal space.

Hearing the other announcing their launchings, "0053 Hellcat launching!" as she leaned back in her seat while hitting thrusters as she is ejected from the launching facilities into space with a soft purr harmonizing with her voice over the coms.

With a quick look around to see where everyone was at, Errowyn brought her fighter into formation with the rest of the Fighting Diamonds.

Seeing the enemy fleet up ahead, she purrrrs softly as this was a target rich enviroment. She began to activate all of her weapons systems and targeting have them ready when needed.

Seeing the lead fighter go for one of the battleships, She activated her weapons and targeting systems. Looking for that choice target that would do the most damage.

Kenshin ducked and weaved his Kawarime fighter through the torrent of defensive aether blasts coming from the nearest NMX vessels, following Yaeko's nimble craft towards the massive NMX Line Battleship. Once the target was beneath his cross-hairs he pulled the trigger on his control stick -- unleashing a few seconds of aether fire before a few of the turrets of the enemy ship once again aimed too close for his comfort and forced him to pull his ship out of the way to avoid being totally roasted.

"Damn... this bastard has some heavy flak. We need to land a few torpedoes on this monstrosity before it calls in for battlepod support. Otherwise this will take all day."

"Shii, follow me in, fire on the same target I'm firing on," ordered Elisto as he glanced to his side as flak fire flew past him, then lined up with one of the battleships many turrets. As he flew in close, he spun his fighter 'upsidedown' in relation to the turret and fired off a series of Aether shoots before pulling back on his stick to avoid being plastered in space.

On his other monitor, the scan on the Chiharu was still going. "Ongoing communications but unalbe to tell whether it's coming 'from' this ship or not... might be another ship in the immidiate area close to it," he rubbed his chin as he spun his fighter back around.

Then suddenly the results changed, showing a sudden drop in the communications around the Chiharu. He blinked a few times, "ok, perhap's its not the source?" he asked himself and glanced in the direction that the ship was generally in.

"Honcho, for awhile I was picking up a good deal of communications from a captured Chiharu flagship, however, communications in the area of this ship has suddenly died down to a trickle almost. Unsure what is going on there, but I'm picking up an increase in transmissions away from this ship, trying to pinpoint it right now. I will see if I can try and locate thier command ship."

Lynn was doing her best to stay tight on Yaeko's wing, it was easy at first but as they got closer to the battleship the enemy fire became increasingly dense. She fired her cannons at the target hoping to help whittle down the Capital ship's shields so that their torpedoes would be useful.

"Hunter, I'm showing the targets shields are down to 20%, another round from the ......" Lynn's message was cut off as her Kawarime was struck by one of the battleships Main Cannon Turrets. Her craft was vaporized by a shot that struck one of the Urufu behind them.

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Akemi was adjusting her evasive maneuvers as fast as she could think. I hate torpedo runs, you have to spend too much time facing the enemy and hope they don't hit you. she thought. She fired her cannons and adjusted her shield threshold to full forward.

"Kayo, hang in there, don't forget your evasion subroutines. One hit from one of those anti-ship cannons will put an end to you real quick...." She said just as 0102 exploded. Damn they got Hoshi...

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Kayo was valiantly sticking to Akemi's fighter like she had been taught. The only time her interval varied was when she had to take evasive action to avoid enemy fire. She watched in horror as Lynn's fighter exploded, hot tears streamed down her cheeks, as she fired her cannons with a scream venting her anger.

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Behind the squadron Atsui's improvised task force was engaging the enemy. The Heitan was holding off outside the enemies main guns, while the Light Cruisers struck forward like six blazing swords. The lead ship of one of the groups was struck by a full barrage of the broadside of the battleship its group was engaging. The ship's shields flared like a nova and collapsed, the ship heavily damaged by the onslaught continued forward on momentum as it began to tumble. The rest of hits group continued forward firing their anti-ship weapons at the ship that wounded their lead ship.

Silic turned to look as Lynns transmission cut off, he saw nothing that resembled a fighter off their starboard wing. He swallowed and almost choked as he turned back to his console "We've lost Yagami." was all he said. Silently, his hands were paused over his controls, shaking slightly.

He breathed slowly and got back to work, the rest could come later. "Targets shields are down to roughly one fifth capacity. Three or four solid hits with our torpedoes should be enough to disable them."

Anne started to work on her wavefront, putting all its power into jamming enemy targeting system. Every single degree off would help. She was not firing or anything she just focused on flying and working with her wavefront. Then explosion happened nearby, where her allies fighter were. "We've lost Yagami." She could hear Silic over communication.

Anne gasped for air. Did they losed someone already? Without change that she jettisoned? Anne glued her eyes to her medical monitor to make sure of Lynn's death.

"Shit!" Yaeko yelled as she veered to the side to avoid flying debris from the explosion. Sorry Hoshi. I did my best. Fighting back a tear, Yaeko fired here cannons a few more times. After giving it about 5-6 seconds for the squadron's cannon to finish off the shields she chimmed into the squadron's comm. "Diamonds, on my mark first missiles away...Mark!" Yaeko locked on to the battleship and fired one of her torpedoes. "THIS ONE'S FOR HOSHI YOU BASTARDS!"