RP [Origin] OIF Karakoram; re: Start!

Zeke was mildly annoyed at how his question had been ignored, but whatever. He switched to passive mode and ran his options through his mind for a moment, which with a basic loadout, was a few at best. With nothing in this bare environment to work with, they were down to what they carried and squad tactics. "Charles, staying put doesn't seem wise, with the enemy coming at us from both sides we're likely to be caught in a pincer style crossfire. What about also dividing into two teams, that way we can face them with only one side to worry about."

He fired four space missiles at the right side grouping, having them spread out with assist of commands to computer guidance. The blonde then fired his UV lasers followed by steady successive shots as he tried to lead the target with his aim.

Jennifer continued to track statuses, even as she also focused her fire onto those hostiles already shot by her erstwhile allies. "Do be careful with your aim Sharlett. That round nearly disabled Charles's mech. Everyone make sure to watch your rate of fire. You only have so much ammo and power, and I'm not carrying resupplies for this exercise." Jennifer said calmly over the channel, her shots widely spaced apart as she worked on milking the ammo she did have for as long as she could but still attempting to be effective fire nonetheless. A difficult challenge to say the least.

She was mainly relying on the hand-held armaments of her mech, waiting for the enemy to get closer for the UV weapons on board to be vastly more effective against their targets.

"Sorry Charles, I almost clipped off your manhood." Sharlett said over comms. He might of picked up a slight chuckle before the link closed. After a few more minutes she had managed to get her mech under control and move to engage the enemy. Her loadout was designed for long range so did her best to keep distance and leave the close in fighting for someone else.

"You mean his bot-hood, don't you, Sharlett?" Nora asked, grinning in amusement as this was all properly going to hell within the first few moments of combat. Each one had been able to qualify solo, but so far it seemed very few had any sort of teamwork going on, and the only two who were actually trying seemed to be the two boys. Nora decided she would let the two Y-chromosome having individuals vie for dominance while wondering which of the strong-willed ladies would ignore them and die first.

"Well, if we split off into two groups, I'm getting the left one!" the 'spacer announced over the comms joyfully, aiming her mecha at the group which she had determined was on the left. She knew it would be a little while before her shotgun could prove effective, but she still popped off a coule of rounds to ensure that the enemy didn't think her a sitting duck, but made sure to conserve her more limited ammunition for the close-in brawl she was expecting.

The enemy groups came in closer, dodging out of the way of Charles' solo attack as the rest of the group ineffectively peppered them with fire. While it would be a few more moments yet before they were in effective range, it was pretty obvious that Zeke's intuition was correct- though they were spiraling in toward their targets, it was clear something akin to a pincer move was in the works.

To herself, Nora wondered "Now which of these idiots is going to try and fight everything solo?" without engaging the comms, her thought kept secret known only to herself and the simulation of a Mecha's AI.

"Okay no, fuck this and fuck all of you, I'm going to go actually do something," the team's raven-haired ball of angry Minkan spoke before her mech's thrusters fired up and began flying straight for the front of the right-most pincer, though rather than making a bee line she was smart enough to at least dash around a bit with no particular pattern to make her movements more sporadic and hopefully make her harder to hit as she charged.

It was almost comedic, how Nora's silent question had been answered immediately but it shouldn't've come as a surprise to anyone that the lady wanting to punch things the most had rushed in with a shotgun in hand, one she didn't start firing until it would actually be effective - though once in range it wasn't like Mo had any intention of slowing down.

Sharlett was getting serious now. She worked out the jitters in her system and started to focus on the battle at hand. The fire coming over the comm from Mo gave her just the kick in the ass she needed. "I got your back Mo, lets lead the way to victory." Her words came off peppy and cheerful. Like a school girl who has a crush on someone. Either way she was doing her best to give cover fire while Mo closed the gap between herself and the enemy. If any tried to flank Shar would suppress.

Mo's phone would ping and display an image from a certain someone. Guy was giving a thumbs up with a wicked smile.

"Fucken A~" Mo cut herself off suddenly as she heard the notification sound, quickly syncing her mind up to her phone as the Minkan prepared a basic 'fuck off' message before the image attached flooded her vision.

The ravenette's mech faltered momentarily as its pilot pushed back into her simulator's seat, last thing she'd been expecting was to see that half-SOL's birthday suit across her field of view - he was filling up half her bloody vision with one appendage alone for crying out loud.

"Fuck off, working, ttly "was the message Mo shot back to wherever the hell Thad was before her charge continued, it was unseen by her fellow pilots but the abrasive ball of anger had a slight smile on her face - a rather fond one.

"Form up and focus fire. Take down one at a time quickly so we can move to the next. Overwhelming fire on one will work them down quickly!" Destiny said with a bit more authority then she would have liked to let on. Why were they all splitting off like Taltore with their heads cut off? They were making it so much more difficult then it had to be.

"If we split up we become easy targets for their attack to pick us off one at a time. Focus fire!"

Destiny began to move forward toward the enemies at her own words, and as she came within effective range for her rifle began to focus on one of the lead enemy frames. She took her time to take measured attacks at the frame, aiming for the center of mass rather than random wild shots. Controlled groups of fire with three round bursts to maximize her ammo and aim, she went so far as to make sure she lead the frame rather than firing where it was. Her time in the simulators was showing as she continued her attack pattern.

Jennifer chuckled quietly, having remained with the majority of the group, watching the supply feeds on everyone's weapons, even as she worked through her own on careful controlled bursts at the approaching enemies. Even as the group ended up breaking up into three teams, one still near the start, Nora and those who followed her, and then Mo and those who'd followed her. Jennifer was keeping near the group that hadn't moved much.

Simply put, Jennifer rotated her own mecha to operate with her back to Destiny, not close enough to cause trouble with their mecha's exhaust systems, but close enough that trying to get between them would be difficult. "Looks like the enemy is shifting targets to focus on the breakers." Jennifer reported, watching as the enemy began to shift away from the cluster to hit the folks who'd split off to do their own things.

As Mo flew forwards the enemy fired at her, though because of their low accuracy and outdated weaponry, they were limited to chipping away at her shields. By the time she reached them, her shields were halfway down. Her first shot connected and exploded on the shield of an enemy Oban, and the second shot punched into its torso, exploding it and sending it careening into space. The second enemy fell much as the first did, but by that time Mo's shields were down and enemy fire had started to impact her armor.

Now that she was in close, the enemy frames' accuracy started to rise, and one of her arms was damaged. She was about to be attacked by the enemy's Ashigaru, which appeared to be the leader of that prong of the attack, when Sharlett's shots slammed into it, prompting it to pull back as more of her shots flew in. Most of her shots missed due to her lack of experience but some shots in the hit two more Obans and disabled them, though they did not destroy the targets.
The enemy in this prong was pulling into a new formation now. One Oban, which was the weaker of the two types of enemies, flanked the Ashigaru and trailed slightly behind it creating a formation which was now flying back towards Sharlett and Mo.

On the other side, Destiny's measured attacks cut down the leader of the enemy formation, causing it to scatter and attempt to surround her. Their attacks were less effective against her due to her shield strength being higher, but the four enemies left began to drain her shield with their fire, bringing it down to three-quarters strength fairly quickly.

Both prongs of the attack were engaged, and the pilots engaging either of the prongs would need help. Charles made a split second decision. "Zeke, go help our feathered friend and our mechanic, I'll go and back up the two breakaways." With that he began to accelerate towards Mo and Sharlett's position, attempting to take potshots as he approached, though his fire was sparse and the enemy's proximity to his allies was too great for him to risk anything more at this range.

Destiny grunted as she felt the full brunt of the attacks on her and had to wonder just where her team had gone or had she broken off from the others?

"Damn, way to go idiot. Yell at the others for splitting off and you're the one that did it..."

She bit her lip a little and let out a breath before she slammed her thrusters on her suit to the max power and shot forward with a shoulder charge toward one of the surrounding enemies. She wanted to get in close to make sure her weapon did its full power before she began to unload into the frame she had charged. She figured if she was surrounded, take out the enemy closest to the rest of her team to both breakthrough, and take out an enemy in the process.

Mo took the brief moment of respite to run diagnostics on her hand... which just involved the tech-savvy Minkan looking at her readout for a second and then letting out a grunt of disapproval when the hand refused to ball up into a fist, if there was any atmosphere then it most likely would have spat out some sad sounds of mechanical failure.

"Left hand crapped itself~" she muttered over comms while maneuvering around behind one of the disabled Obans, ramming her malfunctioning hand into the small space above the hip seeing as she couldn't quite grip it in a more traditional method, using the rest of her mech's arm to push and wedge it in fully before she stowed the unusable shotgun away then moved over to grip the other disabled Oban by one leg - Mo''s train of thought was that well... her shields were fucked but now they had to shoot through another layer of mech to get at her from the front, that and now she was going to use smaller mechs as weapons~ which curled a wicked grin across her tanned features as Mo fired up her simulated thrusters to maximum once more to charge the re-formed prong that was coming right back at her and her foxy friend.

"I don't need your fucking help, I got this! come at me, pussies!" Mo roared at Charles and then the approaching enemies, holding the left mech across her front as a shield as the right one trailed along behind her, ready to be swung.

Sharlett was bouncing around in her armor like she was in a pinball machine. She was super happy she managed to hit the enemy. Even better she did not take out any of her team mates. The thrusters on her armor roared to life as she pressed forward behind Mo. Shar was not about to let her have all the glory to herself.

As she closed in towards Mo she happen to notice a red blinking on her HUD. In her excitement she used up most of her ammo and was about to get close and friendly with the enemy who remained. Then she took notice of Mo as she closed in and her new use of weapon. This seemed like the perfect idea. Best of all her knight in shining armor was on his way. "Come my trusty steed, let us combine." She yelled over comms as she intercepted Charles.

The Battle, as it was, swiftly devolved into a bloodbath; Not for the enemies, but for the unwitting pilots, as Nora, in her eagerness to test everyone's mettle, may have set the difficulty level of the simulation a tad higher than necessary. It became painfully obvious that they needed to work on teamwork, and communication skills, and that they wouldn't be a very cohesive force without some work. After several tries of varying success (and multiple fantastic failures) the frame pilots were released from the simulators, to go about their own devices, to explore the ship as well as relax, and get to know some of the other crew members.

The Karakoram itself as well as the ship's bridge crew and maintenance crew, were extremely busy the whole time. As this was the maiden voyage, it acted as a sort of extra space trial. The Crews assigned to the ship would spend the next week running drills, searching for signs of pirate activity, as well as chasing any leads that they found. Unfortunately, on the first expedition, no leads were found, and, having run through their initial orders without incident, the ship made its way back to Dawn Station. they made the trip much more slowly than necessary, hoping to draw out attention to themselves, to draw out enemies to satisfy their primary objective, and yet, it did not happen. Obviously, it became clear that simply hunting the pirates by themselves would not do; they needed much more enticing bait, as well as a lot more luck, and perhaps better timing.

Upon arrival at Dawn Station, the ship was quickly berthed, and the crew sent ashore, to disperse on their own myriad activities, or in the case of a few members to move on to other pursuits, this first voyage having been more or less a bust. Once again, the crew was busy, as everything that needed to be taken care of, well, needed to be taken care of. And thus, the next journey of the ship began to be prepared for.