RP: 188604 [Star Wasp] 2: The Hunt Begins

Somewhere Far Away:

Arccos looks out the window towards the starry sky, for a mere moment somehow feeling a great need for a hug going unanswered... And then the feeling passes, and she resumes sitting around her quarters in her underwear. She watches a polysentience sense-cast, and eats a crystal champagne flute full of jellybeans culled from MRE packets using a long spoon.

All around Alex, all hell had broken loose. He was hurt, there were explosions, missiles and to top it all off there were some weird squid things crawling all over the hull. He did the only thing he could; he panicked and ran. As he sent the mecha spiraling up above the hull, an alert was displayed before him. Fear response detected. Disengaging flight or flight response. Further to leave the area will alert owners. Inside Alex's brain, implants sent a signal to his fear center, temporarily disabling it. Had anyone been observing him, they would have noticed him seem to struggle for a moment, before heading slowly back toward the ship

Bridge>

Vier would watch the ball of wasps, worrying about how she was supposed to help the pair. “I... “ She frowned a bit... her normal methods wouldn't work here. She couldn't just take control of their bodies, or pump them full of drugs to inhibit the unwanted responses.

“We will be fine. Please release one another.” Vier finally said, placing her hands against the insides of Sammy's jaws, trying to lessen the pressure on the female's body.



Space>

Atop the Necromancer, Ronin was finding that the Mishu soldiers deployed on the exterior of the ship were making a satisfying 'splat' when hit by the weapons of his mecha. Their return fire doing little to his shields, slowly plinking away at his defenses as he gave chase to the shredder gunships, zooming over the hull of the ship until one came into view, both Ronin and the Shredder were now so close their shield bubbles were bumping into one another, slowing Ronin's advance just a bit, his first shot blowing off the shredder's nose mounted cannon.

The remaining craft of Hound squadron weren't far behind, forming up behind Ronin and firing high speed missiles at his target. As the Shredder's secondary turrets swiveled to take aim at Ronin's mecha, they were torn off by the impact of the next few rounds. One of the Hound's even split off from the main group to head for the secondary hanger, trying to kill the Mishhu inside.


The remaining shredder was fairing much better. Between 8-Ball and Alex it had been given plenty of targets. It's nose mounted cannon took its first easy shot at 8-bsll, the round piercing through his shields and sending burning plasma over the exterior of the craft. The remaining missiles on the fighter craft started to overheat, melting and twisting, some outright exploding and making the fighter look like it was caught in a fireworks show.

The secondary turrets chose Alex as their target, bright blasts chewing away at his shields until the mecha was left unprotected.

As shots began to strike Alex's craft, he seemed almost unresponsive, save for the fact that he moved his crippled left hand to block shots toward his torso. He began to open fire with his missiles, aiming for the turrets firing at him. As he closed in on the gunboat, he flicked his pistol into sword mode and raked it across the surface of the shredder. Inside the cockpit, Alex's brain struggled against the influence of his implants. Designed to suppress fear and instill obedience of his intended owners, with no outside directions, the cybernetics acted on only one of the two instructions.

:: Space ::

Errowyn maneuvered behind the remaining shredder that was attacking 8-Ball and Alex. She came up behind the Shredder till she had good solid target lock. With the remaining missiles, she let loose a salvo of missiles at the remaining Shredder Gunboat, followed by a steady pounding from her Aether cannons.

Space / Atop the Necromancer

"Finally, I found one!"

Not only had he been able to sear off one of the craft's cannons, their tightly-confined space making it easy, his shields were groaning just from the two pushing and knocking against each other as he tried to maintain the distance with the Mishu craft. It had even been preparing to pay in full retribution, but the arrival of Hound squadron had ensured that he had the time to maneuver up and above the gunship in relation to the Necromancer's hull "below" them. Rising high as he did gave him a good vantage as he raised his gun in both hands and began firing it along the craft's shielding. If he could pop the ship's vitals, it would only take a moment for him to knock it off course and avoid it crashing into the Necromancer. And if he were caught in the blast doing so then it was at least likely his shielding could survive the brunt of it.

"Alright, we almost got this one! It's like these tentacled freaks are getting easier and easier to kill, long as they don't have their top-of-the-line shit!"

It took only a moment to sling his weapon back and into place behind his mecha, the Tengu reaching to the blade it carried on its hip and pulling free a beast of a weapon. The chain-straight had a ton of cutting power, enough to surpass even his Hyper Rifle. Taking the chain-sword in both the mecha's hands, the modified Garuda fired its engines and he lunged toward the exposed ship while bringing the sword up and over, the blade whirling to life silently within the void. His target was the left engine and with his descending angle it was quite likely he could sustain an entire cut against the gunship. Using one of the blades to cripple the small craft wasn't ideal, but if he could slow it down it would all but ensure the fighters could mop it up!

Bridge>

"Sammy, please let me go!", the Ee'ith female continued to whine, struggling to push Sammy's limbs off of her body. His jaw seemed to be locked in position, like the claw of a lobster, refusing to budge from its closed position. His sister seemed glad for the pressure to be even slightly lessened, wiggling for a moment until, almost explosively, she popped free of Sammy's jaws.
The female ambassador immediately scrambled to safety, leaving Vier with a shaking, terrified Sammy, who let out a haunting, desperate wail of terror. "No!", he yelled between inarticulate squeals of fear. "Mei, don't go away again! Please, no! I don't wanna be alone!" With his jaws still open wide, he tried to crawl after his sister, letting out a desperate squeal if Vier tried to hold him back, snapping at her with his jaws. She'd probably find herself feeling glad that only female I'ee had stingers!

Space

"Sir," Alastair prompted his maker unsuccessfully. "Sir, our missiles are overheating, we must do something!" 8-Ball looked over to his ship's schematics to see his exterior port side missiles were reaching critical heat levels from the plasma blast. He punched a button on his console that dumped the port-side missiles into space, leaving them behind to explode, releasing devastating radiation to anyone still in the area. Fortunately the Ebony Peregrine's engines were some of the fastest in the galaxy. Now if only its pilot was able to pull himself out of his self loathing and get his head back in the game...

Alastair glared at 8-Ball because of his sluggish response. "I should not have had to tell you to do that sir. Your reflexes are on par with a super computer. You know better, and typically perform better might I add." 8-Ball did not respond to Alastair's comment. "I am not programmed in human psychology but I am programmed in statistical analysis and predictive modeling. If you do not revert to your previous performance standards, we will be vaporized due to some form of NMX weaponry shortly."

Tiberius' eyes shifted to Alastair for a moment before shifting back to piloting. "NMX..." He muttered to himself before saying. "Alastair, monitor the area for any real-space disturbances. I want to know the moment the NMX fleet drops out of hyperspace in the area. You are to lock onto that signature and have the ship jump to that location. Do you understand? We'll unleash everything we have left. Most of our compartmentalized missiles should be intact because of their external shielding." Alastair's avatar frowned. "I would tell you that the likelihood of surviving such a maneuver barely reaches double digits, but I assume you already know that and do not care."

A faint smirk crept across Tiberius' face, despite being concealed by his flight suit. "You know me too well Alastair. Make sure that you disable incoming data transmissions from the rest of the group. The last thing I want to do is accidentally get your new girlfriend vaporized with us." Alastair's frown quickly turned from blue to purple. "She is not my girlfriend sir!" 8-Ball laughed. "I didn't know A.I.s could be so defensive about their relationships!"

Suddenly the ship's alarm started screaming as the enemy shredder got a lock on the Ebony Peregrine once more. "Not today!" 8-Ball said with a rekindled passion in his voice as he deftly pulled up on the yoke while angling his thrusters to cause the ship to slip upwards while turning 180 degrees to face towards the NMX ship. He immediately depressed the trigger for his dual Vulcan Cannons, letting out a glorious 'Whhhhaaaaa!' noise from the guns. "I still have one more fleet to destroy before I die!" That was about the exact moment Hellcat released a volley of missiles at the NMX ship.

Space>

As Alex closed in, the shredder gunship would refocus its attention on him, the rapid-fire of the secondary turrets dug into his left arm, blast after blast ripping chunks of metal out of the limb until it was little more than a stub. The missiles he was launching weren't fairing much better, the rapid blasts causing them to go dumb and fly off course, some exploding as they left the launch, fewer still making it all the way to their target and exploding against the shield itself.

The Shredder didn't even attempt to dodge as Alex's sword tried to slice into its shield. This Shredder was nearly undamaged so far, and its shields were designed to defect starship-grade weapons. While the Sword was pressing against the energy bubble, its nose mounted cannon swiveled to take aim, sending a white lance of energy right through Alex's Mecha's wrist and shoulder, severing both cleanly.

Then Errowyn's missiles hit.

The shields were already weakened by Alex's attack, and failed as the missiles hit, Aether cannon fire then digging into the rear of the craft, causing the engines pods on the back to flare and explode, trapping the Shredder in place as the next volley of fire cut into the airlock door on the rear of the craft, starting to chew its way towards the crew compartment. While 8-balls vulcan fire started to splash against the front of the ship.

Meanwhile Legix was clearing his plate of hostiles.

The shredder gunship's armor started chewing through the blades of the chain straight nearly as fast as the chain strait chewed through the shredder's left engine. Ronin could feel the intense vibrations through the hull of his own craft, the immense tidal forces building up as the Shredder tried to accelerate away.

The blade would cut right through the mounting for the engine, sending the flaming engine pod flying off in one direction, and the rest of the shredder gunship in the other... the craft traveling only a few hundred meters before turning into a massive fireball that lit up Ronin's Mecha from behind.





Necromancer, Bridge>

Vier's face was showing as much panic as it possibly could... which manifested itself as an intense focus on the I'ee scurrying about. Uso had given her explicit instructions not to let the I'ee get hurt and now they were crawling around, snapping, and possibly trying to kill one another.

“Sammy. Please cease...” She said letting go of Sammy as he snapped at her, then reaching out again, trying to pet its head... then pulling away again as the wasp again tried to bite at her.

“I have juice boxes... and hugs?”

Uso said these would work. They were not working. This situation was sub-optimal.

“SAMMY. NO.” Vier would say sternly, placing herself between the biting wasp ambassador and the female Mei who he was crawling after.

“SIR! ENEMY FLEET INBOUND!” One of the bridge officers said,

“Jump status 98%....”




Space, Again>

There were a handful of NMX advanced types still flying around the exterior of the ship, firing their smaller weapons at the Nercomancer as its FTL drives charged up, tearing off one of the space folding panels that helped the ship move.

Then the NMX fleet arrived, two carriers and nearly three dozen support ships... the space around the Necromancer beginning to distort as it started its own jump....

Port Side of the Necromancer

"Sir, I am detecting a large FTL signature." Alastair said hastily, causing 8-Ball to break away from his attack run. "Prepare FTL jump." He said as he looked in the distance to find nearly forty NMX vessels bearing down upon the Necromancer. Perfect size for a suicide run. The only problem would be whether or not the Necromancer could get out in time during the distraction. And how much would that even help considering the NMX could simply follow the FTL signature of the Necromancer to give chase once more? "Alastair, what is the Necromancer jump ETA?" "98 percent sir." The AI responded. Space was already beginning to distort around the mercenary ship as it prepared a jump.

"Target the carriers and fire everything." 8-Ball said, dismayed at the realization that he would have to survive to do more good in order to make up for his failure. He'd have to survive this battle at least...

A loud tone began blaring inside the cockpit and Alastair was about to tell 8-Ball that the Ebony Peregrine had tone but the pilot was already pulling the trigger to fire the mini-missiles. If one of the top-side mounted 805mm cells fired an 'obscene' amount of missiles, then firing both of them surely could only be described as a ludicrous amount of missiles.

8-Ball gave the mini-missiles a second to fire before unleashing the three remaining, externally mounted, GIM-2 missiles with radiation warheads at the fleet. He waited another moment before firing 20 standard GIM-2 missiles from his internal weapons bay. He saved the most vital ones for last. His three remaining GIM-2 warheads with Binary Antimatter-Fusion warheads straight in the middle of the fleet. All the while 8-Ball was expending his 6 remaining electronic counter measure pods (one failed to load before 8-Ball departed and one was damaged from the plasma attack) in sequence in order to distort and confuse the NMX trageting systems of both the missiles and, more importantly, the Necromancer. He strategically placed himself between the vessel and the fleet in order to 'screen' the enemy fleet while the Necromancer FTL drive charged the remaining 2%.

The strategy was simple. Let the fleet target the ludicrous amount of mini-missiles while all of the GIM-2 missiles shot at the fleet through FTL drives, re-entering space to allow almost no reaction time. The enhanced radiation warheads would distort the NMX targeting systems even if detonated prematurely (thus affording the Necromancer a better chance of jumping without being detected). The 20 GIM-2 regular missiles would be a big threat to the carriers and might even cripple them, but they were another distraction. The anti-matter missiles were the coup de grace. Three anti-matter missiles appearing in the middle of the fleet built around the two NMX carriers would destroy lesser ships and probably the carriers in the process.

The comes opened up with a call to the fleet. "Clear up the remaining NMX and stay near the Necromancer for her jump. Lets keep them from following us again."

That would be the start of 8-Ball's atonement. He'd get the rest of the Hound fleet out of this mess alive. He also wouldn't rob the Head Hound of the opportunity to take her anger out on him. Sure, he was probably beating himself up worse emotionally than she could ever do to him, but she had the right to give him a piece of her mind.

Errowyn flew right into the swarm of NMX advanced types and lit them up with her Aether cannons at almost point blank range, letting the Shredder Gunship go through its death throes alone and forgotten as she targeted the NMX and turning them into lifeless particles to join the rest of the flotsam of space. She skimmed the hull of the Necromancer to kill the NMX trying to disable the Necro's FTL capabilities.

Then the fleet of the NMX appeared, catching her attention. She radio'ed the Necromancer and 8-Ball. "Cyas on the other side! Hellcat out." Then she departed the developing field of subspace that enabled the Necromancer to travel at FTL speeds. Her craft was light without the missiles and she jettisoned the empty missile pods from her craft as she armed them to become approximity mines. They may not do much damage, but will sure cause confusions when they are triggered.

She watched the Necromancer disappear in a flash of light and then she made her jump into FTL.

By the time he saw the shredder's shields flare and fail, Alex had all but surrendered himself to whatever convoluted luck dictates battle. His conscious self was all too aware of its situation, but unable to act as the more animalistic aspects of the human psyche shone through.

He saw the events around him unfolding as if in a dream, not quite believing what he saw himself doing. Had anyone been looking at his vital signs they would have seen them fluctuating wildly.

To the outside world, all that could be observed was that seemingly without hesitation, Alex cut into the hull of the shredder, peeled a portion of it away, and then fired his antipersonell laser at the relatively unprotected crew, killing them.

Bridge

The stern command from Vier seemed to finally shake Sammy out of his terrified stupor, stopping in his tracks and quivering in place for a moment before simply whining and wrapping himself around Vier's legs. "I-it's so empty outside. I don't want to go outside or the nothing will-", he cut off and began hissing and huffing in his native language, rubbing his face rather awkwardly into Vier's thighs and crotch for comfort.
With the immediate danger gone, his sister nervously approached him again and gently hugged him, leaving Vier with another giant insect wrapped around her legs.

Space

As 8-ball's missile streaked toward the NMX fleet, he would get to see just how effective an organized fleet's point defense systems were. The pillager class ships didn't even need to turn to maximize their weapons fire, precise shots raining down on the mini-missiles. Often times the point defense fire would even overlap, with bright bolts passing through where the missiles would have been two or three times. Even the ECM pods didn't last long against the wall of energy blasts put up by the fleet.

The GIM-2 missiles, on the other hand, warped right to the center of the enemy fleet, their blasts only scratching the still full strength shields of their target ships.

Then the return fire came, with the NMX ships carefully bracketing in 8-ball's fighter with blasts, aiming only to cripple the fighter instead of destroy it outright. At this range there was only fractions of a second to even register where the NMX ships were shooting, carefully bracketing him in with firepower and trying to chip away at his ship, the first barrage easily bringing down his shields, projectiles digging into the engines on either side of the ship, tearing off the missles racks along the top, and slagging the main guns...





Meanwhile Hellcat and the rest of the hounds finished off the NMX advanced types still clinging to the hull of the ship, while Alex continued shooting at the hulk of the Shredder gunship. The NMX, along with what was left of its fighter wing, would then make another FTL jump... this time without any NMX helping them track the ship they would be able to random-walk their way away from the NMX... with some of the ship still intact.



Bridge

And on the Bridge, Vier would be holding her hands up about level with her shoulders, looking down at the Wasps as they clung to her. “The nothing will stay outside. You will be fine.” She stated again, slowly lowering her hands and placing one on the head of each wasp... before adding a soft circular motion, trying to keep them calm as the rest of the bridge crew very loudly discussed the status of the ship.

Space X

8-Ball watched the fleet efficiently shoot down every single one of his missiles in real space. He couldn't really say he was surprised. There were over 36 capital ships alone, no way a single fighter could hope to bypass the enemy's defenses unless he was at point black range. Even then, the fighter wouldn't even have enough time to fire every single missile before being vaporized by the enemy's defenses.

Still, every shot fired by the fleet at his missiles was one more shot that wasn't aimed at the Necromancer as she charged her FTL drive to 100%.

"Woo-hoo, did you see that?!" 8-Ball said excitedly to Alastair as he maneuvered the Ebony Peregrine to avoid enemy counter fire. "It appears we have attracted their attention sir." The AI responded in an unexcited tone that may even have an underlying hint of annoyance. "Well lets give'em a show!"

Tiberius ducked, dodged, dove, and dodged again with inhuman speed. His flying truly was admirable as he avoided the enemy time and again. But there was only so much space for one fighter to maneuver against an entire fleet trying to lay waste. All the while a devilish grin spread across Tiberius' face and his eyes were lit up like never before. He could feel his chest pounding as he stretched his senses to the limit while making the finest adjustments to his maneuvers to try and dodge enemy fire. The adrenaline was taking hold of him. He had no idea if he was going to survive this encounter. The first volley alone nearly crippled his shields while his ship was violently shaking from projectile impact. This is what it meant to be truly alive.

"Sir, the Necromancer has just made the jump to FTL!" Alastair interjected the moment he registered the maneuver. He may be an AI, but he values being alive as much as the next biological. "Prepare for FTL," 8-Ball said as he watched the NMX prepare for their next volley. He pulled up on the yoke while ejecting the empty counter measure containers to try and mess with the enemy's targeting. He continued to pull up on the yoke so his ship would be obstructed by the empty containers.

The Eboyn Peregrine was able to comply with the maneuvers easily, but her main STL engines were either damaged or offline all together. "Any day now Alastair." 8-Ball chided as he watched another brilliant volley of lasers and missiles heading his way. "Ready to..." The AI began to say but was cut off by his designer. "Punch it!" The ship was engulfed in an FTL field a mil-second later and blinked out of real-space just in time to avoid the second NMX volley.

8-Ball took off the top of his flight suit that covered his head to run a hand through his sweaty hair. "Whew, I didn't think we were going to make it there for a second Alastair." The hologram glared at the human. "I thought that was your original intent, was it not sir?" 8-Ball simply waived a hand in the air to buy himself some time as he caught his breath. "Details Alastair...details...Let the Necromancer know we're alive."