RP: 21st Fighter Sq [Mission 9.2] Charging into uncertainty.

NMX Space

"Okay, Marco. Just ease her along."

"Just ease your mouth shut, Kudou, yeah?"

"I'm just saying. I don't want to end up dusted."

"I'm just saying I know this bird like she's my old lady. Relax."

"How can you tell me to relax? You're the one going through a womrhole with no SPINE interface."

"Exactly. No fancy computers to mess with my flying."

"Its official. I'm going to die."

"Not in my - crap!"

Marco pulled "down" as he saw what was happening ahead of him when he came out of the tunnel, with two other fighters nearly colliding with one another by flying canopy-to-canopy. He managed to fly well under the possible disaster waiting to happen, Kudou swearing and asking for the protection of some god-like being or his ancestors or - something (Marco didn't really know). With one disaster averted and sweat running down his brow from an - interesting flight experience, the Nepleslian went through the checklist on his end of things, while the EWO in back closed his eyes and set about doing the same through SPINE. Weapons, shields, and systems all being brought up to operational levels after the flight through the wormhole. Among the list of weapons registered as active for the ship? Marco grinned and keyed his radio.

"Ma'am, this is Wing-93." He fell into formation with their unit leader, tailing well behind her as he did on their way to the NMX vessel, "I've got a little present for the squids. A Z1 that can help bust their shield, and another for the hull."

Of course he didn't get an answer right away. She was busy strafing the enemy and peeling off. He'd tailed behind her just enough that as turrets began to trail her, he lined up, and opened up with aether cannon fire sweeping their positions and hopefully doing more than just killing their point-defense if he was lucky.

"So give us the word and we'll let them loose, ma'am." It was Kudou that time.

"Yeah, what the bookworm said." Marco chuckled.

Akemi listed to Marco, "Fire one missile at the warship. No sense expending all our torpedoes on one target. There is no telling what else may be around." Akemi flipped her fighter from end to end and kicked in her engines. Closing once more she was targeting the communication and sensor array of the ship.

The NMX warship was wounded but it still represented a threat, if only because it existed. Smoking and trailing plasma from several places. It still have enough turrets operational to be a threat to a fighter that approached unwisely.

K-5 / NMX Cruiser

Once her kawarime's shields were back up to full power, Errowyn went back on the offensive again, hitting areas that needed to be neutralized. She came in at an angle to Blade's Kawarime, unknowly, targeting the same area, communication and sensor array. She fired at gun emplacements as she dove into her attack run, giving one glance at her tactical view on where everyone was at.

On her tactical display, showed two friendly icons inbound on the NMX Cruiser. She hit braking thrusters, slowing her kawarime down, just as a deadly burst of deadly enemy energy beam shot several meters in front of her. She kicked in the harsh military thrust, slipping through a break in the stream of the deadly energy.

"Miarreow?" Errowyn swung her head to visualy find out where that came from. She jerked her Kawarime 180 degrees to get a visual on were that turrent was, flying backwards. Seeing the turrent guns shift to lock on her. She tilted her Kawarime and fired her Aether cannons as the NMX Turrent guns open fire on her. "This aint a good day!" Doing her best to maneuver her Kawarime out of the path of the deadly stream of energy heading her way....

Akemi with Kayo in tow spotted Hellcat's dilemma. They targeted the turrets that were threatening their team mate and reduced them to blasted chunks of twisted metal. The warship was slowing with its engines no longer firing. It then came to a rather sudden and savage halt when it struck the gravity wall of the area. The forward section buckled as the mass of the ship kept moving on inertia.

"Finish the warship. Before they can get moving again Diamonds." Akemi called out.

At Akemi's command, Kawane's fighter moved out of her formation to target other areas of the ship--she had a warship to finish (well, of course not by herself; she just wanted to sound cool for a second).

She darted around avoiding the flying debris of the gradually annihilated NMX spacecraft--Kawane heaved a silent, relieved sigh when Errowyn received help from Akemi and Kayo--and approached the immobile ship, cannons raring to fire. Blasts of aether impacted the NMX destroyer, rendering the once menacing warship into scraps of metal floating around with the only danger being obstruction of her view.

Errowyn heaved a deep sigh of relief as the turrent blew to scrap metal. Whipping her Kawarime around to face her direction of travel again. Opened up another streak of Aether cannon fire, drilling into the NMX cruiser with Aether fire from her cannons. Once an opening was created in the shell of the NMX Cruiser, She fired a missile into the breech she had made....

Kawane took pride in the fact that she only flinched slightly when the NMX Cruiser exploded into multiple flying bits as Errowyn's missile flew straight and true through the newly created breach, right into the depths of the ship. She heaved a relieved sigh, glad that this mess (haha, mess, because, you know, there's an entire ship wasted into floating scraps, causing a huge mess--you know what, she's just going to stop there, she wasn't impressing anyone with her "funny" thoughts) was over... kinda. They still have other parts of the mission to tend to and wait a minute...

"Didn't Akemi mention possible prisoners?"

Akemi keyed her mic, "There is a second team that is handling that effort. Their ship is attached to the shipyard, so if there are survivors they are in there. We need to spread out and scan the area. There is a chance that the warship may have sent a call for help."

Meanwhile the warship continued to convulse as secondary and tertiary explosions wreaked havoc on it.

Errowyn seeing the NMX Cruiser was in it's death throes, remembering the way it crumpled into something that wasn't there. She whipped her Kawarime up and over the NMX, deftly through the debris that was being sent into space from the internal explosion of the NMX Cruiser. Seeing the Secondary Object, She moved in close to it and fired off one of the lighter anti-ship missiles with a visual lock to prevent warning getting out to the object.

She watched the missile streak ahead towards the Secondary Object that the NMX Cruiser seamed to be stationed at and protecting.

Weland fell back, arming his scanners. He needed be productive. He keyed his mic up to the squadron, "Santo-Hei Weland, requesting permission to bend out of formation to scan for tangos." Weland kicked off his mic and looked at his instruments sighing. He hadn't done much, he wanted to be productive in this assault. But he was a soldier, he kept quiet about and waited for his leader's response.

Errowyn's missile detonated when it struck something, but no hint of a craft appeared, but space that the detonation took place in rippled outward like waves from a stone dropped into a pond. It appeared that the NMX warship when damaged had actually impacted the gravitational barrier that this pocket was contained in.

Akemi heard Weland and "Okay Diamonds, the aperture of this pocket is bearing 138 relative. Spread out to 1 light second intervals and max power to scan. The overlap should help us to spot any cloaked vessels." She called out.

Errowyn quickly changed direction into a tight loop to avoid that section of space. If it could cause a well built war machine as the NMX Cruiser to crumple like it did. She shuddered at the thought it would do to a Kawarime...Splat! ... like a bug on a windshield of a fast moving vehicle.

She manuevered into position on the end to keep majority of the new comers to the Squadron between herself and Akemi, to help keep an eye on them as she increased her scannors potency and linking with the other Kawarimes to boost their capibilities and her's.

She took stock of the munnitions she had left, plus the countermeasures she hadn't even touched yet. She would have to thank Akemi in disabling the battlepod compartment of the now extinct Cruiser. She scowled as that should've been her Second priority target.

For once, her 'Ghosts' were silent in the interlude after the battle with the Cruiser. She felt calm and was purring softly as she flew her Kawarine. Alert with no mind drift, babysitting the newcomers. At least they surived their first encounter with an Enemy Ship of the Line. But then the NMX was probaly too focused on her. Or her Shock-n-Awe Tactic actually worked. But it felt good to see the newcomers hanging tough with the Hellcat and Blade.

~~Oh pleeee-ease, they'll get you killed~~ Chorused in her mind.

Errowyn gave a soft chuckle. It was too good to be true... She'll never get rid of them. Sighing softly as she continued to assess her ship's capibilities, planning a new tactics in the upcoming battle with the station or what ever lay in wait for them.

She heaved a sigh as she leisurely (nonetheless alertly) took in her surroundings. The few words that could describe it were messy and unsettling. Like Akemi said, there was the possibility of cloaked ships within the vicinity—the battle was not quite over, she thought. Her nerves were a bit frayed from her first attack against the enemy, but she was glad that all went rather well. Kawane believed they will do fine; Akemi and Errowyn are sandwiching her and the newcomers in order to look after them as well as the hidden enemy, which offered some relief. She hoped that she can pull her weight in the upcoming situation.

Akemi was deep into the connection with her fighter, overlaying the sensor data from her fellow Diamonds. She was trying to find any anomaly that would indicate a cloaked ship or worse one of the phase mines that the NMX possessed. Finally a pattern started to emerge. She keyed her mic to the squadron.

"Okay Diamonds good news and bad news. There is not one other target in the area but two. The estimated sizes we are looking at a NMX Destroyer and a Ripper Gunboat. Distance is 31 light seconds away. They obviously know we are here, but they haven't engaged. Which gives me a bad feeling. There appears to be a field of those mines that phase between us and them." She paused and considered their options.

"I am not willing to let a NMX warship just head out. Let's form two groups and close up. We charge at the destroyer worry about the Gunboat later. With cannons blazing we can hopefully punch through the mines and get close to the ships." she continued.

'Phase mines? Another Destroyer and a Ripper Gunboat? Oh, I think I"m going to faint.' Kawane actually doesn't faint. She's still not sure if that's a good thing or not.

She pulled herself together enough to remember the second part of her announcement. She closed in on a group of fighters that would be part of her group, and waited for Akemi's order to start the charge. She scrutinized what's at hand arsenal wise, and prepped her cannon for the inevitable all-out assault.

Once the marching orders were given and displays comfirmed where everything was at. She took stock of her ship's conditions and armement. Destroyer would be a challenge, but the Ripper gunship she had encoountered before. Tough, but in the end it would be pilots/gunners skills against each other.

"Blade, Hellcat. Once past the minefield, I'm taking on the Ripper," Errowyn made the simple call over the Tact Freq. "Keep the kittens safe." Waiting for Akemi to open fire into the Phase Mine field.

She set her Aether cannons for wide firing that sent out burst of deadly energy in a random shotgun pattern to clear a path through them for her to traverse through to get at the Ripper Gunship.

Akemi looked at her displays as Errowyn's fighter went dashing off. 'I am going to have to deal with her when we get back to the Heitan.' she thought. "Kayo, get on Hellcat's six. Watch her back and make sure she get's back to the Heitan."

"Got it Blade, I will do my best to keep her from getting herself shot up." Kayo said, as she swung her fighter onto the new trajectory."

Akemi keyed her comms again. " The rest of you, commence firing and max burn." she fired her aether cannons in a spread pattern to deal with any potential mines that might be in her path. A second later her efforts were rewarded with an explosion as the struck mine detonated.

As Kayo took advantage of Errowyn's mine clearing tactic, followed safely. Watching Errowyn blaze a path through the mine field. It seamed that Lady Luck frowned on Errowyn as there was several explosions coming from nowhere.

Errowyn made her own luck, or was she was lucky or had good instincts that bordered on the paramornal. Once through the field and diving almost down the throat of the Ripper Cunship. Sending a hail of Aether Cannon fire to announce her presence in a blaze of fire.

Soon her Kawarime shields were flaring from near misses, messing with her scanners and target locking system due to the energy bursting on the shields. What looked like an instant explosion of lights as her defensive measures activated, making her Kawarime looked like it exploded in a burst of instant destruction.

Within the defensive explosion of countermeasures, she launched a one-two punch of torpedoes. First to take care of the Ripper's shields, punching a hole for the second missle follow through to hopefully to turn the Ripper Gunship to space garbage....

Errowyn exited the countermeasure field of pyrotechincs and electronic fuzz to really slam the Ripper Gunship with a barrage of Aether Cannon fire....

As Errowyn and Kayo continued on their way towards the Ripper their tactical systems updated showing a second Ripper moving away from the first.

Errowyn scanners beep warning when it detected the second Ripper Gunsip moving away from the first. As she still poured fire into the First Ripper Gunship.

~~Trap!~~ Screamed in her mind, Errowyn yelling over the tactical to Kayo, "Get away!" If it was a trap set by the NMX in the Targeted Ripper Gunship, Errowyn was too close for effective maneuvers to get away. ~~Good thing I'm not on the Boon System. I'd be in the brig for looking crappy in uniform!~~ Thought flashed through her mind as she did her best to avoid the trap if there was one. ~~oh the techs are gonna really love me for this one!~~

~~wonder if my batch sisters are going to transfer over. I'm gonna miss them if they don't~~ she thought as she added maxium power the shield emmiters could process into a stronger energy barrier for what was coming.