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"Impact, six targets shot down." Help intoned, simulations of the missiles' flight paths appearing on the HUD. "Missile Pod 3 expended."
"Urk." Spirit winced. She'd messed up with the spread and had inadvertendly "shared" targets with Aquila Five, resulting in a good portion of her Eels being wasted on overkill and leaving half of the formation intact. "Sorry about that!" she called out, abashed.
Hands curling within the cockpit's control sockets, the Hammerhead's engines flared as Spirit put the ungainly torpedo bomber into a sharp ascent, the dark green spacecraft rocketing into New Bernese's cloud layer. "Help!" she ordered, jockeying the craft into an inverted arc that would put them above the enemy formation. "We'll be diving upon the ships at the rear of the formation, standard boom-and-zoom tactics. Light fighters like the ones they're flying likely won't have the engine power to catch us in a powerclimb, we'll pick them off one by one at our leisure."
Fixing the signatures of the two lead craft with a wary eye, she added in an afterthought. "Please keep an eye on the leaders for me, let me know if they start doing anything... odd. Something about those two pilots has me a little worried."
[OOC: Typing on Android with the site layout is pain and misery.]
[OOC+: Do let me know if this post feels "powergamey" or somesuch, and I'll be more than happy to edit it as needed.]
"Lighthouse Confirms, Seven Nine." The trademark calm and collected voice of an air-traffic controller answered over the radio. The red flight had re-encrypted but the message itself was picked up by their controllers far beyond, Cutting them off from their communications network and giving Edward the span of information much the same the flight lead would have received as the distant AWACs or controller "Lighthouse" sent statistical data about the surviving wing pilots and their craft.
The lot of them had long since switched to reserve fuel alcoves and one of them, Five, was reporting a decrease in thrust power. The ice cold emotionless report was topped off by advising Edward sacrifice the failing craft and make an escape northwards with whatever he could salvage of the remainder of the wing to regroup with three deploying wings "Blackjacks 93, 78 and Terror-1"
The red wing received none of this information from their controller and continued to burn east towards them, Close enough that they could now be seen without the air of instruments, Small black dots on the horizon that where steadily gaining altitude and proximity to Aquila. Close enough that their long-range rangefinding was already locking to the signatures of the larger hammerheads and one of the grunts reporting it too was being targeted.
Even with the three craft properly painted by the reds, None of them opened fire with any of their long-range munitions. Instead they continued to aggress towards the flight with unsettling abandon, Giving no indication of when or if they intended to release munitions.
Just before entering the point blank marginal range that was impossible to miss the 6 craft broke formation. Two of the junkers threw a hard angle to the right, Mirrored by two more to the left. Each of them trying to get onto the flanks of the flight while the two aces at the front suddenly climbed at a 45 degree angle into cloud cover after the hammerhead before it ran out of range or ascent and out of sight of even the flights instruments right on time for Lighthouse to chime in over the comms again.
"Seven-Nine, Lighthouse. RTB delay, Reinforcement flights inbound, ETA: 25 Mics. Ground recovery is inbound for survivors, Lighthouse Actual requests intact enemy craft and pilot grounded for retrieval and extraction. Hold strong, Lighthouse out."
No need for edits or what not in case someone feels they overstep unless they absolutely feel they want to... Im pretty flexible so no matter what you guys do ill work around it.
He laughed, he couldn't help it. Edward wasn't actually a malicious person but these Reds were quite ill equipped and just not ready. Stamping down that side of himself he opened his channel to his flight, "Virus to Aquila Lead, Listen these guys are not in a good way. They have basically bingo fuel, heck even one of them is losing power and won't be able to keep up with his friends. On top of that they have reinforcements coming in about 25 Mics from now. Not to sound too cocky but I don't think they're ready for our jelly, if you catch my meaning."
As the words left Edward's mouth sure enough there was Happy in an outrageously tight dancer outfit shaking his butt, "Cause this body's too bootylicious for you baby!"
"Intel I recieved show those two that broke off and up are the only ones with ammo and the best flyers. You all focus on them, I'm gonna chase some newbs, maybe get them to retreat or bail," he stated knowing that letting these rookies get away might bite him in the ass way down the road. The idea of wiping them out just hung too heavy on him.
"Help! Get me a rundown on those fighters and what they're armed with, and quick!" G-forces crushed her into her seat as Spirit's Hammerhead began weaving violently, bleeding speed as the three of them rocketed into the planet's cloud layer. Her time with Knifehead Squadron had her running into more than enough "freaks" during anti-piracy missions to instill in her a healthy caution around so-called "junkers"; such vessels more often than not concealed nasty surprises in ther mishmashed hulls.
Nobody ever expected a dinky passenger shuttle to be toting a frigate-class railgun, to say the least.
That said, continuing her ascent with possible bomber-killers on her tail would be a terrible idea; she'd no other choice but to engage. "Spirit here, I've got the leaders on my tail, breaking off on my climb to engage! Might need some support in a bit!" she called, her Hammerhead's thrusters flaring as it rolled over to bring its broadside launchers to bear on the approaching aircraft.
"Aquila Three, fox three! Standby for airburst!" Twin tongues of flame spat out from the torpedo bomber's flanks as a pair of Pufferfish plunged down upon the two junkers, the fat white-shelled missiles primed to detonate right in front of their targets.
Judith couldn't help but feel even more sorry for the Reds. While she had already suspected something was off with this flight, the broken comms that they had intercepted to their controller, Lighthouse, only confirmed everything. To make it even more deeply regrettable, the Reds command must have some pretty insane faith in their trainees and aces to give them such absurd orders, and think the fact reinforcements were 25 mikes away was all that encouraging.
Either that, or the Reds thought these Aces were some kind of one-man army each. The brunette sighed softly and pushed the thoughts aside - for all she knew, maybe these aces really WERE that good. It wasn't like she was some kind of ace pilot either, she'd much prefer being back on the bridge of the Dainsleif.
"I'll back you up Spirit, good hunting on the rest, not that it sounds like it'll be much of a hunt." replied the busty Nepleslian quickly, moving into position to support Spirit's attack on the Red's two aces.
The fight was drastically one-sided as the Aquila craft simply tore through the inexperienced fighters of the reds. Lacking in the propper fuel reserve or even a single round of ammunition or missile to fire the helpless rookies already exhausted from hours or intensive training and drills flew drastic and erratic circles around the flight just trying to avoid munitions long enough for an avenue of escape to open and set them free from their undeserved slaughter.
One craft had already attempted this. Under-powered and failing, The malfunctioning junker made a run for it as soon as it got onto the flight blind-side and burned as hard as its failing engines would allow it. It made it barely a few kilometers before the grunts caught up to it and dismantled the doomed fighter with a precise savagery impossible to program intimately into the drones. Their quarry hurtling towards the ground they began the steady pace back towards the flight as a whole, Already targeting another doomed soul.
Within a matter of minutes before the first shot was fired only two of the red craft remained in the area while their superiors tried for an important kill. Another fighter had made a fatal mistake and pulled too tight of an axis on its turn, Its pilot passing out from the sheer force of G-force the craft was pulling and coasted off towards the ground slowly as it kept circling before burning into a firey mess in one of the rare patches of green in the desolate wasteland. With only two fighters against several something changed in the way their coordinated. Before they where simply flying evasive, But now, Be it an order from above or just the pilots succumbing to the path of hate, They changed their direction seemingly at random towards Aquila-4, Towards Virus. Burning towards the closet craft as hard as they could push their engines, And where quickly gaining on him inevitably before the grunts would make it back in range...
Higher up the fight was more drawn out. Spirits AI transmitted the data into a rough display, Not that she would need it as close as the Reds where getting on what visible data could be pulled up. One of the craft was short and fat, With a menacing cannon as long as the craft itself and with a barrle wide enough to easily fit 40mm rounds to spit out in anger, With long curved wings carrying two dual carrier of some kind, Each could easily hold two anti-air missiles in its sheaths. The craft spoke of a patient grace of its pilot as it slowed deliberately not to throw off its aim. A veteran pilot with a craft outfitted to causally slip in and out of dogfights, Behind a craft to carefully pick it apart with its main cannon, And loaded with enough missiles to finish the job if need be.
The other craft, Fatter with longer wings, Burned towards Spirit with none of the patience of a veteran pilot but with the tantrum of a child. The crafts longer wings easily held two dozen missiles without its sheathes, And four smaller but equally lethal cannons on the sides of its fuselage. Where the first was meant for an ace of aces, Careful and deliberate. This craft was made for the manic pilot of went for the kill. The pilot who threw as much ordinance as possible at a target as they could to take it down with overkill as the word.
both of these craft where closing to a distance of almost 500 meters, Well past point blank range for a dogfight. As spirit turned to begin her salvo, The larger craft spat a two sets of missiles, Each as long as a mans arm and more. They closed the distance in an instant, crashing into the hammerheads outer shield and throwing off its aim, Making a fatal salvo into only a crippling one.
The aggressive craft was missed by the salvo completely, Throwing another set of rockets at the hammerhead with more to spare as it started to lose speed from the altitude. Whereas the rear craft attempted to dodge with a casual turn but had one of its wings simple torn off from the blast as the pufferfish redirected and slammed into his flank, Not killing the craft but sending it downwards into what would become a 300knot death drop, Straight towards Aquila-5, Straight towards Judith. Not that the temporary flight lead could see it, But its pilot kept perfectly calm in the drop, Using what little control left they had to point the nose of their craft directly towards her and all its remaining ordinance with it as it prepared to join its underlings in a kamikaze attack...
To call what had transpired a "fight" would seem a discredit to the word... as Judith had somewhat anticipated, the vast majority of the Reds simply didn't stand a chance - even a recent bridge commander as herself probably looked like an ace pilot.
But at the moment, none of that was on the brunette's mind. Mostly because she was quickly aware that the descending, crashing craft was certainly intending to ensure it would collide with her own craft, instead of the ground below. While she was led to believe her particular craft was somewhat hardy, she wasn't about to purposely gamble on testing it's effectiveness in this kind of situation.
If they were in the vacuum of space, this would be a far more easy maneuver, but the temporary flight lead was going to really test out her Disrupter suit's fit - the F/A02 would limit her sharp, sudden dodge but hopefully the computer would give her enough leeway to pull off the sharp maneuver...
Edward had given a brief thought previously to the chances they were going to turn suicidal because math and probability was his thing but he had long since moved on. Now, seeing these last two muster up something deep inside of themselves and come straight for him was certainly surprising and a little admirable to the hacker turned pilot. That kind of faith really spoke volumes about these two and their leadership, or it could just be a remote program and these two suckers are panicking. Either way Edward saw he was in trouble.
He, of course, flew the usual looping and twisting patterns. Sometimes the oldies and goodies worked, that is why they became oldies and goodies but to no avail he could see. These guys, or gals as Happy pointed out, were laser focused.
This situation was once again a prime example that, while Edward was considered an "Ace" by Nepleslian Navy standards, it was obvious he was apart of the group for his intellect more so. He tapped a few commands in for Happ to compute and braced himself for the following maneuver.
Happy rapidly decelerated the Dictator, a questionable choice to be sure, to a point that was above stalling but not below falling. Edward at the same time pointed the nose of the ship upwards, hoping that the visual direction of his ship created an illusion that he was heading up when in fact he was headed down. This kind of maneuever was completely new to him and he had little beyond the hope that it would pay off.
The two reds chasing after Edward banked and turned on his flanks, Visibly losing ground as the more powerful dictator left the fuel starved junkers struggling to to stay in his slipstream, And then even more so just to stay at standoff range until his climb. One of the Reds suddenly balking and breaking off towards the north, Still away from the grunts and remainder of the flight while its counterpart continued to keep the ace mobile and distracted. The sacrificial craft heaved and draught its way through the skies, Unable to keep pace the junker slowed to a near crawl in aviation speeds, Its nose slowly turning and then drooping in the slow speeds as it stalled and began to level the craft and then even past that towards the ground.
And then it started to fall, Gaining momentum again too late, The Dictator right on his tail at what could easily be considered point blank for any pilots crosshair. The advantage was bittersweet however as something just beyond the dictators radar horizon blipped suddenly on his sensors. Distant at first, And then more constant. The fleeing red junker making a beeline towards the distant tracer fire and explosions somewhat more noticeable in the north as the dog fighting seemed to progress closer to whatever was taking place.
Higher above, And unknown to the encroaching threat Judiths hammerhead pulled away sharply, The shield of the fighter-bomber shuddering bright and violent ripples and flashes on the flank of the cockpit in a blinding flurry as the red ace dove in a suicidal and wingless drop towards her craft. Displays flash bright red warning runes and a smaller silhouetted display of the ship mirrored the damage as a small semi-circle on the ships avatar went from a quick blue, To green, To yellow, And finally red before winking out to a blank empty space as the shield buckled under the immense salvo of rocketry and the brutality of the massive belly mounted cannon. Just as her protection was so savagely ripped away from her to leave her hammerhead exposed with just its natural armor it abruptly ended.
Her maneuver had saved her from a midair collision at the cost of exposing her flank to the plummeting junker. A steep tuition for such a simple lesson had barely seen the former ship commander saved as the red craft passed her own and then continued towards the ground, Its momentum lost and unable to turn without its wing or flaps to finish the job.
She wouldn't have time to turn her craft properly before the red likely became just one more crater on the frozen terrain, Whether or not he ejected in time a mystery to the flight.
Spirits fight was going less one-sided as her own hammerhead received similar punishment with less retaliation. The Reds missiles where consistent and abundant and jerked and shuddered the hammerhead, Its AI closely warning at the imminent loss of her own flanks shields as detonations and shrapnel clouds blinded the pilot to the actual location of the red to continue her own broadside. The red ace continued its burn towards her, Only a small predicted box on her HUD as the path of the missiles was predicted and tracked. It wasnt slowing down and showed no signs of breaking off. She was in it for the kill regardless of damage or fuel consumption, and the red hadn't even gotten close enough to use the 4 menacing cannons mounted to its hull, Each one spoke of imminent death if it got too much closer and managed to break through the shield that was now displaying a discouraging yellow on her display that flashed red occasionally as it continued to falter.
Visible to more than just Edward however to the west, Another set of blips appeared. More controlled and coordinated, The red reinforcement flights had entered the AO and where mere minutes away from discovering Aquila and minutes more from being able to engage as they began spreading out the various wings of freshly armed and fueled junkers in a wide arcing formation meant to pincer and destroy lesser numbered wings. These ones weren't new recruits playing dogfighter in the morning it was obvious to any season pilot. The Red Rebellion's air corps had deployed...
Edward bore witness to the faltering and nose diving Red, even Happy was silent as they knew what could become of the falling pilot. He was not a vengeful man and so he left the pilot to his own devices, if he ejected he ejected if not, one less Red to consider. He turned his attention back to his equipment taking notes of not only the fleeing Red or the incoming Red flight but also the dire predicaments going on with his squadron.
He moved his hands to a set of secondary joysticks, "Happy, fly the Dictator over towards the rest of our flight." Using the Joysticks his ambidextrously took manual control of the two Grunt drones. He set them on a straight path over to the Hammerheads to offer aid, especially Spirit as it seemed her particular Red foe had a hard on for killing her. His motive was clear, if he could not scrap the junker before hand the Grunt would kamikaze in to wipe out the threat.
"This is Virus, I would imagine you have all seen the mass of enemies en route to our position, asuming we can clear these skies what are our orders," he asked?
Judith gritted her teeth as her craft shuttered violently from the dying Red's final present, the young officer almost expecting her craft's hull to crack at any second and allowing the hellfire inside to snuff her out... luckily, the hull held - if only barely, as the brunette was fairly certain all those sounds and readouts weren't telling her how amazing she was right now. It would appear risking the dying Red's wreckage slamming into her if she fired on it, may have been the potentially better option...
There was a far more pressing concern for the commander anyway. The swarm of red blips quickly approaching was a major concern. If it was a training flight, it would still be a bit dodgy, but given the earlier information leak, Judith wasn't about to believe for a second that was just some random flight of rookies happening across her squad's shenanigans.
"Clear off that final Red, Aquila Flight now. We need to be out of here before that swarm of reinforcements is on is, we've stirred the nest sufficiently and we are not sticking around to greet the newcomers." replied the busty officer calmly, even as she gauged the state of her craft and the incoming blips with worry.
If they weren't disengaged soon, they probably weren't going to be making it back home in any good shape... but that final Red didn't seem to feel like letting Spirit get away alive. At worst, she might have to call in the 4th, but within the mission's parameters, even they wouldn't be here immediately.
Spirit would never have the chance to disengage from the suicidal onslaught of the red ace and her rage before the red craft simply slowed steadily towards her, The nose of its craft dropping and then pointing ground wards before the craft plummeted towards the frozen landscape, Its primary thrusters cold and dead as it dropped, Dead and without fuel. Leaving its pilot to try in vain to fly with just their flaps and momentum to an uknown fate as it passed through the clouds and out of sight.
Their mission more than complete the flight turned back the way they came, Easily outpacing the red reinforcements, Staying just beyond their radar capabilities the reds would arrive to the smoke plumes or well over a dozen crashed aircraft marking the territory over the course of miles. The initial impression had been from a possible wing of Fatnecks that had broken off from the main engagement northwards and found a barely armed training flight ripe for the picking. This was reinforced when one of the trainees managed to make it to the fighting to the north, A panicked distress signal painting them for any to see without the proper decryption their lead craft would transmit to them in normal circumstances to communicated with the other red pilots. Their haste and panic would see them destroyed by the fatnecks before ever telling their story, Leaving only one survivor...
Groundside, Windchime.
Landing had been impossible for even the best pilot in such conditions. The terrain was too unlevel and violent, And the nearest strip miles past her reach the veteran ace had been forced to abandon her craft several thousand feet from the ground and trust in the ad-hoc ejection feature and parachuting of her seat.
It had, Of course failed.
The chute had tangled and bundled itself in its port, Forcing her to cut the straps and rely on the backup chute barely large enough to slow the decent to a non-fatal speed. The resulting landing for a better term had seen both her legs shattered and an unnatural feeling of wrongness in her back that sent sharp, Pulsing pain in her lower back when she tried to stand. to top it all off three of her fingers had simply been wrapped and torn off by the cordage of the secondary shoot and made fumbling out of now grounded seat an impossibility for her.
Her stationary throne sat upright on a rare level patch of frozen ground, Pointing her almost mockingly to the north where flights sent to reinforce her own where turning away to join the general combat against the fatnecks. They didnt know. They Couldnt know what she knew at that moment, Otherwise they would have progressed after the enemy all the way to the wall if they had to.
Windchime, Before she dropped, Had seen the markings on the flank of the craft she had been so eager to destroy...
"Fuckin navy." she spat out a bloody wad of phlegm. "Fuckin marines and now this?!". It had been bad enough when a force from the NSMC had touched down at puckett, Bringing armor and infantry and even a ship with them. But now, If the navy had joined in earnest... They could handle the locals militia and mercenary pilots. But competent and well armed navy pilots could give most of the pilots she knew a run for their money save most of the aces.
She waited for hours with this information brewing, Restrained and broken to the only remains of her craft before her mayday signal had been located, A flight of three craft circling her position kilometers above, Wagging their wings left and right to assure her. She couldnt see the markings so high, But they where blood red in contrast to her own crafts black and checkered pattern. Boots' flight had found her. Ace of aces, top gun in the whole aircorps had mopped up the fatnecks to the north and bothered to locate a the possible survivors of a dead flight and a couple precious aces. The shame of it all made her want to die.
Within the hour a column a kilomiter long of vehicles was slowly passing her by in the distance, A couple vehicles breaking off towards her location under the guardianship of boots pilots. One of which a large hauler with a wrecked craft in its bed. Someone else had made it groundside and been recovered, The craft was in tact! She could even see someone hanging off the cab pointing in her dirrection with the distinct pattern of a flight suit. Goose? Facet? it had to be one of them.
she struggled to get free of the restraining harness, Desperate not to be seen in such a pitiful state by any of her peers. Even more so desperate to pass on the vital knowledge she carried. They had to point their anti capitol weapons skyward again, They had to retrofit for outer atmospheric flight, They had to crush the militia and prepare for the real enemy before it was too late!
It was too late...
The relief vehicles never made it more than a hundred meters before windchime witnessed their death. Her ears popped and her nose bled, The scent of ozone filled her nostrils and her eyes somehow tracked with terrifying clarity as the clouds parted in a hundred meter circle as a projectile longer than her craft speared into the ground and detonated off to the side of the convoy between her recovery unit and the retaliation force.
High Orbit.
"Anemone reports their initial strike was off by a hundred meters, Captain Harrington requests a second followup strike." The communications officer reported over his shoulder.
The screen beforehand showed no need for a followup, The captain knew. Most if not all of the convoy had been destroyed by the sheer kinetic force and blast of the curbstomper torpedo. Anything more was simple overkill.
He glanced at the humming lieutenant by his side who watched with the same passive nonplussed expression as he. Without needing to be told the kuznyetski officer leaned over the comms station, Her awkward bowed cybernetic legs making the gesture look a lot more cumbersome than she performed.
"That wont be necessary, Anemone." she hummed. "Captain Calloway passes on his praise to the Anemone and its gunnery crew, and requests the Anemone take up its previous position alongside us to receive Aquila. Sickslayer, Out."
The captain took his seat on the uncomfortable chair he'd become familiar with on the bridge and glanced at the screen again and the fading smoke plume covering the unsurvivable damage below. With a nuetral tone he ordered his ship and those of his lance to standby, The armored mandables of the jackdaw ships closing and staying their wrath planetside. There would be time to strike again later.
The Nepleslian Star Navy wasnt leaving new bernese any time soon...
Thats the end of the first thread, Everyone. If you care to have some time to JP. Im good for that too if you want to JP with any of the captains etc. The next thread will start in a week or two while i move some stuff around and get some new people into the plot so see you then!
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