- RP Date
- YE 45.4
- RP Location
- Newhaven System
YE 45.4, DX-01, Newhaven System, Asteroid Belt Bravo
The NDS Ravenaca's Watch job in the Newhaven system was proceeding relatively smoothly. Since receiving new personnel and equipment the previous month much time had been spent clearing pockets of pirates while the system's garrison was deployed guarding supply convoys as they traveled to and from the inner solar system.
Most of the pirate groups operating out of the system had been making use of a variety of old civilian and surplus starships and small craft, a number even having black-market Armored Frames of Origin design. However, the enemy that the Watch now found itself battling was different.
To be sure, the starships were of similar quality to those the ship was used to dispatching, but there was a surprising amount of them, enough to qualify as a significant enough threat that when tracking down the gang in question, the ship's command staff had decided to send fighters out in advance of the Watch itself, in order to minimize risk to the vessel.
1st squadron had been assigned the task, with 2nd squadron grounded while conducting repairs from the ship's previous engagements, leading to the three lances of the squadron burning towards the asteroid cluster where the pirate gang had been tracked to.
Bravo and Charlie lances had gone ahead of Alpha lance, owing to Arye's choice of one of the ship's two Starbreaker IIs, which had been one of the new assets assigned to the Watch during their stopover at Port Astionage. Riot's Sparrowhawk and V115's Banshee had needed to slow down in order to hold formation, leaving the group a moment to speak or plan before they hit the fray.
Riot had been enjoying herself immensely while they cleared out the system's pirate infestation. Whatever empathy most people seemed to have for other sapients she seemed to lack when it came to "the bad guys". Command merely had to point her in a direction and let her know those guys are up to no good. It was all the motivation she needed.
She wasn't heartless, of course. Just eager. She loved the fight and was quickly coming to love her fellow lance members. With nothing else to do while they burned toward their target, she tapped open the comm.
"Goood evening Alpha Lance! Or is it morning? Hard to tell in space. Everyone excited to kick some more pirate butt?"
Her trademark grin could be heard through the comms.
A giggle was the response that Riot got coming from Arye’s Comms. “Pirates, so kind and helpful in allowing us to get some training and exercise. My sibling, Kali said that they were also kind enough to donate their DNA for our cloning technology too.” Arye commented, and like Riot, she too didn’t like Pirates either, Piracy, and slavery were the top two she loathed, and the top two she wouldn’t mind taking down. The Operator lounged in her pod, as her own ship, the Starbreaker waited in formation with her Alpha Lance Wingmates.
V115 was quiet at first contemplating the briefing, going over astrogation data on local hazards, making sure she had studied the environs of the upcoming battlefield and any data that had been shared on priority targets. "I am ready to get the job done and return to the Watch with the rest of you in one piece." Her voice was even, steady, and generally lacking in emotion. Arye would be quite familiar with V115 in her sort of sortie mindset and it was perhaps less off-putting to Riot at this point as well since they'd deployed together a handful of times by this point. While she was never all that emotional to begin with, she was especially cool while deployed.
"We should review our objectives and the information coming in from Bravo and Charlie."
The feeds coming in from Bravo and Charlie showed around a dozen small starships flitting around the asteroid belt, ninety to one hundred meters each armed with appropriate weaponry. In addition to the starships, Bravo and Charlie had engaged with the Pirates' complement of fighters and frames. Aging snub fighters and Origin M1 series frames were present, as per the norm, however, there were several unexpected adversaries present.
A number of small craft deployed from the asteroid base, their silhouettes quickly identified by 1st Squadron's targeting computers as U-1b Variable Frames. All present would be familiar with the craft as either aging military surplus used by Civilians in the Conclave or as training aircraft used alongside MSF-Sparrows by the CAFF to train new recruits and freshly "born" Operators.
These, however, were neither of the two. The U-1s were obviously in pirate hands and were in too good shape to be surplus. While the Variable Frames were antiquated compared to what 1st Squadron was flying, they brought the pirates' fighter numbers up to a little more than twice what 1st Squadron had.
Riot's brows rose as she saw the U-1s.
"That's- hm," she began, forcefully tempering her desire to charge in. She was eager and, sometimes, brutish, but not stupid. Mostly. "Everyone else see those U-1s? I'm happy to get to smashing them, but... I don't think they were in the briefing. V? You usually pay attention in those things, what do you think?"
When Arye's team hadn't reacted to her words, she turned serious and focused as she watched what the others were seeing. "I'd say if they are attacking they might be pirates, but there's a lot more of them than us. maybe we should report in case we need backup?" she asked
V115 didn't hesitate, opening a channel back to the watch as they were hopefully still within communication range due to lagging behind the other two lances she sent an encrypted message. Alpha lance to Raveneca's Watch actual, pirate forces contain fighters with a mix of good condition variable frames... identified as U-1b. Numbers roughly double that of deployed first squadron forces. Message end.
At the same time that she was writing the encrypted message to the watch, she replied to Riot and Arye. "Message sent to the watch informing them of the tactical situation. As for the briefing... our lance is somewhat specialized. We have slightly more autonomy than Bravo and Charlie and the equipment to fulfill multiple roles. Essentially Firewalker possesses the capability to do large damage to key areas of starships along with a host of other munitions. My banshee can serve a variable role, and your Sparrowhawk can escort the both of us or dog fight."
There was a slight pause and then a question. "Do you have a callsign yet?"
"I- I mean, everyone just calls me Riot. Should I have something different?" Then, a pause. "Have- have I been calling you all the wrong names?!"
While V115 waited for a response from her lancemate, her message to the Ravenaca's Watch elicited a swift response. <<Affirmative Alpha Actual, focus on taking care of the larger targets. Consider the fighters targets of opportunity. If you get the chance, see about trying to capture one of the U-1s intact. Other lances will also have these instructions.>>
As the lance finally reached the edge of the furball, Bravo and Charlie lances were already beginning to whittle down the numbers of the enemy fighters, with a few Banshees making passes against the enemy starships resulting in one or two brilliant spheres of fire erupting for a moment before fizzling out, leaving ten starships remaining.
'Go blow the stuff up' was the kind of order that Riot could get behind. She gave a little whoop in her cockpit before letting her mind slip fully into the Sparrowhawk. It took barely a moment for her to adjust to her 'new body' these days.
She flexed her thrusters and felt the deadly power of her weapons. If she didn't like beating people up so much, Riot would probably turn into one of those synthetics who couldn't escape their cockpits.
"Tactical formation accepted," she replied in a sing-song, yet tough way. "If you two would like to engage, I'm eager as always to blow up whatever bandits are dumb enough to try and stop you."
“I go by Firewalker, mostly cause it’s my family name, don’t really have a callsign just yet,” she said in response before reports and orders came in, and she could feel herself smiling. Riot was eager to go it seemed, and much like her fellow Operator, she allowed her mind to slip fully into her Starbreaker, and shot forward. “oohra!” was her only comment as she flew forward towards the battlefield. Wonder what kind of DNA can we get from these Pirates... she thought to herself as she armed her weapons.
Though unseen V115 was smiling softly, "Guess that means it's up to me to give you both real callsigns, when sortied my official callsign is P-R-T-N-D-R aka Pretender." An unkind name to be sure but in the time since she'd been given it after being certified in live training exercises, she'd come to like it. V115 saw her name as a challenge and a reminder. One she'd prove wrong in the end. Until then though, she'd wear it proud.
Her mind split into a main processing thread and a sub-thread as the orders came in. While the main thread looked over the Watch's response, the sub-thread looked up her lancemates' designations on her craft's IFF system. "For now though it seems you're Alpha-one Arye, and you Riot are Alpha-two."
With that said, V slipped her mind into the Banshee. A place that felt like a second home by this point. "I'll take point, Alpha-two take rear guard. Maintaining matched speed to Alpha-one." Small orders, but important ones. While not as capable of dog fighting as Riot's frame, her banshee was able to respond to most threats with speed, maneuverability, and should they reach their target unmolested well... she could easily soften the defenses for Arye. Should things not go ideally, she could peel off and help Riot.
<<Orders received and acknowledged.>> a simple message sent back to the watch before they entered the combat airspace. A flurry of data reached her frame first, her brain interfaced with the frame's equipment to read all of it and translate it into useful information. Friendly locations, enemy movement reports, craft headings, munitions being released at targets. The banshee's maneuver thrusters instinctually flexed as V115 took it all in.
Riot picked up her own speed, not willing to let her escorts get ahead of her. When they hit the edge of the conflict, her weapons lit up to secure a path.
The enemy fighters weren't too much of a challenge as she began to fire upon them, flickering from one form to the next in a combat style that was surprisingly graceful in its brutality. While one would expect her to over-exert or over-extend, she was efficient to a surprising degree.
After all, being the best brawler in a space shootout was more about how many enemies you could take out than it was about pulling off the best stunts. With limited ammunition and missiles, efficiency was the name of the game.
It didn't keep her frame from punching an arm up in the air after landing a particularly good hit, though.
"Alpha Lance," she said, her voice full of thrill even as she issued a warning, "I'm seeing some of those U-1b's looking in our direction. Keep your eyes open!"
As she said it, she had to roll quickly to the side to dodge a few incoming shots.
Riot's efforts were rewarded with a number of explosions ahead of the Lance's approach vector, pirate fighters bursting into brilliant globes as her plasma fire and missiles tore their aging spaceframes apart.
As the lance carved its way into the enemy formation on their way toward their primary targets, several units had broken off to give chase. Like Riot had observed, there were six U-1b's peeling away from the main flight in order to try and protect their valuable starships.
Occupied as they were with the remaining pirate frames and fighters, Bravo and Charlie lances were able to offer little other than apologies for the inconvenience as the pirate variable frames began to slowly catch up with Alpha Lance. A few shots from the rear, though missing by a fair margin, signaled that the U-1b's had entered weapons range.
Meanwhile, the lance's target lay ahead, several of the pirates' small starships in formation; the perfect target for Arye's heavy guns. So long as she could withstand or avoid their defensive fire long enough to get her weapons on target to hit critical locations, a single pass would be enough to destroy one.
Arye smiled as she listened to her best friend V tell her and Riot that it would be up to her to give them real callsigns. The thought made her feel something like proud to hear that, as she was someone she admired and respected. “Copy That, Pretender” She replied before she was given a temporary callsign of Alpha-one. It caused her to smile, with pleasure before her focus shifted to the task at hand.
“I see them, Alpha-two, ” she replied as she spotted the pirate-controlled U-1B ships turn in their direction. She smiled as she unleashed her attack, firing with missiles at the first of the pirates. Like Riot she picked her own speed, wanting to keep with formation.
In the combat zone V115 matched her speed to Arye's staying out in front her far enough to give the other woman enough space to fire while at the same time being close enough to break off and defend should the need arise. However Riot was more than capable of dealing with those fighters that peeled off to target them from the rear. As they began to encroach upon the airspace of their target vessel the reports started coming in about the U-1b frames that swapped to targetting her lance.
Using her two wing drones for point defense against incoming missiles left her with just the two diadem cannons she typically deployed with. With an effective range of six hundred thousand kilometers and the ability to alternate shots to achieve a low downtime window, any fighter class craft that was foolish enough to attack her head to head found itself quickly missing sections of the craft as a beam split the molecules of its armor in twain. Though this still left her needing to take evasive maneuvers now and then as longer range projectile based weapons were still an issue... though whenever the course was altered by incoming fire, V115 was quick to reenter formation with Arye.
"Alpha-two, be mindful of your distance from the rest of the lance. Primary objective remains the pirate vessels. Alpha-one start looking for a window to engage in an attack run against vessel designated T-one. I will continue to provide cover for now but may need to break off to guard your rear should the U-1bs prove too much for Alpha-two alone."
Riot gave V a thumbs up with the Sparrowhawk's own hand.
"Roger that, Pretender," she said back in a cheery voice. "I'll make sure the corridor stays clean. Thanks for keeping the gnats off of us."
A few missiles exploded as V's wing drones intercepted. Riot pushed her speed up a little faster and shot forward, then spun about in humanoid form, allowing her two lance mates to get ahead of her for a moment. She brought her weapon up and began spraying the incoming U-1b's in a loose fashion to force them into defensive movement.
She was keen to watch for whichever frame put up the best defense - they were likely to be the biggest threat to her lance. She trusted V and Arye both to defend themselves against most attackers, but a skilled pilot might force them off target.
"Alright, show yourself~"
Riot's efforts to suppress the enemy were quick to draw a response from her targets. U-1s began to dodge and maneuver in order to avoid being struck by a stray plasma round from the rambunctious operator's spray of fire. While her aim was none too precise, Riot had accomplished her goal. However, dodging wasn't the only thing the pirates were doing.
Most of the pirates that Riot had cut off had begun to fire at her, not with any particular accuracy for the most part, however, a pair of pirate U-1s was behaving differently than the others.
Evading her fire with less effort than their compatriots, One of the two hefted a massive rifle nearly half the bulk of the craft itself, aiming at Riot while its compatriot deployed some kind of supplementary shield, deflecting a stray shot or two until the U-1 with the rifle fired, a slug firing out and guiding itself into Riot's Sparrowhawk.
Antiquated as it was, the weapon was still potent, the antimatter charge in the shell detonating and stripping Riot's shields in one go. Riot could feel warning signals begin to be sent to her through the craft's systems as her physical shield, and then her craft's left arm failed from what damage bled through her shields. Whether she had been unlucky enough to be hit, or was lucky to have come out with merely a disabled arm, was up to her interpretation.
While the pirate starships' escorts were engaged with Riot, Arye had been left with a relatively unobstructed path toward the starships she was targeting. Their point-defense turrets blazed away at her Starbreaker II, and through sheer volume of fire overwhelmed her evasive maneuvers. However, the light turrets did little of note, barely depleting Arye's shields as she opened fire with her missiles and dodged away from the pirate's heavier turret fire.
Her first salvo of missiles struck two of the pirate starships, battering their shields down and leaving both heavily damaged and drifting, even if not totally destroyed. Airlocks could be seen opening as pirates abandoned their stricken vessels. Two down, eight more to go. Arye had enough missiles to do that three more times, and was now in range to use her main gun.
“Copy That, pretender!’ She said as she began setting her ship to look for the window. She soon saw Riot go for her attack, and as Arye watched Riot’s attack, she began getting a sense of why she was named Riot just by action alone. She smiled in her pod, but she turned her focus to the task at hand, which to attack as she saw her window of opportunity thanks to Riot’s distraction. She watched as her missiles did their jobs. Better luck next time pirates! she said as she activated and fired her main guns now that she was in full range.
Oh wait, since they are now dead, there won't be a next time, ah well! Arye could only giggle verbally as she made her attack with her main weapon, while taking note of the downed pirate ships. She did a high speed Operator calculation in her head and found there were now eight vessels to handle. “We're doing good team! Keep it up!” She said through Comms for encouragement.
Riot cringed as the attack hit, wounded both in pride and 'person'. It took her a moment to turn off pain from that part of her 'body' - as much of a brawler as she was, injury wasn't new to her, but it was never something she looked forward to.
Worse was that frames used their limbs to balance themselves out. That was the real loss, as far as she was concerned. She'd need to find a way to stow the arm or she wouldn't be changing forms any time soon.
"Couple of bogeys have big toys. Going to see what I can do, but watch your six," Riot said over the comms. The red-haired pilot couldn't allow that big gun to get any scores on her lance.
She brought her weapon up and gave the enemies another spray, curious to see how that large shield would react. Simultaneously, she began evasive maneuvers, keen as she was to not take another hit. As soon as she saw the shield hit, she was ready to let loose a round of missiles and keep the pressure on.
Alerts flashed across V115's vision as her extended consciousness "saw" the fighting going on to her rear through a mixture of optical sensors, and other electronic sensors. Riot's verbal response to the fighting factored into her calculations as she surveyed the path ahead of Arye. She ran some numbers on the distances between their primary targets and the fighting to their rear. She knew her own frame was fast, probably one of the fastest things in its class on the battlefield presently. The idea of leaving Arye alone was not one she liked but... logically at present, it seemed as though it would be at least a few minutes before the targets scrambled any fighters or frames they had held in reserve to rebuff Arye's run against them. If she was quick, pushed it to the limit, and together with Riot took down the U1s she could meet Arye again in quick succession if the other Operator got held up.
With that in mind her forward thrusts cut and maneuver jets fired in a calculated succession of bursts to flip and rotate her orientation to be back towards Riot. "Alpha-One, stay alert, report any additional forces that appear and if they're too threatening retreat back to the lance. Alpha-Two I'm coming to back you up."
In a fluid motion she simply kicked on her main thrusters again and rocketed off towards Riot's combat zone. Streaking through the void she accelerated at maximum output to back up her new lancemate.
Arye's second attack run went about as well as her first had. While the large guns of the starships she was attacking continued to fail to hit her Starbreaker II, the point defense cannons had shifted their fire. Knowing that their small guns wouldn't be sufficient to damage Arye's bomber, they chose instead to fire on her incoming missiles.
The point defense cannons fired wildly, but the speedy long-range missiles managed to avoid most of their fire, though one was clipped by a shot and spun away into the void for a moment before exploding. The rest of the missiles, however impacted, disabling two more pirate vessels before Arye's main cannon fired. Her Starbreaker shuddered three times as the cannon fired its three shots, tearing holes into one of the small ships and sending it drifting.
Meanwhile, Riot was beginning to see some success. Her evasive maneuvers seemed to be throwing off the U-1 with the large cannon, causing several shots to miss as she put pressure on the pair of Variable Frames with a spray of her plasma repeater.
The enemy with the shield positioned itself to block her fire, plasma splashing against the large shield and dissipating without doing much damage, but her missiles seemed to take the enemy frame by surprise, as she returned the favor by taking off the leg of the frame with the shield, and damaging the physical shield.
As the fighting continued, V115 managed to slip through stray fire from across the battlefield, positioning herself in an advantageous location such that she and Riot would be able to catch the two troublesome U-1s in a crossfire.
“Copy That Alpha-two, be careful!” Arye said as she received Riot’s message and saw her successful attacks on their pirate enemies. It only fueled how proud she was of her fellow Operator. Her own successes also pleased her and she quickly noted how the Pirate’s point defense weapons switched their targets to her missiles. It worried her a little bit, but she knew her missiles were fast, which was proven to her.
Her sensors registered the shuddering, but as she was in the pod safely back on the ship, it didn’t distract her as she continued her attack. She also acknowledged V’s order with the affirmative as she attacked.
Approaching from a mostly perpendicular angle to Riot's line of fire, V115 used her high speed to her advantage, the mantra of accurate and swift which had been drilled into her mind early in training played back within the recesses of her brain as her frame slipped into the engagement. A quick blink and she'd seemed to have gotten closer, within range of her primary weapons. With weapon targetting algorithms active she looked for center mass of the enemy frames. V115 was not the type to go for disabling hits when it came to pirates, she went for the kill every time.
The first "trigger pull" caused her right side mounted diadem cannon to fire on the frame located behind the shield bearer frame. Her attack coming in from the side and aimed right at where she presumed the cockpit was located on the older frame. The second "trigger pull" aimed for center mass on the side of the shield bearer U1. Though she appeared to have blitzed this engagement, it was still entirely possible that at least one of the enemies managed to avoid her shot. Particularly the shield bearer as due to the nature of her fixed weapon positions in flight mode, she had to adjust the approach vector of her entire craft to switch targets between shots, greedy as it was.
As V115 fired on the pirate frames, her Diadem cannons sent out brillant boxes of light that reached out and intercepted the two pirate frames that were giving Riot trouble. As the Diadem's beam hit the frame with the large cannon, the old U-1 was split cleanly at the waist, the two halves tumbling slightly before one detonated. Meanwhile, the pirate with the large shield swung the shield around to face her.
The Diadem's beam seemed to refract and scatter off of the shield, revealing to both Riot and V115 the reason it had proved resilient to Riot's plasma fire; some kind of supplemental shield generator was housed within the massive slab of metal. V's attack wasn't without effect however, as the attack compounded with the damage that Riot had caused earlier seemed to short out the generator. As her Diadem's beam died down, the enemy frame tossed its shield to one side and pulled what seemed to be a large blade from its remains, pushing its remaining thrusters to the maximum and charging Riot.
Over with the enemy starships, Arye continued to whittle down the enemy numbers. The more starships she shot down, the thinner the pirates' point defense field got, and the easier it was for her to fly without getting hit and for her missiles to hit their targets. Only a few starships were left now, but the pirates were getting desperate.
One of the remaining pirate starships turned its anti-starship turrets towards Arye, and managed a lucky shot as she was making a close attack pass on it. High velocity plasma impacted her shields, and they held for a moment before her shield bubble collapsed. Plasma washed over her Starbreaker II, damaging one of its engines and reducing her maneuverability as well as causing her missile bay to jam closed.
As Arye flew her Starbreaker she continued to focus on her targets. She knew that being in the pod she wouldn’t actually be hurt if her fighter got destroyed, but her love for the fighter’s namesake though, made her feel bad for the ship. For any damage she allowed to be unleashed upon it as she faced the pirate's swarm along side her comrades. She grinned as her attacks were made successful, but when she got hit and she lost her shields.
“Fuck!” she cursed as this happened, and strategies came to her mind. She lost her missiles, but still had her main cannon she could still use that, but with her engine damaged she knew she couldn’t pull off some of the feats its big sister was known for. “May need backup, hey got my shields and an engine, and my missile bay is jammed.
She knew there was one idea she could do, against the pirates, though she wasn’t as willing to do it.
Splash one target, V115 thought to herself in the moment the first rectangle of light made contact and sheared through the enemy U1. With half of it exploding the other half was more than likely going to hurdle directionlessly as debris off into space. Even if the pilot somehow survived they were out of the fight.
The second one proved to be more resilient however. Though she'd shorted the energy field on the physical shield, V115 knew her craft well enough to know that even with alternated shots she still had a gap in when the weapon would be recharged and fireable again. In that moment of time it was possible the field might return, and she had to consider that possibility as the enemy pilot seemed rather intelligent based on their decision to charge Riot. With the weapon compliment that V115 herself possessed it would be quite difficult to engage a fame locked in melee combat with an ally of hers without damaging both.
With nothing but "projectile" weapons V115 did not wish to engage an armed enemy with hand to hand tactics yet it was an increasingly evident solution to the growing issue. Her approach vector meant that she couldn't fire a diadem shot without extreme risk to Riot. This left her two option outside of Riot simply beating the enemy U1 without V's help. Calculating some vectors and factoring in her crescendo system V115 plotted an attack intercept pattern which would avoid hitting Riot. Math complete, her fingers itched yet she backed down. Too risky and reckless, even with the greater precision if Riot moved unexpectedly she could get hit by friendly fire.
V115 accelerated as well, putting herself on an intercept course for the sword wielding frame. Using her frame's best trait, its speed, she accelerated. As she neared melee range her wing drones flared to life and moved. They activated their independent thrusters as her frame performed a rapid transformation out of fighter mode. In that moment, V115 used the wing drones to generate rotational momentum to put her frame into a spin and generate more force. As her spin completed she attempted to land a very solid high momentum kick to the center mass of the U1.
Miss or hit, V115 didn't plan to stay close and get chopped up. She'd attempt a hit and run, slam the cockpit area, transform back and jet away. Hopefully the kick would either disorient the pirate pilot or distract them enough to allow Riot to finish the job as V sped away.
V115's swift attack on the sword-bearing foe bore fruit as she closed in, her wing-drone's thrusters delivering her the rotational momentum she needed to deliver a brutal kick to the center of the U-1's torso. While there was no way for sound to propagate through the vacuum of space, the vibrations sent up her frame's leg was enough to generate a dull thump audible even in her cockpit.
The Banshee's leg held firm under the incredible strain of the blow, aided as it was by the thrust of her drones, a testament to the workmanship of Noval's artisans and engineers. And it did what she had hoped it would. The U-1 seemed to drift for a moment, before its pilot regained their composure, but their movements were slowed. It was possible that V115's blow had rattled the pirate, and she'd certainly left Riot the opening she needed.
Riot's respect for V jumped by leagues in that moment and she discovered a brand new item for her bucketlist at the same time. She hadn't known up until this point that she needed to kick an enemy fighter, but now she'd seen it and her life was changed.
Sadly, all she could offer the poor enemy U-1 was bullets for now. She was too close to get up the kind of momentum she needed to make a second kick worth it. Her Torrent came up and earned its name, filling space between the two fighters with a stream of ammunition.
V had given her the opening and she was taking it.
The opening was all that Riot needed, blue streaks of plasma from her weapon filling the void between her and her target. The damage that the U-1 had taken earlier, on top of V115's kick, had done more than enough to weaken the pirate's shields. Riot's fire tore into the older model Variable Frame, first tearing off a leg before the fire walked up its torso, melting the center-mass of the pirate's craft into slag before a small explosion sent it tumbling. A brief moment later, it detonated fully.
Meanwhile, Arye's battle against the pirate starships was beginning to wrap up, but while she had managed to whittle down the pirate numbers to almost nothing, damage was beginning to accumulate. Her shields had begun to recharge after the anti-starship turret had hit her, but her missile bay doors were still jammed partially shut.
Firing a missile now might run the risk of it detonating inside the Starbreaker, but perhaps there was a way for her to unjam them? For now though, it was of no consequence. Her attack run with her main gun went as expected, and two pirate ships that had been close together went up in flares of silent flame as her modified Cerberus cannon caused the bomber to shudder thrice, then thrice again when it fired. Just one left now, but it seemed a bit bigger than the others, owing to a large amount of additional armor plating that seemed to be increasing its defenses at the cost of speed.
Riot grinned and whooped as their enemies were reduced in number. Her 'body' ached all over from the damage it had taken before and the disabled arm was certainly a pain.
It looked like she could still transform, so that's what she did. First, she manually stowed her weapon instead of relying on the easy transformation routine. Then she used the newly freed up hand to shove the other arm into the right position. It would have to be close enough, she decided, and let the rest of the transformation go through.
The arm slotted into place well enough, but she could tell it wasn't entirely right. It wasn't likely to affect her flying, but it pinched like hell.
"Alright, you two!" she said, pushing through the mild pain to stay focused on the mission. "Let's go wrap this thing up. Alpha-one, I've got your three."
As Arye fought against her foes, her pod’s sensors picked up on recharging shields, and she knew she needed to bide her time before they returned fully, allowing her to turn her focus on her missile bay. Sensors and systems indicated it was partly jammed closed which meant she could fire, but she knew the risk. Being a fan of their big sister, meant she knew everything about the ship and pondered if the little sister had some of the same systems she could use, especially with the jamming issue.
Meanwhile, she managed to eliminate two pirate ships and grinned s she saw them erupt into flames. She managed to get a recording of this for personal use later. “That’s why Pirates never win, poor dear!” Arye chuckled before movement, rather transformation caught her attention. “oohh..” she said to herself before she responded “Little sister’s missile is jammed, I’m gonna try and unjam it, but just to be on the safe side, be careful Alpha two” She said feeling appreciative of her willingness to watch the back.
Her gambit paying dividends, V115 looked through her rear cameras as Riot finished the job. Though if she was being honest, she just felt relieved to still have a leg. After that reverb she wasn't sure she'd attempt something like that again in the future but, at least she now knew that in a pinch it could work. A parallel thread of thought took her back to digital school where an instructor had told her once, 'If you can't fight, do it anyway. If you have to do it anyway, fight like hell. If it comes down to it, even your teeth are a weapon.' A bit of hyperbole but it did hold true. Never give up, always struggle, and in an emergency use whatever you've got.
After Riot's little pep talk she decelerated to allow the other frame to catch up, she then capped her acceleration to match Riot's own. "Understood A-Two, if your thruster output is functioning without risk, push it to max so we can regroup faster. A cornered animal is at its most fierce and their ships are dwindling." With that said she plotted a course for Arye's next target.
As Arye circled the final pirate vessel, its point defenses shot out into space, coming close but not quite hitting her. This one would be difficult to take out without her missiles, judging by its size and armor compared to the other ones.
Her attempts to unjam her missile bay were working, but not as quickly as she might have liked. Servos strained against partially melted plating, opening a little bit further every attempt, but not quite open enough to launch a volley yet. She wouldn't be able to attack again before her lancemates caught up to her, though perhaps that was a good thing.
Riot and V115 were making good time towards Arye's position as she circled what was apparently the pirate flagship, and their course was not intercepted, owing to their earlier efforts in taking out the defenses, and Bravo and Charlie lance's ongoing battle against the pirate's small craft.
As they finally caught up to Arye, her efforts finally bore fruit, the missile bay of her Starbreaker II finally opening enough to allow her to launch one missile. It would have to be enough, in combination with the firepower of her lancemates.
Riot's sensors fed her the ship's data - weapons, engines, and the like. She needed a plan; a way to hurt the enemy ship to keep it from hurting them back. Their lance had been bruised and her fighter was in no shape to take more hits after losing its shield. Arye - Alpha-0ne - could supply the heavy hits, so she selected the ship's weapons.
She pushed her thrust up to a safe maximum to try and hold speed with V, then opened her comms.
"Gonna lay some fire on the ship's turrets when I'm not on interception. Plenty of ammo in the chambers for that, but I'm all out of flashy maneuvers."
The Sparrowhawk's Torrent opened up once she had a firing solution, firing in careful bursts. Even if she didn't take out the turrets, light fire might make them think twice about firing back. Her first job was to keep her lance safe.
With the lance now reunited and victory at hand, there was little left to do except for escorting her friend and fellow veteran to the target. "Taking point, Alpha-one. We'll make this work." With that said, V115 scanned over the ship, looking for a point where a clean hit might disable or destroy the ship. There was of course taking out the main thrusters but she was unsure if hitting the main thrusters would be enough. Certainly the Watch could deliver a finishing blow but she had a certain amount of pride and wanted to get the entire job done with her lance. The up-armored ship made it difficult to discern where softer more valuable targets were.... "Alpha-one, highlight a target and I will soften it up with the diadem cannons. You get the killing blow."[/B]
Arye smiled as she heard and saw her teammates arrive. She always knew she could count on their support. "copy that!" she said after she began to regain access to her missiles. It was slow going but she managed, and with her squadmates help she knew she could do this. She began her attack, by highlighting her target. "high lighting now." she said. "lets set Mister or Miss Pirate to the next life!"
While the Inertial Compensators, as equipped on Riot's craft weren't necessary to keep the operator alive through the energetic maneuvers common to void combat, they were key to avoiding stressing the spaceframes of most starships and aerospace fighters. In this instance, they were helping the operator continue to do her job without further damaging her Sparrowhawk and, consequentially, helping her to avoid escalating the discomfort she felt from the damaged arm.
Her Torrent sent pulses of plasma raking across the enemy ship, at first merely splashing across the pirate flagship's shields, but quickly helping to deplete it. The pirate vessel was larger than the others, but it quickly became evident that its shields had not been upgraded to the same extent as its armor as Riot's persistent fire weakened the field to the point where her fire began to slip through, splashing across the enemy's hull and beginning to degrade the effectiveness of the point defense turrets it encountered.
With an opening made by Riot, V115 was able to help Arye with the final attack on the enemy's flagship. Point defenses were either too distracted trying to take care of the craft that was disabling them, or offline, and that gave her the opening she needed to walk her Diadem's beam across the enemy's rear, slicing armor apart and leaving vulnerable systems open to further attack in a maneuver that could only be described as textbook usage of V115's chosen frame.
Armor from the pirate vessel began to float away in sharp-edged chunks as Arye finally made her attack run, one missile ejecting itself out of her missile bay as her cannons opened fire into the area where V115 had damaged the armor at Firewalker's request. The cannon rounds hit first, a trio of small explosions followed by a visible buckling of the pirate vessel's frame as the rounds detonated further inside.
Then her missile hit, and its warhead seemed to tear the weakened vessel asunder, splitting it nearly in two.
As the battle wrapped up for Alpha lance and the adrenaline, or at least its digital equivalent, began to wear off comms chatter began to filter through to them. Bravo and Charlie had also finished with their foes, and had been on their way to assist with the more difficult battle until V115 and her team had finished the job.
Words of congratulations and relief were exchanged among the various lances of the Ravenaca's Watch, with one pilot from Charlie lance commenting "The maintenance chief is going to have to come up with a new kill marker to put on Arye's new ride for those ships."
The celebratory mood was only somewhat disrupted by the ship's CAG, Lt. Cmdr. Fletcher, reminding the ship's pilots that they were due for a debriefing in half an hour. There were clearly still some things that the higher-ups wanted to discuss about the mission, but at least for the pilots of Alpha Lance, it had been an unmitigated success.
The NDS Ravenaca's Watch job in the Newhaven system was proceeding relatively smoothly. Since receiving new personnel and equipment the previous month much time had been spent clearing pockets of pirates while the system's garrison was deployed guarding supply convoys as they traveled to and from the inner solar system.
Most of the pirate groups operating out of the system had been making use of a variety of old civilian and surplus starships and small craft, a number even having black-market Armored Frames of Origin design. However, the enemy that the Watch now found itself battling was different.
To be sure, the starships were of similar quality to those the ship was used to dispatching, but there was a surprising amount of them, enough to qualify as a significant enough threat that when tracking down the gang in question, the ship's command staff had decided to send fighters out in advance of the Watch itself, in order to minimize risk to the vessel.
1st squadron had been assigned the task, with 2nd squadron grounded while conducting repairs from the ship's previous engagements, leading to the three lances of the squadron burning towards the asteroid cluster where the pirate gang had been tracked to.
Bravo and Charlie lances had gone ahead of Alpha lance, owing to Arye's choice of one of the ship's two Starbreaker IIs, which had been one of the new assets assigned to the Watch during their stopover at Port Astionage. Riot's Sparrowhawk and V115's Banshee had needed to slow down in order to hold formation, leaving the group a moment to speak or plan before they hit the fray.
Riot had been enjoying herself immensely while they cleared out the system's pirate infestation. Whatever empathy most people seemed to have for other sapients she seemed to lack when it came to "the bad guys". Command merely had to point her in a direction and let her know those guys are up to no good. It was all the motivation she needed.
She wasn't heartless, of course. Just eager. She loved the fight and was quickly coming to love her fellow lance members. With nothing else to do while they burned toward their target, she tapped open the comm.
"Goood evening Alpha Lance! Or is it morning? Hard to tell in space. Everyone excited to kick some more pirate butt?"
Her trademark grin could be heard through the comms.
A giggle was the response that Riot got coming from Arye’s Comms. “Pirates, so kind and helpful in allowing us to get some training and exercise. My sibling, Kali said that they were also kind enough to donate their DNA for our cloning technology too.” Arye commented, and like Riot, she too didn’t like Pirates either, Piracy, and slavery were the top two she loathed, and the top two she wouldn’t mind taking down. The Operator lounged in her pod, as her own ship, the Starbreaker waited in formation with her Alpha Lance Wingmates.
V115 was quiet at first contemplating the briefing, going over astrogation data on local hazards, making sure she had studied the environs of the upcoming battlefield and any data that had been shared on priority targets. "I am ready to get the job done and return to the Watch with the rest of you in one piece." Her voice was even, steady, and generally lacking in emotion. Arye would be quite familiar with V115 in her sort of sortie mindset and it was perhaps less off-putting to Riot at this point as well since they'd deployed together a handful of times by this point. While she was never all that emotional to begin with, she was especially cool while deployed.
"We should review our objectives and the information coming in from Bravo and Charlie."
The feeds coming in from Bravo and Charlie showed around a dozen small starships flitting around the asteroid belt, ninety to one hundred meters each armed with appropriate weaponry. In addition to the starships, Bravo and Charlie had engaged with the Pirates' complement of fighters and frames. Aging snub fighters and Origin M1 series frames were present, as per the norm, however, there were several unexpected adversaries present.
A number of small craft deployed from the asteroid base, their silhouettes quickly identified by 1st Squadron's targeting computers as U-1b Variable Frames. All present would be familiar with the craft as either aging military surplus used by Civilians in the Conclave or as training aircraft used alongside MSF-Sparrows by the CAFF to train new recruits and freshly "born" Operators.
These, however, were neither of the two. The U-1s were obviously in pirate hands and were in too good shape to be surplus. While the Variable Frames were antiquated compared to what 1st Squadron was flying, they brought the pirates' fighter numbers up to a little more than twice what 1st Squadron had.
Riot's brows rose as she saw the U-1s.
"That's- hm," she began, forcefully tempering her desire to charge in. She was eager and, sometimes, brutish, but not stupid. Mostly. "Everyone else see those U-1s? I'm happy to get to smashing them, but... I don't think they were in the briefing. V? You usually pay attention in those things, what do you think?"
When Arye's team hadn't reacted to her words, she turned serious and focused as she watched what the others were seeing. "I'd say if they are attacking they might be pirates, but there's a lot more of them than us. maybe we should report in case we need backup?" she asked
V115 didn't hesitate, opening a channel back to the watch as they were hopefully still within communication range due to lagging behind the other two lances she sent an encrypted message. Alpha lance to Raveneca's Watch actual, pirate forces contain fighters with a mix of good condition variable frames... identified as U-1b. Numbers roughly double that of deployed first squadron forces. Message end.
At the same time that she was writing the encrypted message to the watch, she replied to Riot and Arye. "Message sent to the watch informing them of the tactical situation. As for the briefing... our lance is somewhat specialized. We have slightly more autonomy than Bravo and Charlie and the equipment to fulfill multiple roles. Essentially Firewalker possesses the capability to do large damage to key areas of starships along with a host of other munitions. My banshee can serve a variable role, and your Sparrowhawk can escort the both of us or dog fight."
There was a slight pause and then a question. "Do you have a callsign yet?"
"I- I mean, everyone just calls me Riot. Should I have something different?" Then, a pause. "Have- have I been calling you all the wrong names?!"
While V115 waited for a response from her lancemate, her message to the Ravenaca's Watch elicited a swift response. <<Affirmative Alpha Actual, focus on taking care of the larger targets. Consider the fighters targets of opportunity. If you get the chance, see about trying to capture one of the U-1s intact. Other lances will also have these instructions.>>
As the lance finally reached the edge of the furball, Bravo and Charlie lances were already beginning to whittle down the numbers of the enemy fighters, with a few Banshees making passes against the enemy starships resulting in one or two brilliant spheres of fire erupting for a moment before fizzling out, leaving ten starships remaining.
'Go blow the stuff up' was the kind of order that Riot could get behind. She gave a little whoop in her cockpit before letting her mind slip fully into the Sparrowhawk. It took barely a moment for her to adjust to her 'new body' these days.
She flexed her thrusters and felt the deadly power of her weapons. If she didn't like beating people up so much, Riot would probably turn into one of those synthetics who couldn't escape their cockpits.
"Tactical formation accepted," she replied in a sing-song, yet tough way. "If you two would like to engage, I'm eager as always to blow up whatever bandits are dumb enough to try and stop you."
“I go by Firewalker, mostly cause it’s my family name, don’t really have a callsign just yet,” she said in response before reports and orders came in, and she could feel herself smiling. Riot was eager to go it seemed, and much like her fellow Operator, she allowed her mind to slip fully into her Starbreaker, and shot forward. “oohra!” was her only comment as she flew forward towards the battlefield. Wonder what kind of DNA can we get from these Pirates... she thought to herself as she armed her weapons.
Though unseen V115 was smiling softly, "Guess that means it's up to me to give you both real callsigns, when sortied my official callsign is P-R-T-N-D-R aka Pretender." An unkind name to be sure but in the time since she'd been given it after being certified in live training exercises, she'd come to like it. V115 saw her name as a challenge and a reminder. One she'd prove wrong in the end. Until then though, she'd wear it proud.
Her mind split into a main processing thread and a sub-thread as the orders came in. While the main thread looked over the Watch's response, the sub-thread looked up her lancemates' designations on her craft's IFF system. "For now though it seems you're Alpha-one Arye, and you Riot are Alpha-two."
With that said, V slipped her mind into the Banshee. A place that felt like a second home by this point. "I'll take point, Alpha-two take rear guard. Maintaining matched speed to Alpha-one." Small orders, but important ones. While not as capable of dog fighting as Riot's frame, her banshee was able to respond to most threats with speed, maneuverability, and should they reach their target unmolested well... she could easily soften the defenses for Arye. Should things not go ideally, she could peel off and help Riot.
<<Orders received and acknowledged.>> a simple message sent back to the watch before they entered the combat airspace. A flurry of data reached her frame first, her brain interfaced with the frame's equipment to read all of it and translate it into useful information. Friendly locations, enemy movement reports, craft headings, munitions being released at targets. The banshee's maneuver thrusters instinctually flexed as V115 took it all in.
Riot picked up her own speed, not willing to let her escorts get ahead of her. When they hit the edge of the conflict, her weapons lit up to secure a path.
The enemy fighters weren't too much of a challenge as she began to fire upon them, flickering from one form to the next in a combat style that was surprisingly graceful in its brutality. While one would expect her to over-exert or over-extend, she was efficient to a surprising degree.
After all, being the best brawler in a space shootout was more about how many enemies you could take out than it was about pulling off the best stunts. With limited ammunition and missiles, efficiency was the name of the game.
It didn't keep her frame from punching an arm up in the air after landing a particularly good hit, though.
"Alpha Lance," she said, her voice full of thrill even as she issued a warning, "I'm seeing some of those U-1b's looking in our direction. Keep your eyes open!"
As she said it, she had to roll quickly to the side to dodge a few incoming shots.
Riot's efforts were rewarded with a number of explosions ahead of the Lance's approach vector, pirate fighters bursting into brilliant globes as her plasma fire and missiles tore their aging spaceframes apart.
As the lance carved its way into the enemy formation on their way toward their primary targets, several units had broken off to give chase. Like Riot had observed, there were six U-1b's peeling away from the main flight in order to try and protect their valuable starships.
Occupied as they were with the remaining pirate frames and fighters, Bravo and Charlie lances were able to offer little other than apologies for the inconvenience as the pirate variable frames began to slowly catch up with Alpha Lance. A few shots from the rear, though missing by a fair margin, signaled that the U-1b's had entered weapons range.
Meanwhile, the lance's target lay ahead, several of the pirates' small starships in formation; the perfect target for Arye's heavy guns. So long as she could withstand or avoid their defensive fire long enough to get her weapons on target to hit critical locations, a single pass would be enough to destroy one.
Arye smiled as she listened to her best friend V tell her and Riot that it would be up to her to give them real callsigns. The thought made her feel something like proud to hear that, as she was someone she admired and respected. “Copy That, Pretender” She replied before she was given a temporary callsign of Alpha-one. It caused her to smile, with pleasure before her focus shifted to the task at hand.
“I see them, Alpha-two, ” she replied as she spotted the pirate-controlled U-1B ships turn in their direction. She smiled as she unleashed her attack, firing with missiles at the first of the pirates. Like Riot she picked her own speed, wanting to keep with formation.
In the combat zone V115 matched her speed to Arye's staying out in front her far enough to give the other woman enough space to fire while at the same time being close enough to break off and defend should the need arise. However Riot was more than capable of dealing with those fighters that peeled off to target them from the rear. As they began to encroach upon the airspace of their target vessel the reports started coming in about the U-1b frames that swapped to targetting her lance.
Using her two wing drones for point defense against incoming missiles left her with just the two diadem cannons she typically deployed with. With an effective range of six hundred thousand kilometers and the ability to alternate shots to achieve a low downtime window, any fighter class craft that was foolish enough to attack her head to head found itself quickly missing sections of the craft as a beam split the molecules of its armor in twain. Though this still left her needing to take evasive maneuvers now and then as longer range projectile based weapons were still an issue... though whenever the course was altered by incoming fire, V115 was quick to reenter formation with Arye.
"Alpha-two, be mindful of your distance from the rest of the lance. Primary objective remains the pirate vessels. Alpha-one start looking for a window to engage in an attack run against vessel designated T-one. I will continue to provide cover for now but may need to break off to guard your rear should the U-1bs prove too much for Alpha-two alone."
Riot gave V a thumbs up with the Sparrowhawk's own hand.
"Roger that, Pretender," she said back in a cheery voice. "I'll make sure the corridor stays clean. Thanks for keeping the gnats off of us."
A few missiles exploded as V's wing drones intercepted. Riot pushed her speed up a little faster and shot forward, then spun about in humanoid form, allowing her two lance mates to get ahead of her for a moment. She brought her weapon up and began spraying the incoming U-1b's in a loose fashion to force them into defensive movement.
She was keen to watch for whichever frame put up the best defense - they were likely to be the biggest threat to her lance. She trusted V and Arye both to defend themselves against most attackers, but a skilled pilot might force them off target.
"Alright, show yourself~"
Riot's efforts to suppress the enemy were quick to draw a response from her targets. U-1s began to dodge and maneuver in order to avoid being struck by a stray plasma round from the rambunctious operator's spray of fire. While her aim was none too precise, Riot had accomplished her goal. However, dodging wasn't the only thing the pirates were doing.
Most of the pirates that Riot had cut off had begun to fire at her, not with any particular accuracy for the most part, however, a pair of pirate U-1s was behaving differently than the others.
Evading her fire with less effort than their compatriots, One of the two hefted a massive rifle nearly half the bulk of the craft itself, aiming at Riot while its compatriot deployed some kind of supplementary shield, deflecting a stray shot or two until the U-1 with the rifle fired, a slug firing out and guiding itself into Riot's Sparrowhawk.
Antiquated as it was, the weapon was still potent, the antimatter charge in the shell detonating and stripping Riot's shields in one go. Riot could feel warning signals begin to be sent to her through the craft's systems as her physical shield, and then her craft's left arm failed from what damage bled through her shields. Whether she had been unlucky enough to be hit, or was lucky to have come out with merely a disabled arm, was up to her interpretation.
While the pirate starships' escorts were engaged with Riot, Arye had been left with a relatively unobstructed path toward the starships she was targeting. Their point-defense turrets blazed away at her Starbreaker II, and through sheer volume of fire overwhelmed her evasive maneuvers. However, the light turrets did little of note, barely depleting Arye's shields as she opened fire with her missiles and dodged away from the pirate's heavier turret fire.
Her first salvo of missiles struck two of the pirate starships, battering their shields down and leaving both heavily damaged and drifting, even if not totally destroyed. Airlocks could be seen opening as pirates abandoned their stricken vessels. Two down, eight more to go. Arye had enough missiles to do that three more times, and was now in range to use her main gun.
“Copy That, pretender!’ She said as she began setting her ship to look for the window. She soon saw Riot go for her attack, and as Arye watched Riot’s attack, she began getting a sense of why she was named Riot just by action alone. She smiled in her pod, but she turned her focus to the task at hand, which to attack as she saw her window of opportunity thanks to Riot’s distraction. She watched as her missiles did their jobs. Better luck next time pirates! she said as she activated and fired her main guns now that she was in full range.
Oh wait, since they are now dead, there won't be a next time, ah well! Arye could only giggle verbally as she made her attack with her main weapon, while taking note of the downed pirate ships. She did a high speed Operator calculation in her head and found there were now eight vessels to handle. “We're doing good team! Keep it up!” She said through Comms for encouragement.
Riot cringed as the attack hit, wounded both in pride and 'person'. It took her a moment to turn off pain from that part of her 'body' - as much of a brawler as she was, injury wasn't new to her, but it was never something she looked forward to.
Worse was that frames used their limbs to balance themselves out. That was the real loss, as far as she was concerned. She'd need to find a way to stow the arm or she wouldn't be changing forms any time soon.
"Couple of bogeys have big toys. Going to see what I can do, but watch your six," Riot said over the comms. The red-haired pilot couldn't allow that big gun to get any scores on her lance.
She brought her weapon up and gave the enemies another spray, curious to see how that large shield would react. Simultaneously, she began evasive maneuvers, keen as she was to not take another hit. As soon as she saw the shield hit, she was ready to let loose a round of missiles and keep the pressure on.
Alerts flashed across V115's vision as her extended consciousness "saw" the fighting going on to her rear through a mixture of optical sensors, and other electronic sensors. Riot's verbal response to the fighting factored into her calculations as she surveyed the path ahead of Arye. She ran some numbers on the distances between their primary targets and the fighting to their rear. She knew her own frame was fast, probably one of the fastest things in its class on the battlefield presently. The idea of leaving Arye alone was not one she liked but... logically at present, it seemed as though it would be at least a few minutes before the targets scrambled any fighters or frames they had held in reserve to rebuff Arye's run against them. If she was quick, pushed it to the limit, and together with Riot took down the U1s she could meet Arye again in quick succession if the other Operator got held up.
With that in mind her forward thrusts cut and maneuver jets fired in a calculated succession of bursts to flip and rotate her orientation to be back towards Riot. "Alpha-One, stay alert, report any additional forces that appear and if they're too threatening retreat back to the lance. Alpha-Two I'm coming to back you up."
In a fluid motion she simply kicked on her main thrusters again and rocketed off towards Riot's combat zone. Streaking through the void she accelerated at maximum output to back up her new lancemate.
Arye's second attack run went about as well as her first had. While the large guns of the starships she was attacking continued to fail to hit her Starbreaker II, the point defense cannons had shifted their fire. Knowing that their small guns wouldn't be sufficient to damage Arye's bomber, they chose instead to fire on her incoming missiles.
The point defense cannons fired wildly, but the speedy long-range missiles managed to avoid most of their fire, though one was clipped by a shot and spun away into the void for a moment before exploding. The rest of the missiles, however impacted, disabling two more pirate vessels before Arye's main cannon fired. Her Starbreaker shuddered three times as the cannon fired its three shots, tearing holes into one of the small ships and sending it drifting.
Meanwhile, Riot was beginning to see some success. Her evasive maneuvers seemed to be throwing off the U-1 with the large cannon, causing several shots to miss as she put pressure on the pair of Variable Frames with a spray of her plasma repeater.
The enemy with the shield positioned itself to block her fire, plasma splashing against the large shield and dissipating without doing much damage, but her missiles seemed to take the enemy frame by surprise, as she returned the favor by taking off the leg of the frame with the shield, and damaging the physical shield.
As the fighting continued, V115 managed to slip through stray fire from across the battlefield, positioning herself in an advantageous location such that she and Riot would be able to catch the two troublesome U-1s in a crossfire.
“Copy That Alpha-two, be careful!” Arye said as she received Riot’s message and saw her successful attacks on their pirate enemies. It only fueled how proud she was of her fellow Operator. Her own successes also pleased her and she quickly noted how the Pirate’s point defense weapons switched their targets to her missiles. It worried her a little bit, but she knew her missiles were fast, which was proven to her.
Her sensors registered the shuddering, but as she was in the pod safely back on the ship, it didn’t distract her as she continued her attack. She also acknowledged V’s order with the affirmative as she attacked.
Approaching from a mostly perpendicular angle to Riot's line of fire, V115 used her high speed to her advantage, the mantra of accurate and swift which had been drilled into her mind early in training played back within the recesses of her brain as her frame slipped into the engagement. A quick blink and she'd seemed to have gotten closer, within range of her primary weapons. With weapon targetting algorithms active she looked for center mass of the enemy frames. V115 was not the type to go for disabling hits when it came to pirates, she went for the kill every time.
The first "trigger pull" caused her right side mounted diadem cannon to fire on the frame located behind the shield bearer frame. Her attack coming in from the side and aimed right at where she presumed the cockpit was located on the older frame. The second "trigger pull" aimed for center mass on the side of the shield bearer U1. Though she appeared to have blitzed this engagement, it was still entirely possible that at least one of the enemies managed to avoid her shot. Particularly the shield bearer as due to the nature of her fixed weapon positions in flight mode, she had to adjust the approach vector of her entire craft to switch targets between shots, greedy as it was.
As V115 fired on the pirate frames, her Diadem cannons sent out brillant boxes of light that reached out and intercepted the two pirate frames that were giving Riot trouble. As the Diadem's beam hit the frame with the large cannon, the old U-1 was split cleanly at the waist, the two halves tumbling slightly before one detonated. Meanwhile, the pirate with the large shield swung the shield around to face her.
The Diadem's beam seemed to refract and scatter off of the shield, revealing to both Riot and V115 the reason it had proved resilient to Riot's plasma fire; some kind of supplemental shield generator was housed within the massive slab of metal. V's attack wasn't without effect however, as the attack compounded with the damage that Riot had caused earlier seemed to short out the generator. As her Diadem's beam died down, the enemy frame tossed its shield to one side and pulled what seemed to be a large blade from its remains, pushing its remaining thrusters to the maximum and charging Riot.
Over with the enemy starships, Arye continued to whittle down the enemy numbers. The more starships she shot down, the thinner the pirates' point defense field got, and the easier it was for her to fly without getting hit and for her missiles to hit their targets. Only a few starships were left now, but the pirates were getting desperate.
One of the remaining pirate starships turned its anti-starship turrets towards Arye, and managed a lucky shot as she was making a close attack pass on it. High velocity plasma impacted her shields, and they held for a moment before her shield bubble collapsed. Plasma washed over her Starbreaker II, damaging one of its engines and reducing her maneuverability as well as causing her missile bay to jam closed.
As Arye flew her Starbreaker she continued to focus on her targets. She knew that being in the pod she wouldn’t actually be hurt if her fighter got destroyed, but her love for the fighter’s namesake though, made her feel bad for the ship. For any damage she allowed to be unleashed upon it as she faced the pirate's swarm along side her comrades. She grinned as her attacks were made successful, but when she got hit and she lost her shields.
“Fuck!” she cursed as this happened, and strategies came to her mind. She lost her missiles, but still had her main cannon she could still use that, but with her engine damaged she knew she couldn’t pull off some of the feats its big sister was known for. “May need backup, hey got my shields and an engine, and my missile bay is jammed.
She knew there was one idea she could do, against the pirates, though she wasn’t as willing to do it.
Splash one target, V115 thought to herself in the moment the first rectangle of light made contact and sheared through the enemy U1. With half of it exploding the other half was more than likely going to hurdle directionlessly as debris off into space. Even if the pilot somehow survived they were out of the fight.
The second one proved to be more resilient however. Though she'd shorted the energy field on the physical shield, V115 knew her craft well enough to know that even with alternated shots she still had a gap in when the weapon would be recharged and fireable again. In that moment of time it was possible the field might return, and she had to consider that possibility as the enemy pilot seemed rather intelligent based on their decision to charge Riot. With the weapon compliment that V115 herself possessed it would be quite difficult to engage a fame locked in melee combat with an ally of hers without damaging both.
With nothing but "projectile" weapons V115 did not wish to engage an armed enemy with hand to hand tactics yet it was an increasingly evident solution to the growing issue. Her approach vector meant that she couldn't fire a diadem shot without extreme risk to Riot. This left her two option outside of Riot simply beating the enemy U1 without V's help. Calculating some vectors and factoring in her crescendo system V115 plotted an attack intercept pattern which would avoid hitting Riot. Math complete, her fingers itched yet she backed down. Too risky and reckless, even with the greater precision if Riot moved unexpectedly she could get hit by friendly fire.
V115 accelerated as well, putting herself on an intercept course for the sword wielding frame. Using her frame's best trait, its speed, she accelerated. As she neared melee range her wing drones flared to life and moved. They activated their independent thrusters as her frame performed a rapid transformation out of fighter mode. In that moment, V115 used the wing drones to generate rotational momentum to put her frame into a spin and generate more force. As her spin completed she attempted to land a very solid high momentum kick to the center mass of the U1.
Miss or hit, V115 didn't plan to stay close and get chopped up. She'd attempt a hit and run, slam the cockpit area, transform back and jet away. Hopefully the kick would either disorient the pirate pilot or distract them enough to allow Riot to finish the job as V sped away.
V115's swift attack on the sword-bearing foe bore fruit as she closed in, her wing-drone's thrusters delivering her the rotational momentum she needed to deliver a brutal kick to the center of the U-1's torso. While there was no way for sound to propagate through the vacuum of space, the vibrations sent up her frame's leg was enough to generate a dull thump audible even in her cockpit.
The Banshee's leg held firm under the incredible strain of the blow, aided as it was by the thrust of her drones, a testament to the workmanship of Noval's artisans and engineers. And it did what she had hoped it would. The U-1 seemed to drift for a moment, before its pilot regained their composure, but their movements were slowed. It was possible that V115's blow had rattled the pirate, and she'd certainly left Riot the opening she needed.
Riot's respect for V jumped by leagues in that moment and she discovered a brand new item for her bucketlist at the same time. She hadn't known up until this point that she needed to kick an enemy fighter, but now she'd seen it and her life was changed.
Sadly, all she could offer the poor enemy U-1 was bullets for now. She was too close to get up the kind of momentum she needed to make a second kick worth it. Her Torrent came up and earned its name, filling space between the two fighters with a stream of ammunition.
V had given her the opening and she was taking it.
The opening was all that Riot needed, blue streaks of plasma from her weapon filling the void between her and her target. The damage that the U-1 had taken earlier, on top of V115's kick, had done more than enough to weaken the pirate's shields. Riot's fire tore into the older model Variable Frame, first tearing off a leg before the fire walked up its torso, melting the center-mass of the pirate's craft into slag before a small explosion sent it tumbling. A brief moment later, it detonated fully.
Meanwhile, Arye's battle against the pirate starships was beginning to wrap up, but while she had managed to whittle down the pirate numbers to almost nothing, damage was beginning to accumulate. Her shields had begun to recharge after the anti-starship turret had hit her, but her missile bay doors were still jammed partially shut.
Firing a missile now might run the risk of it detonating inside the Starbreaker, but perhaps there was a way for her to unjam them? For now though, it was of no consequence. Her attack run with her main gun went as expected, and two pirate ships that had been close together went up in flares of silent flame as her modified Cerberus cannon caused the bomber to shudder thrice, then thrice again when it fired. Just one left now, but it seemed a bit bigger than the others, owing to a large amount of additional armor plating that seemed to be increasing its defenses at the cost of speed.
Riot grinned and whooped as their enemies were reduced in number. Her 'body' ached all over from the damage it had taken before and the disabled arm was certainly a pain.
It looked like she could still transform, so that's what she did. First, she manually stowed her weapon instead of relying on the easy transformation routine. Then she used the newly freed up hand to shove the other arm into the right position. It would have to be close enough, she decided, and let the rest of the transformation go through.
The arm slotted into place well enough, but she could tell it wasn't entirely right. It wasn't likely to affect her flying, but it pinched like hell.
"Alright, you two!" she said, pushing through the mild pain to stay focused on the mission. "Let's go wrap this thing up. Alpha-one, I've got your three."
As Arye fought against her foes, her pod’s sensors picked up on recharging shields, and she knew she needed to bide her time before they returned fully, allowing her to turn her focus on her missile bay. Sensors and systems indicated it was partly jammed closed which meant she could fire, but she knew the risk. Being a fan of their big sister, meant she knew everything about the ship and pondered if the little sister had some of the same systems she could use, especially with the jamming issue.
Meanwhile, she managed to eliminate two pirate ships and grinned s she saw them erupt into flames. She managed to get a recording of this for personal use later. “That’s why Pirates never win, poor dear!” Arye chuckled before movement, rather transformation caught her attention. “oohh..” she said to herself before she responded “Little sister’s missile is jammed, I’m gonna try and unjam it, but just to be on the safe side, be careful Alpha two” She said feeling appreciative of her willingness to watch the back.
Her gambit paying dividends, V115 looked through her rear cameras as Riot finished the job. Though if she was being honest, she just felt relieved to still have a leg. After that reverb she wasn't sure she'd attempt something like that again in the future but, at least she now knew that in a pinch it could work. A parallel thread of thought took her back to digital school where an instructor had told her once, 'If you can't fight, do it anyway. If you have to do it anyway, fight like hell. If it comes down to it, even your teeth are a weapon.' A bit of hyperbole but it did hold true. Never give up, always struggle, and in an emergency use whatever you've got.
After Riot's little pep talk she decelerated to allow the other frame to catch up, she then capped her acceleration to match Riot's own. "Understood A-Two, if your thruster output is functioning without risk, push it to max so we can regroup faster. A cornered animal is at its most fierce and their ships are dwindling." With that said she plotted a course for Arye's next target.
As Arye circled the final pirate vessel, its point defenses shot out into space, coming close but not quite hitting her. This one would be difficult to take out without her missiles, judging by its size and armor compared to the other ones.
Her attempts to unjam her missile bay were working, but not as quickly as she might have liked. Servos strained against partially melted plating, opening a little bit further every attempt, but not quite open enough to launch a volley yet. She wouldn't be able to attack again before her lancemates caught up to her, though perhaps that was a good thing.
Riot and V115 were making good time towards Arye's position as she circled what was apparently the pirate flagship, and their course was not intercepted, owing to their earlier efforts in taking out the defenses, and Bravo and Charlie lance's ongoing battle against the pirate's small craft.
As they finally caught up to Arye, her efforts finally bore fruit, the missile bay of her Starbreaker II finally opening enough to allow her to launch one missile. It would have to be enough, in combination with the firepower of her lancemates.
Riot's sensors fed her the ship's data - weapons, engines, and the like. She needed a plan; a way to hurt the enemy ship to keep it from hurting them back. Their lance had been bruised and her fighter was in no shape to take more hits after losing its shield. Arye - Alpha-0ne - could supply the heavy hits, so she selected the ship's weapons.
She pushed her thrust up to a safe maximum to try and hold speed with V, then opened her comms.
"Gonna lay some fire on the ship's turrets when I'm not on interception. Plenty of ammo in the chambers for that, but I'm all out of flashy maneuvers."
The Sparrowhawk's Torrent opened up once she had a firing solution, firing in careful bursts. Even if she didn't take out the turrets, light fire might make them think twice about firing back. Her first job was to keep her lance safe.
With the lance now reunited and victory at hand, there was little left to do except for escorting her friend and fellow veteran to the target. "Taking point, Alpha-one. We'll make this work." With that said, V115 scanned over the ship, looking for a point where a clean hit might disable or destroy the ship. There was of course taking out the main thrusters but she was unsure if hitting the main thrusters would be enough. Certainly the Watch could deliver a finishing blow but she had a certain amount of pride and wanted to get the entire job done with her lance. The up-armored ship made it difficult to discern where softer more valuable targets were.... "Alpha-one, highlight a target and I will soften it up with the diadem cannons. You get the killing blow."[/B]
Arye smiled as she heard and saw her teammates arrive. She always knew she could count on their support. "copy that!" she said after she began to regain access to her missiles. It was slow going but she managed, and with her squadmates help she knew she could do this. She began her attack, by highlighting her target. "high lighting now." she said. "lets set Mister or Miss Pirate to the next life!"
While the Inertial Compensators, as equipped on Riot's craft weren't necessary to keep the operator alive through the energetic maneuvers common to void combat, they were key to avoiding stressing the spaceframes of most starships and aerospace fighters. In this instance, they were helping the operator continue to do her job without further damaging her Sparrowhawk and, consequentially, helping her to avoid escalating the discomfort she felt from the damaged arm.
Her Torrent sent pulses of plasma raking across the enemy ship, at first merely splashing across the pirate flagship's shields, but quickly helping to deplete it. The pirate vessel was larger than the others, but it quickly became evident that its shields had not been upgraded to the same extent as its armor as Riot's persistent fire weakened the field to the point where her fire began to slip through, splashing across the enemy's hull and beginning to degrade the effectiveness of the point defense turrets it encountered.
With an opening made by Riot, V115 was able to help Arye with the final attack on the enemy's flagship. Point defenses were either too distracted trying to take care of the craft that was disabling them, or offline, and that gave her the opening she needed to walk her Diadem's beam across the enemy's rear, slicing armor apart and leaving vulnerable systems open to further attack in a maneuver that could only be described as textbook usage of V115's chosen frame.
Armor from the pirate vessel began to float away in sharp-edged chunks as Arye finally made her attack run, one missile ejecting itself out of her missile bay as her cannons opened fire into the area where V115 had damaged the armor at Firewalker's request. The cannon rounds hit first, a trio of small explosions followed by a visible buckling of the pirate vessel's frame as the rounds detonated further inside.
Then her missile hit, and its warhead seemed to tear the weakened vessel asunder, splitting it nearly in two.
As the battle wrapped up for Alpha lance and the adrenaline, or at least its digital equivalent, began to wear off comms chatter began to filter through to them. Bravo and Charlie had also finished with their foes, and had been on their way to assist with the more difficult battle until V115 and her team had finished the job.
Words of congratulations and relief were exchanged among the various lances of the Ravenaca's Watch, with one pilot from Charlie lance commenting "The maintenance chief is going to have to come up with a new kill marker to put on Arye's new ride for those ships."
The celebratory mood was only somewhat disrupted by the ship's CAG, Lt. Cmdr. Fletcher, reminding the ship's pilots that they were due for a debriefing in half an hour. There were clearly still some things that the higher-ups wanted to discuss about the mission, but at least for the pilots of Alpha Lance, it had been an unmitigated success.
