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

Elisto scowled as he flew over the battleship and checked the readouts on Yagami's fighter, there was a flat-line from her bio-signature, though whether that was due to the constant interference going on on the battlefield or because she was actually dead he couldn't determine.

Spinning his fighter around, he lined up with the battleship and locked onto it. He waited until Yaeko gave the order, then sent launch order to one of his torpedos.

Out of his periperhal vision he saw the torpedo streak out of it's module and sped toward the battleship.

Errowyn growled loudly as one of her mates died in the explosion, she still held her fire while flying evasively. She planned her stragety of attack as she watched the others attack the Battleship they had chosen for destruction.

"Diamonds, on my mark first missiles away...Mark!"

Ripped through the com's chatter, seeing that the shields were down, she howled gleefully ending in a soft purrrrrr. Manuevering her fighter, and aiming it at her chosen line of targets on the battleship, she let loose first with her aether cannons, raking the sides of the Battleship's mainline of cannons, working her way towards a cluster of antennas that sprouted off the battleship and laid in a heavy missile / torpedo barrage at the cluster.

Anne's systems would show that there was no signal from Lynn's fighter or the cockpit pod. The last vital signs shows massive trauma before they stopped.


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

Upon hearing Yaeko's order to fire, Akemi adjusted her trajectory, waited the moment it took for her to get a solid lock.

"Zero-Zero-Niner-Seven, Fox-One" she said as she unleashed the first missile. She watched it streak away in satisfaction.

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

Kayo switched to her KE-Z1 and waited to get a target lock as she fed the projecting the data. Once she had her lock, she squeezed the trigger. "This one is for you Hoshi." she said to herself.

"Zero-One-Two-Niner, Fox one." She called out as the torpedo streaked towards the battleship.

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

Five Ke-Z1 torpedoes streaked towards the NMX Battleship, the closest Urufu group fired at the side of the to keep the shields down. Their cannons peppered the side, destroying many of the anti-missile weapons.

Yaeko's and Elisto's torpedoes slammed into the side of the battleship first, two blinding flashes that seared the hull and vaporized portions of the superstructure.

Errowyn, and Akemi's torpedoes struck the weakened hull and blasted a huge gaping hole in the side of the ship. Secondary explosions erupted from other weak points in the starboard side.

Kayo's missile flew into the interior of the battleship and detonated. Portions of the starboard side of the ship distended, as more explosions from within the ship occurred. The battleship's guns went silent as the primary systems were overwhelmed by the damage. The ship began to drift to port and was rolling from the vented explosions, plasma fires burned from a dozen places. The engines of the ship flared and shut down leaving it to move by inertia alone.

Yaeko let out a cry of excitement as she watched their missiles vaporize the infrastructure of the Line Battleship. "Good work Diamonds! Our cruisers can handle this one from here. Everyone bank to starboard, we're switching targets." Glancing at her IFF she picked out a nearby cruiser and pinged it on the targeting screens of the other squadron members.

"Cruiser at my one o'clock. Diamonds, form back up for our attack run. Same SOP as before: cannons until the shields are gone and then I'll call for missile fire." She glanced down at the information of the individual squadrons before reporting in.

"I'm seeing 5 missiles fired from the last run, which means four of you still have both missiles. So when I call for missile fire Spinner, Kenshin, Ayumu, and Shii, you four will respond with a single missile fire. The rest of us will support with cannon fire. That should be enough force to completely obliterate the ship, or at a minimum disable the ship like we did with the last one."

"Roger that Honcho," responded Elisto as he banked his fighter around and form up on Yaeko's wing. He was still attempting to locate the command ship, but with everything going on, he was now multitasking and using his wavefront to spread a field of jamming frequencies to screw up the enemies targetting systems.

Glancing off to his side, he wondered if Shii had been preoccupied with her systems. He was monitoring her bio-signatures. "You ok Shii-hei?" he asked her before correcting his angle of attack and priming his cannons for fire.

Anne's eyes were glued to her medical screens for a while. Yagammi Lynn was dead. She knew they will probably revive her, but that won't be same. And it will be hard to looke at her the same way. Anne was not really afraid of her own death, but she could not stand her comrades dying.

She aligned her ship to do what was important now. She started her torpedo run on the Battleship. But before she could get locked on it was done. Other were faster and disabled the large vessel before Anne could fire.

She changed her direction and coordinated with her Wing. She then listened to Hunters order. "This Spinner confirming your orders Hunter," she reported and maneuvered to start torpedo run on designated target. "Cover me please Murasaki-hei!" Anne said to her wing and moved on the target with others.

"Order's confirmed, Honcho." Kenshin responded to Yaeko as she issued the game plan for their next target. For a few heartbeats, he enjoyed the view of the gutted and burning NMX battleship. Sorry Lynn-san -- we'll make these slimy bastard's pay for this, the Yamataian pilot thought bitterly to himself.

Kenshin reoriented his fighter, moving into formation with the rest of the squadron as they began their attack run on the nearest enemy cruiser. When Anne addressed the yamataian over his comms channel, Kenshin responded in a soft voice. "Don't worry Spinner -- I've got your six. Let's give 'em hell... for Hoshi."

"purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" was the responce from Errowyn, "No missiles..just cannon fire, Honcho," swinging her ship along with the rest to rejoin the group adjusting to take lead for the cannon fire.

She wondered if the defenive stuff could be used offensively.

One of the group of Star Army Light Cruisers continued to fire at the stricken battle ship, as the 21st moved away it exploded into a massive debris field.

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

"I'm okay Tereane-Hei, I inadvertently hit my comm system and switch off frequency. Roger the new target Honcho... I have good target... wait.." Shii called out.

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

From around the NMX cruiser a group of foue 1A Variant Rippers headed towards the squadron.

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

Akemi had sighted onto the Cruiser that Yaeko identified. "Hunter, Tamahagane-Hei here, I make four Rippers on intercept course. Do you want Kayo and I to engage them while you lead the attack run?"

"Do it," came Yaeko's response. She figured two Kawarime with anti-starship weapons could easily take out an armor-class unit, regardless of if this variant had shields. "Although, since you are outnumbered I want you to call for immediate help if either of you so much as lose your shields."

With that taken care of, Yaeko turned her attention to the cruiser that had just entered firing range. "Alright Diamonds, it's easy picking tonight!" She called as she unloaded her aether cannons on the cruiser. "Tessies, the moment that thing losses shield, notify the entire squadron. The four on missile detail, once the shields are down you are to immediately fire one of your missiles. Don't wait for my orders."

"Roger that Honcho," replied Elisto as he switched off to monitoring the cruisers shield status, he lined up alongside the Honcho, keeping in formation with his cannons ready to fire.

Glancing off to his side to see Shii, he placed a bit more power into the wavefront to continue jamming enemy targetting sensors. "Get hit by one of those turrets," he stared at a turret on the fast approuching cruiser, "and there will be nothing left..." his trigger finger stayed over the trigger, ready to pull it.

Akemi selected the Rippers as her new target. "Roger that Hunter 0097 and 0129 breaking off from the group to engage hostile in bounds. Kayo stay tight on my starboard and lets show these NMX the mistake they made getting up this morning." she broadcasted.

Kayo sent a simple "Hai" and adjusted her course to parallel Akemi's fighter.

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

"Of me, I saw what happened to Hoshi sir, I do not intended to go out that easily." Shii replied, adjusting her shields for full forward and adjusting her sighting. "Ship in range, firing cannons." She said squeezing the trigger a volley of aetheric plasma streaked away towards the enemy vessel.

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

Meanwhile the Cruisers anti-armor cannons began firing at the Diamonds, their first volleys missing wide due to the interference caused by the Tessies. Their second volley while it missed was considerably closer as they attempted to correct for the interference.

Elisto spun his fighter around, monitoring the firing of the cruiser and taking notice of the shots that went wide the first time, then got closer the second. Using his free hand, he readjusted the wavefront to cast out a jamming field on a different frequency, then set it up to rotate the frequency every few seconds to keep the NMX constantly guessing.

As the ship grew, he pulled the trigger on his stick and watched as aetheric fire flew from his cannons toward the fast approuching cruiser.

Yaeko pulled up on her fighter as she passed the cruiser and then accelerated. Don't want to burn out my engines, she thought as she made sure not to go full speed. Once she was just outside of range she pulled a u-turn.

"Tessies, can you adjus..." As she spoke she looked at the fighter information and saw that Elisto had already adjusted frequency. "Oh, you already did that. Never mind." With that one less thing to worry about she slowed down her usual attack speed and then opened fire once the cruiser was in range again.

"Can we get a reading on that thing's shields?"

Errowyn approached the ship and snickers at the two misses and soon was letting loose her aetheric cannon fire onto the designated target, keeping the barrage going and then maneavering still within the cruiser cannons, chasing their shot paths, knowing that it'll keep them busy trying to lock on her as she poured aetheric cannon shot after cannon shot at the cruiser.

She listened on the frequency of the squadron. She accidently let loose a cluster of flares from her ship in all direction, making it look like her ship exploded, when one NMX cannon shots came in close to her Kawarine. Using her manuevering thrusters, whipped her fighter around to chase that path of the cannon fire, hoping that NMX hadn't caught on to her tactic to stay in close and continued to pour more fire at the NMX Cruiser.

"Look alive, Anne-Hei -- we've got company." Kenshin said to his wingmate, ducking and weaving his ship through the sparse weapons fire of the NMX cruisers cannons. With the Tessies jamming the enemies sensors, getting in close was less of a strain-- but sweat still beaded down due to his nerves. On his sensor displays, he watched Tamahagane and Kayo break formation to engage the four enemy Rippers.

Whilst he was waiting for the enemies shields to fall, Kenshin diverted shield power to fore of his fighter craft. Then he cycled through the enemy ships sub-systems and acquired a target lock upon the cruisers sub-light drives with his aether torpedoes. With any luck, after firing his warhead the impact would cause secondary explosions.

Anne did not alter her course. NMX had their targeting systems jammed, any movement might have result in her being hit. If the jamming works, then the safest thing was to stay where she was. That said she also had to play with her wavefront module so enemy won't cut through the jamming. If they were cutting through the interference then all Anne had to was give them another interference. Easy to say, harder to practice though.

She also checked scanners while she was at it. "Hunter, the cruisers shields are down to 35%." She reported on squadron channel.

Elisto spun his fighter around, then leveled off and continued to lay in a stream of aetheric fire toward the cruiser. "Shields are gradually dropping, shouldn't be too much longer," he said and continued to monitor the shields levels.

Akemi and Kayo flew through the group of Rippers guns blazing, they took out two on their first pass, then after passing they cut engines and flipped their Kawarime so they were facing the Rippers from behind and opened up on them while inertial kept them moving away. Once they were destroyed, they started heading back to the squadron.

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

Meanwhile the HUD on the fighters showed that the Cruisers sheilas were collapsing. A couple well placed Ke-Z1 would drop them and let the rest of the squadron shoot at the naked hull.

He had been told he shouldn't go out alone.

The ground crews had told him to wait for some of the craft that had been re-arming to get heading out so he could work with them.

Ricky Thurston had told them that the Fighting Diamonds were out there, so he wasn't going to sit around, twiddle his thumbs, and wait until some other unit said that he could head out. With that argument being presented, the ground crew (reluctantly) gave him a fully armed V8, he ran through a rushed pre-launch checklist, and then he had been out the bay as fast as he safely could. So when he came out, with the Heitan currently staying out of the firing range of the NMX ships, he had a brief window of safety from enemy fire, and it was during that time when he was suddenly pinged with what looked like the whole Mishu Navy out ahead of him. However, he only had one destination, and by quickly narrowing down locations he was able to locate the Diamonds. So he took off, going through the pocket of destruction made by Yamataian forces. Of course, he couldn't stay in it forever.

Even there, he still had to be careful of enemy fire.

He keyed the Diamonds on the radio as he made his way to their area, trying to avoid any enemy fire, or debris, and moving as fast as possible.

"Diamonds, this is Santô Hei Thurston." He said, head on a swivel as he flew, "I'm making my way to your area now. Requesting permission to fall in to your formation."