RP: Setareh Wing [Mission Two] Quayside Synthesis

Caliban Depression

With three enemies on top of him, Akjit’s NI, Nightmare, alerted him to multiple incoming enemy attacks.

Zoren’s cannons and missiles erased eight red indicators from his HUD, and his volley badly damaged many more frames before he gave the orders to Rasima. She'd downed five enemy frames herself, shooting them apart with missile after missile. Zoren pushed into enemy lines and five New Veyrin frames followed him and exposed their flanks to Rasima, begging her to pick them off.

After firing her shock lances, Karuah sliced open three Soono with her VT blades, damaging them beyond repair.

Altair's wrist-mounted RPCA cannon tore into his target's long torso, killing the rebel pilot instantaneously. His brutal attack left what remained of the frame in a few big chunks that drifted away into the melee.

Two more hostiles assailed Altair and Karuah, pushing their way past the debris and technological carnage left by the Setareh Wing frame runners. They'd come together as a team to try and better strike down their attackers. The unknown enemy frames sliced at each of them with their bladed weapons, zipping in close in an attempt to neutralize the Commomwealth soldiers' effective ranged weapons.

Twenty-five enemy frames had been downed so far and there were still more than ten left, some of which were already damaged. Unsurprisingly, almost all that had been downed were Soono frames. Those left on the battlefield were almost exclusively unknown frame types. Five of them were going after Zoren, three toward Akjit, and the other two were engaging Karuah and Altair.

“What can you tell us about these unknown frames, Ishtar?" Naak asked over open comms.

"They have no Codename within the Military Database. Tagging them as 'Coda' now. These units were present as the Orbital Elevator incident five years ago. We've surmised they are piloted by a slave-caste among the NVR Military. They are generally more effective, and therefore dangerous than the Soono platforms. Being better armed, typical configurations include the following: Fusion-based Energy Cannons, Free Electron Lasers; a form of energized particles blanketing their clawed hands and racks of miniaturized missiles carrying fusion payloads warheads."

As the battle continued, Naak, and Ishtar remained in place, Ishtar watching the rather one-sided battle from afar. "They utilize an unknown form of metamaterial for their Frames. Of which a partnership between the VIA, and Solanii engineers are trying to determine. As of yet much of its makeup is unclear save for the fact it shows an incredible tensile strength and crystalline matrix. Other attributes to the Frame include a MASC Drive, with wake generator and vector transition properties." the FIOMNI paused, "Strange, I was unaware that they utilized bladed weaponry. Updating our information on the unit. This specific unit outclassed the earlier Erla I Series. Comparing it to the Erla II, it is still a flexible unit, and wholly dependent upon pilot ability to make it an effectively dangerous platform beyond reliance on its technology."

"Ishtar noticed me!" Akjit chirped, his NI making sure the comms weren't open for that. He coughed, regaining as much dignity as possible. "Marbalri Chirimar, engaging three hostiles," the young man reported off.

It all boiled down to a few heartbeats of time.

Motivated more than ever, the frame runner made the bigger, heavier Haidan simply move as he closed the distance. Evading their attacks as best he could, the Ivuori let the two furthest from him have a salvo of canister missiles each, the projectiles bursting into a wide cloud of sensor obscuring, beam befuddling particles with plenty of room to spare. With the third and closest frame having that much less backup, Nightmare and Akjit knew they only had a few precious moments to destroy it before the other two cleared the cloud. Letting loose a single salvo of Star Adders, they watched while juking, waiting for it to try and evade the oncoming missiles and make its trajectory far more easier to peg with both Shockflails.

"I really hope those slave runners eject once they know they're outmatched," he accidentally hoped over the comms. As energizing as it was to hear Ishtar's voice again after all this time, he had a job to do. Akjit knew he had to destroy these three. Then push forward as the deep strike unit. And provide support fire for the rest of the wing. Even as he fought and fought hard, he couldn't help but think that something was wrong with this.

'Chirimar, do everything!' Nightmare's almost girlish voice summed up for him.

Calibran Depression

Rasima dutifully followed above and behind Zoren, weapons systems up in action finishing off damaged but still dangerous survivors, plus whatever escaped the weapons fire of her lead. She grunted an affirmative to his series of directives, hanging back a little further for a better field of fire, as he dove into the 'hornet's nest'.

Ignoring Mercy's quiet offer of the VT blade as the frames began to close with her, Rasima stuck to her literal guns, pouring fire into the units swirling around Zoren.

Watching the carnage of her fellow pilots, more precisely the actions of Nightmare and its pilot, Irfan felt her goosebumps climbing to an all-time high. Even if they were against some forced combatants, they were opponents that were forcing the Wing to utilize all of its assets and stratagem to put them back down. But unlike the effective chasing and forcing their foes around that Akjit was orchestrating, Lucidity rushed upward and then descended in the three-dimensional void zone. The peppering fire from the shockflails had staggered one of her targets, just long enough for the claw-like VT weaponry to rake across the other machine's torso. A long, carnage-inducing slash from the many Phantoma talons was enough to cleave out the opposite hip from its original shoulder entry.

"Marbalri Song," she paused, atop the peak of her excitement in a gasp, "One more for the scoreboard!"

Cleaving out the damaged machine, she shoved the other claws into the ravaged chest and spun mid-action to use the opponent as an impromptu shield. One of the comrades had rushed out and broken their triple formation to take shots, but only scored more hits upon the void-bound carcass. Smashing the back of her hand against the machine was all it took for the Haidan to detach it and send it hurdling toward the opponent, just in time for Irfan to fire her Liftskimmers and skirt back through the void and thankfully avoid any hits. A telltale sign of a conscript's mental break, based on the inaccurate fire as they held the dead pilot's craft in one arm.

"I almost feel bad for them... pft... but then again, we have a job to do! If they won't surrender, we'll just cut 'em down, won't we newbie?"

There was no need to address the other Marbalri as she once again indicated he was some new fry. A new introduction to the wing might as well have been fresh onto the line in this bubbly pilot's eyes!

Caliban Depression

Karuah was more than a little interested in the information on these 'Coda' frames, but Saeid made a rather irritating beeping noise every time he sensed Karuah's attention wander from the fight at hand, so she had to commit herself to dealing with a practical lesson instead, she was always better in practice than theory anyway. As the Coda closed in on Saeid, the Reavr initiated a loop and transformed into it's standard configuration mid loop, having to disengage it's blades for a moment. When they reactivated, they were on the legs of the frame, as it went into a flip try and kick the Coda away with the VT Driver and then propel itself back to get distance and fire it's Shocksting canons in rapids succession.

Caliban Depression

"Doc! Five of those CODA frames on our tail..." Enigma informed him.

"Beginning evasive maneuvers. Disengage limiters on the So-M2-G0936 Frame-class ZeP Siphon..." He ordered, banking to avoid enemy fire.

"Doc that is dangerous, I advise against..." Enigma started to say before Zoren cut her off.

"Release Control Restriction Zero."

Enigma was silent a moment, then a warning flashed that the control limiters were released. He was able to push his craft faster and make faster turns, but it also meant more G's of force on his body. "Restrictions released... Good luck Doc." Enigma finally answered.

Zoren didn't reply. He slammed the throttle open and his VANDR rocketed away faster than the enemy CODA's. He quickly flipped his craft over and activated its Phantoma Edge and soared right into the horde of them. He started dipping and weaving through the enemy lines again, straining against the increased G forces.

Caliban Depression

Out of the inferno of Coda frames that was surrounding Zoren came two and Naak cried out, "Nanise, you have two coming at you!" She aimed her own VT Fangs and shot out, slicing the blade-wielding arm off of one frame while another was left unscathed. She fired Star Locusts at them, but the undamaged one managed to dip out of the way while the other was left with severe, but not completely incapacitating, damage.

"Do you have a handle on them or do you want me to come over there?"

Caliban Depression

The AND reporter had just been doing her thing from a few thousand kilometers out since the skirmish began: Zipping here and there, staying innocuous, and getting some totally rippin' shots of the action. Nanise, of course, wasn't broadcasting live. Setareh Wing had just been out on a routine patrol, after all.

When Naak's message came, Nanise instinctively focused her macro-space-camera's picture onto the incoming frames. Their legs reminded her of an Erla II's, only orange and a bit stubbier; something she'd have to remember since there wasn't much time to jot anything down right now. She didn't really register the professionally brash Wing Commander's ever-decisive words so much as she heard them like a soundbite to be used as voice-over narrative in the cutting room later on. This was some quality journalism happening to her, and, nose glued to the civilian Vanguard Ranger's analog screen that she used to live-edit footage, Nanise loved every second of it.

But the engaged smile soon fell away from her face as five micromissiles joined the two big, orange monoeyes rapidy filling her display.

"S-shit!" she stuttered over open comms, probably in response to Naak's offer of assistance, while she pushed herself away from the recording controls and refocused her mind on controlling her VANDR with some semblance of finesse. Just as the projectiles neared her frame, Nanise brought its two Waver Flail defense rods online and redirected the trajectories of four micromissiles, smashing them away with a quick vector field blast and sending their destructive fusion payloads off safely into space. The fifth micromissile impacted her VANDR's torso, splashing against its Resistor Barrier Field and rocking the old mech to its core.

"Incoming hostile contacts, Nani," Opacity, her frame's ANIOS, informed her in his dull manner. "Suggest evasive action as to avoid further damage."

"Yeah, yeah," Nanise managed, sounding a bit shaken. She flexed and articulated each finger on her frame's Divine Fist CIVWS—the only offensive weapons it was equipped with—as her attackers closed in. Their own particle claws glimmered in the void as they spooled up, even against their gleaming orange superstructures. "Just handle the video. This is some ace stuff!"

Caliban Depression

"Ishtar, I want you to call in what part of the fleet, if not all of it, that you deem necessary. They'll assist us in downing this carrier. We'll wait for them. I have no doubt Setareh wing will best these enemies while we wait," Naak said, eyeing the battle from her vantage point with Ishtar.

The enemy Coda frame going after Altair nearly broke apart his Raevr, but the ace pilot was too fast and dodged, then pushed back with an Advanced Particle Lancing Missile, so deadly it nearly took out the frame on its own. The Coda shot back with its Blaster, to which Altair formed a Vector Barrier over the part of the Raevr likely to be shot. He then lashed out, coming as close to the Coda as he could before stabbing his Phantom Glide VT Drivers on his legs against the claw that carried the enemy’s blade. Without its melee weapon, the Coda began to charge its Heavy Fusion Cannon, but before it could blast Altair with it, the young Eyr Ranr pilot disengaged, flew back, as if pulled away from the Coda on a string, and pushed out another Advanced Particle Lancing Missile towards the Coda, breaking it apart and destroying it.

Irfan had taken one out with her Haidan's claws and thrown its corpse into the arms of another, which, stunned, took a moment to regroup and rethink. Sanjaya took the opportunity to swoop in and take the kill from Irfan. He sustained major damage to the arms of his Erla II and had to call to Karuah on comms.

She was dealing with her own issues, though, as she had damaged a Coda with Shockstring cannons and, yet, the frame was still mobile. It lashed out at her with its particle claw and she pushed her Storm Ray Laser Array out of her hips and shoulders and into the body of the Coda while dodging. Before it could re-attack, her Raevr’s Regenerative Beacon Flares served as a distraction before she quickly flew out of its range and behind it and disposed of more Shockstring Cannons into the back of the Coda, decimating it.

One frame went down at Akjit’s hand as another two rose up, out of the canister missiles’ haze to attack him. The first lined up its attack with its Fusion Micromissile Rack and, to the NI’s surprise, it wasn’t locked on to Akjit’s position. The second shot out its Heavy Fusion Cannon, pulsing into Akjit’s Haidan several times before he was able to duck out of the way, right into the line of fire of the first’s Micromissiles.

Nightmare sustained massive injury to her bioweapon body, though her Hypercarbon Sheath Armor did what it could to keep itself intact. Having had its left arm torn off by the Heavy Fusion Cannon and the outside layer of the area just above the cockpit blown to bits, Nightmare made quick work mending and repairing what it could. In the meantime, Akjit needed to take out the two Coda before they did just that to him.

Irfan was quick to notice her comrade’s qualms and pushed forward, overtaking Akjit and slamming into the enemy frames with her Linear Hammer Shoulder Mortars. The first to go down blew apart in front of both of them, fragments of Coda slipping onto their frames.

The second brought its Heavy Free Electron Blaster up and aimed at her before she slipped out of the way not once, not twice, but three times before the fourth impacted with her frame. Then the fifth and sixth time, she was hit, but there was no seventh time, as she had taken those 4 seconds to charge her Shocklance SPCA Cannons and fired the head-mounted blast into the chest of the Coda, ending it.

Three out of the five that were attacking Zoren had been downed by Rasima’s fire and the other two had gone after Nanise, who had shifted her Close-In Variable Weapons System on her hands to two Katar blades that, when she had fully and quickly approached the first Coda frame that had been struck by Naak’s VT Fang blows, she punched into the mid-section of it, then repeated with the other fist and then the first, then the other, punching and punching it until she had pushed through into the cockpit of the slave pilot.

The second frame had been positioning to fire, though Naak had been aiming herself and shot out her Star Locust, then fired off a volley of Shockstring RCPA Cannons, which knocked out the Coda enough so that Nanise could finish it off.

“Setareh Wing!” Naak bellowed. “It is time to regroup. The enemy frames have been vanquished. We’ll take the carrier as soon as the fleet arrives! They will assist us in-”

Before she could finish her sentence, enemy ships blinked out of the void and had come to feast on the wing.

"We need to make a new plan and fast!" Naak said, strategizing while thinking. "Ki Lea?" she comm'd in to VSV Arha's mission adjutant officer.

"Yes, backup ships are set to arrive momentarily, Officer Behea."

Tersely, Naak Behea said, "We have arrivals."

"Describe the enemy," Ki said, while also keying in the information she was receiving to her volumetric screen and integrated keyboard simultaneously.

"It looks like we have twenty or so Quodr Liftracers outfitted with weaponry for combat."

To her wing, Officer Behea said, "Chirimar and Song will continue to be our deep-strike team. Frontal assault will be headed by Zoren with Khorvash and Dhawa following and Bousaid will take Devaraja and Verha to the back of their ranks. The latter two will provide subterfuge for Bousaid while she takes out the enemy. We don't have much time, find your positions and destroy the enemy!"

Ekia Verha and Sanjaya Devaraja looked to Rasima and Sanjaya chirped first, "Cover us!" Then they both flew in unison towards a Quodr Liftracer-looking group of ships and brought them away from Rasima, but still in range of her systems.

Ishtar, analyzing the battle, and upon Lanranr Naak's order summoned their reinforcements. Which, upon receiving the go ahead popped up on the Wing's IFF at extreme range. Eight contacts, all Frigate-class vessels. From that range, one would be led to believe they'd be well outside of optimal weapon's range for anything the Commonwealth fielded.

"Long-Range Task Force vessels have arrived, they've sounded general quarters and are targeting the enemy Carrier now. It is advised to remain outside of their firing solutions." the latter a warning to the Wing in general. The frigates, after the warning began to open fire. A series of extreme velocity blips showing up on the VANDRs' active sensor suites. Sixteen PWAC-A Missiles traveling in excess of three times the speed of light towards the target.

Caliban Depression

Altair was glad to hear at least one other person was against the lost of life as he was.
When he heard the new orders, he immediately accelerated towards Zoren and Karuah.

After reaching them he soared ahead, sending slashing VT driver kicks outwards towards the closest enemy Liftracers and firing missiles and shock cannons at those further away.

After completing a run through the enemy formation he turned around and rejoined his team.

Caliban Depression

Karuah wanted to take care of the damage to Siege as soon as possible but before she had the time new enemies showed up on the sensors. She had mixed feelings about seeing lift racers on the field of battle, such a craft was so frail compared to a frame, and she couldn't think of a way to safely disable them.

When the orders came to continue the attack, Karuah hesitated a moment, she knew those would be the orders but she wasn't even sure how well prepared this force was. However she was more afraid of her teammates getting injured than of these aggressors, so she began her assault. She took a moment to lock onto several of the trans-atmospheric craft and fire a full salvo of Star Locust missiles, trying to disable as many as she could at once while approaching.

'LUCKY SHOT!' the NI raged, its voice devolving into a crowd, all trying to shout over one another in fury.

"Damn," Akjit politely swore, the bloody, burnt pieces of the frame coming away in a gory mess. He really, really hoped Ishtar didn't notice that, though that was unlikely. With no time to reply to Irfan, he acted quickly and stayed cool as four of the HAIDAN's null capacitors were triggered. With one going to the hull and three routed to shields, armor plate rapidly grew at a cancerous rate to patch over bleeding wounds while the energy field around the massive war machine was brought back up to strength again. Moving to crush the two remaining frames as quickly as possible, Akjit continued to juke, flushing his remaining Star Adder missiles at the two in a wide spread before following up on one with his full barrage of mortars, giving the other a taste of his remaining particle cannons.

'Targeting solutions aquired. Rebalancing shields, double front - don't let them flank us,' Nightmare chimed in, a singular voice again. Akjit was confident despite the damage. He wasn't outnumbered; the enemy was fighting both of them.

Caliban Depression

"Doc! Power output has climbed to 110%." His craft informed him.

"Roger that channel, the excess into our weapons. Set 110% as the new limit." Zoren ordered, pulling out of his maneuver to see the incoming enemies. "Shit..." He cursed under his breath.

He heard his orders and acknowledged. "Enigma copies all, will prosecute." He turned his craft towards the oncoming enemy and targeted as many of the crafts as he could before unleashing a salvo from his own missiles.

"Assault squad! Form up on me. The enemy is resorting to technical style craft, we have the advantage! Pick your targets and commence combat!" He said picking a small team of Quodr Liftracers and picking them off with his cannons, firing at more with his missiles.

Caliban Depression

"Acknowledged, Lanranr," Rasima turned her eyes from the violent maneuvering of the wing's physician as orders took her from his wing. The rest of their formation was still with him, more then able to support his portion of the attack. To keep the improvised fighters' attention on her rather then the two Erla headed for their rear. She kept up the cannon fire in ARMS mode, getting closer, closer as she weaved to avoid the incoming fire.

Almost at the last moment, she executed a change of configuration, blades coming up at her request, to Mercy's vocal approval. The separation was practically gone; there were so many missiles and frames swirling into the mix now that she caught the first craft unaware. Whether the pilot was there of their free will or not mattered little as the console lights played over her fixed eyes, blades slashing through the cockpit in silence as the shredded craft tumbled away. Her attention turned to the survivors. Hopefully their attention was still on her.

Caliban Depression

Altair's VT kicks, missiles, and shock cannons killed the lives of three pilots. He was a merciful but devastating killer. Karuah's Star Locust salvo had hit four, shredding them to bits. Zoren's salvo of missiles, then cannons, then missiles did the trick and three enemies were killed because of his prowess. Rasima's blades had slashed into the cockpit before the pilot had any way to know what to do and, without the ability to survive in a vacuum like she and the rest of the Astral Vanguard had, eyes bulged and the enemy Iromakuanhe pilot gasped like a Luodfish out of water for a few seconds before their eyes closed and body went limp.

In little to no time, the the Particle Wave Cruise Missiles found their target, the carrier. Sixteen segments of it blew up all at once, then the damage spread elsewhere. Blasts from all over the carrier erupted in varying degrees, pushing outwards in burnt orange plumes. Three liftracers were swallowed in some of the explosions.

"Get out of the way of the blast!" Naak ordered and her wing obliged her heated request, falling away from the annihilated carrier.

The outfitted liftracers were expert at targeting the wing and in a last ditch effort to out-power the wing, attacked en masse, save for one.

One enemy targeted in on Karuah and hit Saeid's right leg, causing minor damage to the VT driver there. The only option she had was to retaliate.

Altair was hit by one to the extent that he was pushed by the attack to one side, but no damage was done. Another series of shots were fired by the attacking racer and there were little options for him but to kill, again.

Rasima was able to dodge the incoming attacks of a liftracer and readied herself to show no Mercy with Mercy.

After the frames had been downed, Akjit's only objective left was to go after the liftracers. One had decided to give chase to the two of them, him and Nightmare, and fired on them, missing marginally.

There was an urgent need for Zoren as Ekia had been seriously wounded after one liftracer had plowed itself into her right before another released a series of volleys into her punctured frame.

Irfan was close to an outfitted liftracer occupied by none other than General Daurjana, who was in the passenger seat, yelling commands to the pilot. They swooped away from the battlefield and in the opposite direction of the Astral Vanguard vessels after the carrier had been blown apart.

Naak asked Ishtar for the statistics and she relayed to Naak that fifteen out of the twenty liftracers had been destroyed in some way or another.

"What would the Sengraiv like us to do, now that the carrier has been destroyed and their numbers are so few?" Naak asked Ishtar.

The new guy knew how to show-off. With the Nightmare and her new fellow Haidan pilot taking all the glory, the bubbly pilot had no time for pleasantries. Instead, she was greeted to the sight of an HVT trying to make a stealthy escape under the cover of the many other liftracers that had spilled out. The carrier might have been gone, but a new target presented itself as Irfan raised her machine's hand in preparation for a finishing attack.

"Alright, score one for me and Lucy-"

Irfan's voice cut off and her words hung in her mouth, just as she caught sight of her fellow pilots struggling. Her singular shot would be quite useful in assisting them, but the range was likely too far to shoot. She'd have to fly closer and abandon the potential kill that could net her tons of reputation... but there was no room for that when she groaned and realized that assisting the Wing was better than taking down one head honcho. It wasn't a big enough honcho to destabilize the enemy's actions anyhow... which meant the smarter move was to preserve numbers and take a later fight where the enemy would only be demoralized by their scummy leadership's survival. It was a better strategy than killing him to be replaced or trying to detain someone without actual finger tips to their machine. Turning and launching away from the liftracer and its valuable cargo, she instead flew out to assist Akjit. It wasn't likely a single liftracer could deal significant damage to another skilled pilot, but their machines had suffered light damage that could easily be made worse with a lucky shot or two.

So she simply brought the machine's claw-like hand downward and cleaved into the right flank of the pursuing wimp, bringing her machine's leg up in a following roll to kick the craft hard enough to leave a nice dent in her machine but send it tumbling through the void with even more damage.

"Score one... urgh. You get it! We totally beat their butts!"

At the destruction wrought by the heavy barrage, Ishtar analyzed the growing debris fields and labeled them. Obstacles, possible collision flags and hard radiation clouds were all assigned to a three-dimensional map of the area and sent via datapackets to the Wing. The effects had been devastating to the opposing forces.

"With numbers depleted, capture of enemy pilots for questioning. Any hardware worth salvaging should be acquired and analyzed by Vanguard science teams."

Karuah frowned at all the destruction that happened across the field. They were fighting the enemy and couldn't afford to be nice, but this was the second incident in such a short time, if a third was planned it would be nice to know beforehand. Seeing the possibility of information, Karuah decided to target the opposing craft not with her usual Shocksting cannons, but instead she took careful aim with the Storm Ray point defense system. It was weaker, but she was able to refine her aim and target only the weapons and propulsion systems, firing beam after beam in an attempt to disable the craft instead of destroying it.