[PROLOGUE] Manning The Illustrious

Sakaki's launch was successful, she made a U-turn and flew after her commander into formation. The Neko's grip on the controls were tight, her mind taking in all the data should could and attempting to sort it all out. She found the helmet inefficient and instead used SPINE to keep her up to date with her craft, allowing her eyes to concentrate on the controls and weapons. The newbie pilot thought maybe she could use this in combination, and toyed with her weapons a little thinking of expanding the idea. After all all she had to go by was the knowledge she downloaded, she was aware of the many different ways to go about exchanging death with an enemy, just not sure which one was the best one for herself.

This all seems too much, but I shall manage. As Sensei said, warriors of legend can use any weapon with great skill, just as those legends I shall use this fighter with everything I can muster. Thinking of this boosted her resolve, and became that more focused on what to come ahead.

"This is Onyx Two, testing," Ushimo-hai said in her calm voice, "what is the plan of attack Onyx One?"

Shin groaned as he waited for his commander to come up with a plan, the yamataian pilot having grown extremely impatient during his time spent on imprisoned on the now destroyed Aries Station.
"Cmon Tarrim-Juni, we don't have time to sit around and drink tea while formulating complex strategies, we need to get in there and do our jobs, this is just a good old fashioned Dogfight, and you're my wingman now Ushimo-Hei." Shin slightly increased his Hayabusa's speed, obviously raring to break formation and start shooting.

Kouta's launch was less spectacular than Tarrim-Juni's or Sakaki's, but he did get his fighter turned around quickly in a maneuver obviously practiced many times.

Hearing Shin's dismissal of Sakaki's question, he shook his head -- when the Nito Hei sped up and volunteered Ushimo-Hei as his wingman... He gritted his teeth and stayed in formation.

Waiting for further orders, Kouta began slaving several of the closest identified contacts to be highlighted on his display constantly. When he knew what to do, he could choose one at will.

Yaeko watched the space map as several blips shot off from the Illustrious and got into formation, heading towards the enemies. She entered in a few commands and the holographic projection started slowly zooming in as the squadron approached the enemies. She leaned over, resting her arms on the table, and listened in on the normal comm chatter as she waited for the action to start.

"We will begin Firing once we come within ten seconds of the enemy, and break off into pairs. Always stick with your wingmate. Find yours now, if you already haven't." Kail informed her squadron, as they hurtled ever closer to the combat. "Fukui, take my wing for now." The Juni ordered, as the group finally came within firing distance.

There were hundreds of battlepods in the immediate view of the pilots, almost more than their sensors could take at once. Hundreds of other Hayabusa fighters were also mixed in, fighting valiantly against the battlepods. If the pilots looked, they would see the capitol ships slugging away at one another, the lead Sharie in the procession charging up its main cannon in an attempt to do major damage to the enemy group.

"GO!" Tarrim-Juni ordered, diving into the fight, guns blazing.

"Hai!" Kouta called when the Juni asked him to take her wing.

He had to shift his fighter to get in the correct position, but it was such a slight change that it wouldn't altogether matter.

What did matter was when his element leader tore into the fight. He kept to her side like glue, firing all the way as he went -- Battlepods everywhere, explosions... He could see one of the Battlecruisers charging its guns, see where other squadrons were making there stands against the Pods.

Against such firepower, how can anyone stand against us? The thought was fleeting, and then he stopped thinking about it.

Masako had kept quiet about what was going on as she simply took in everything and figured out teh controls of teh fighter. It wasn't like the PA where everything happened on your thoughts, you had to keep track of fwhat you were doing in these things. But she'd get the hang of it quickly enough and joined the others on the attack in her customariily daring style by going in with guns blazing.

"Hai, Onyx 2 breaking off to engage," Sakaki stated as she boosted forward to meet the enemy. She decided to try and cut though the chaos while targeting hostile targets with her turrets. The Neko was using some aid of the ships computer since she herself was not exactly fluent with ranged combat. There was a lot to process though as she had to fly, shoot, and avoid other ships and weapons.

Shin sighed as the rest of his squadron rushed ahead into the battle, his wingmate abandoning him. Groaning, he pulled up to get a different angle on the battle, and hit the throttle, keeping himself out of the massive furball, but keeping it within his fighter's optimum range. Already, he began targeting one battlepod at a time with his fighter's turrets. Opening a comm channel with the rest of Onyx Squadron, he started chewing them out.

"Why the hell did all of you rush in like that? Didn't any of you learn, that the most important thing about fighter combat is to kill your enemy before he sees you and can react! And you're supposed to avoid massive furballs like this! A dogfight takes away our biggest advantage, especially when we're outnumbered like this! And Onyx 2, What the hell are you doing abandoning your wingmate like that!"


The vermillion-bang'd Yamataian smiled as his Hayabusa got a positive lock onto a NMX Battlepod, and a two missiles detached from under the fighter's wings before their own engines activated, sending them streaking out towards the battlepod. He immediately turned his attention towards the pod's flight, and accelerated towards the 6 battlepods. The Hayabusa's frontal cannons started firing first, bolts of energy shooting out at the second battlepod, as all four turrets opened up on two more pods, firing a quick burst before cutting his engines and flipping his fighter so that the nose had made a complete 180 degree turn, and reactivating his engines and pushing up to full thrust, accelerating enough to send his fighter along that path. Shin then cut the engines AGAIN and did another 180, opening fire with his frontal cannons on the flight of battlepods who were surely, but now, coming after him.

"Onyx 4, I'd watch the words being thrown around as Sakaki-Hei is you superior." Yaeko monitored the battle through the holographic space map. Meanwhile she was thinking The one problem with attacking the enemy before they know you're here is that these enemies probably knew we were here." She slouched a bit, wondering what she could do to help. Suddenly she remembered something from training. She punched in a few commands into the terminal and the blips showing enemies on the maps started turning different colors. Yaeko had color coded the ships based on size, estimated weapon power, and amount of incoming communications. The logic behind this was that the ships displaying those three things would most likely be key targets: squad leaders, heavier ships, transports with VIPs.

Yaeko got back on the comm, "Bridge to Onyx 1. I have thrown together an estimation of key targets, sending them to you now." Her fingers flew as she entered in some quick commands and sent the radar data to Tarrim-Juni.

"Thank you Munkata-Hei." Kail answered quickly, looking over the information she was passed, as she fired on several enemy units at once. As expected, and as her sensors told her, it was mostly battlepods, with a couple of capital ships which were too big for the fighters to do anything about. "Just shoot down as many as you can!" Tarrim-Juni called over the Comms, making sure that Onyx five was still on her wing.

Onyx 5 did fine, taking out a couple of battlepods which had been distracted, but the combined firing of the two fighters brought about five battlepods chasing them down, gins blazing. Kail jinked and juked, trying to lose them, all the while firing her cannons.

Ushimo and Sakiyurai quickly found themselves outnumbered, taking hits to their shields, and completely surrounded by enemies. Diving in without any form of backup had been a very silly idea, and now the two Neko were being punished for it.

Shin, on the other hand, was having a much easier time. although his wing had abandoned him, his tactics were much more effective than that of the other fighters, and he quickly shot down several fighters, his missiles taking two down in a heartbeat. As he expertly maneuvered his ship, he managed to doge any major incoming fire, as well as send several hits back with his cannons, blowing down shields and taking out armor on his enemies.

After assuming she took a few of the pods down, Sakaki had felt the blaster fire from the rear. At first she began to panic, but quickly got a hold of herself to pull a calculated barrel roll to the right. Being unfamiliar is becoming a distraction... Masako! she thought as she said, "Onyx 3," then noticed she was busy herself, which sparked an idea, "Onyx 3, Masako come right at me."

The Neko pulled on the controls by the book style to turn toward her comrade and fly right at her at top speed. My shields will hopefully hold, if I can make it to Masako we could take each others enemies out at once! While closing in, she had her targeting system highlight the top priority targets and prepared to evade and fire in this dangerous game of space chicken.

Kouta blinked, slipping easily into the drilled evasive maneuvers that had been hammered into his skull.

Slip left -- Twirl, dart right! Jink, Juke, Duck, Dip, Dive, Dodge!

The drilled maneuvers also led him to put some distance between him and Tarrim-Juni -- not enough to make them separate, but enough to make sure that if his wing was torn off, it wouldn't go into the Juni's engines.

He concentrated his turrets' fire on the Pods in pursuit, and attempted to get a lock on any of the machines ahead -- if, when it happened, he released the missiles.

Masako winced and growled as her shields took hits and utilized her spine interface to have her turrets open fire on the pods as well as she attempted to evade the incoming attacks. Since spatial combat was 3-dimensional, it gave her certain advantages to do so, diving in under the pods while having the turrets swivel and aim from below to open fire. When she registered Sakaki's telepathic communication she grinned and performed a smooth wingover manuever to turn toward her comrade's vessel and took off toward her in a deadly game of chicken. The two could pass each other within meters of not feet and cover their respective backsides as well.

Masako's turrets were launching barrages at the trailing pods to try to take a few out as the two pilots began their daring manuever.

Sakaki began a roll maneuver along with Masako and ordered her guns to fire at the locked on enemy while passing by Masako. Careful to avoid any ship or debris, she would continue to fly for a safe zone to think over her next move. What she did was obviously a bone head maneuver, though something that could have worked if she was in a Power Armor.

Shin's feeling of superiority at shooting down a couple of battlepods quickly faded, replaced with a mixture of anger and worry as he realised what Sakaki and Masako had gotten themselves into. And the maneuver they were attempting to perform.

"Stupid Girls! What the hell are they thinking?" Mentally cursing them, Shin opened a communications channel as his fighter changed directions, and charged straight into the furball, using the attitude jets and the CFS to try and dodge oncoming fire.

"Ushimo-Hei, Sakiyurai-Hei! Activate your CFS' stealth system and try to get out of this dogfight and re-engage! I'll try to get some of these battlepods off you! No arguements, do it now!" Cutting the com channel, Shin cut off his fighter's engines, and started spinning and firing his main guns and turrets, turning his fighter into some kind of DEATH BLOSSOM. Completing two revolutions, Onyx 4 straightened out his fighter and hit the throttle, flying towards his wingmates, even faster now than before.

Ushimo and Sakiyuari almost made a perfect pass, almost. Their CFS fields intersected as they passed just too close to one another, the distortions interfering with one another and causing visual distortion of the fields, as well as temporary 'damage' to the CFS propulsion. It launched the two fighters violently away from one another. Luckily, just before this, the locked guns had managed to find their targets, and both pilots logged kills on their foes.

Still. the controls were being very sluggish and visual sensors were messed up, and inside that furball was not a good place to be.

****

Kail barked over the Comms at Kouta. "Stick closer, Onyx five. It's no use if we separate!" The Neko plotted a course out of the main bulk of enemies, knowing that she could only defend herself in this situation, then sent the course to Kouta. "Follow this course, and stick to my wing!" she called, cursing her inability to be much use in this fighter.

Kouta, on his own, was a bit more successful than Kail, his dodging attempts being very fruitful, and keeping his fighter flying well enough to get the locks he sought. The missiles made their way out, one detonating on its target, the other enveloped by the cloud of debris, predetonating before it could hit its target.

****

Right as Shin restarted his main thrusters, he felt a large amount of feedback hitting his fighter as a missile from one of the battlepods detonated on it. His previous display hadn't actually hit much of anything, at least not lethally, and had simply served to annoy the brainslaves flying the battlepods. He had now attracted the attention of about fifteen battlepods, more than twice as many as the Hayabusa could theoretically handle alone.

Shin would probably count himself lucky that there was another squadron nearby, and that most of the ships in the Yamataian battlegroup had launched their fighters. Most of Shin's enemies were destroyed, and sensors showed that the level of Battlepods to Hayabusa was steadily coming closer to even.

"Hai!" Without even thinking, Kouta followed the Juni's order.

His fighter slipped in beside Tarrim-Juni's, falling into line until he was in the same relative position as before. Then he switched from targets of opportunity to defending himself and his element leader. His turrets flung fire at the closest battlepods, and paid special attention to the ones appearing to try and line up for a firing run.

Yaeko watched the space map as the other Yamataian squadrons started heading into the battle. She quick entered in some commands that told the computer to a do a quick number crunch of enemies to friendlies. Looking at the ratio she decided it was satisfactory and closed down that window. Noting that the battle would soon be coming to a close she figured it would be a good idea to start getting engineering ready.

Yaeko entered a few commands and the volumetric systems on the edge of the command balcony projected five different windows in front of her, but far enough to the sides so that she could still monitor the battle. She turned to the first window and pressed a few of the holographic buttons. Suddenly each of the holographic windows showed a readout of a different Onyx Hayabusa. Different areas were different colors depending on what was damaged on the ships. She switched channels on her headset and called down to engineering. "Bridge to Engineering. Have a crew ready in the shuttle bay for repairs. Expect to repair standard hull damage on Onyx 2, 3, and 4. Extensive repairs will be needed for the CFS propulsion on Onyx 2 and 3. Basic repairs for Onyx 1 and 5." Yaeko flipped back to the Onyx channel and sent off a quick last transmission. "Onyx 1, bridge here. A crew of technicians will be standing by when you return."

The Samurai wannabe was furiously trying to get her fighter from spinning. Sakaki was working her controls and trying to achieve her focus in the midst of the battleground, and Shin's constant harassment wasn't helping either. She finally calmed herself, and eventually regained control while remembering something, Sensai once said that each weapon has its own unique way to handle it, to master, one would need to find their own way of holding it. Right now I may be trying to do all I can because of my detest of Shin. If he can fly with one hand, then I must start by using two!

She opened her eyes as the volumetric display popped up on command, as well as sensors, I shall fly using SPINE, and do what I can with weapons manually, I can not use my turrets, but I may be able to survive with just this. I must focus on wielding my new sword, instead of thrashing like it was a Power Armor.

"Masako, let us form up if possible," the Neko said with rekindled spirit as she gripped the ship's joysticks, her finger's resting on the fire buttons. She would attempt to form up with Masako, assuming she was just as jumbled as Sakaki was.