RP: 188604 [Star Wasp] 9: Operation Bright Venom

The Hugger Becomes Hugged

Gut-Stripe responded to the Lament's broadcast with confusion and irritation. "Do not dock with our vessel. We must fire upon the Misshuvarthyar." she replied with a huff. The Thi-Thi pilots on the bridge were soon chattering and squealing in alarm as the Dragoon was effectively swallowed into the Lament's docking bay, facing the door. Gut-Stripe was livid, hissing and buzzing her wings, ordering the recharge of the main gun as soon as possible in order to fire it point blank at the White Lament. Her impotent rage was soon curbed after Arccos contacted them again, reduced to silence for some time as she considered the admirable tactic and calmed herself down enough to respond. "We understand. Our gun is currently recharging. We will inform you when we are ready to fire."

NMX First Unit Carrier

Alex had just noticed the first wave of battlepods. As they came hurtling towards him, he activated the Silhouette/Mirror system. With his now increased response time, time began to slow down for Alex.
Leaping over the incoming two waves, he opened fire on the catapults, hoping to damage them enough to disable them.

After landing on the other side of the catapults, he fired the newly installed EMP pistol at the shredders. They were still starting up, so their shields shouldn't be up and the EMPs should fry the electronics inside.

With the two other threats presumably handled, Alex now turned to the new threat.

Queen's Slave

With the initial battle going in favor of Uso/I'E, Till the second half of the NMX Fleet arrived and began cutting into Uso fleet of ships. Errowyn watched the second wave of the NMX get in range and began deploying battle-pods to attack the I'E ships and then the Lamont to moved to crash into the I'E ship.

"So much for the I'E. Cute bugs and all..." She muttered softly as she watched and maneuvered to get a good view of the Second Fleet of NMX approaching and engaging. She frowned when one of the Mercenary ships exploded under well coordinated fire from the NMX Fleet Commander. She sent the info down to Uso command center.

"The Second NMX wave arrived and they're spitting fire. One friendly destroyed." Errowyn reported from the bridge of the Queen's Slave. "Need to get the Necromancer free to engage the Second Fleet Carrier and Command ship."

"Sis 5." Errowyn spoke softly, "can you find out what the NMX Leader thinking? Maybe disrupt the flow of orders while ya at it?"

~~I'll try...~~ Sis 5 whispred softly.

Errowyn felt lessened as a presence faded from her, yet she smiled softly and focused back to her job at hand.

************************

'Sis 5' felt lonely as she sped through space, ships, missiles and felt the tingle of destructive energy as she flew through them or the shots flew through her. Her goal was the NMX Carrier and to explore and see what mischief she could cause. Maybe she should've taken another along for the company. ~~Yeah right...~~ The focused on the job at hand.

While Sis Five couldn't effect the physical world in the manner as desired, but she could easily manipulate electrons and protons of her surrounding area. And she could feel a slight burn from raw energy from the lances of destructive energy. Too much of raw energy, she would just dissipate into nothing.

She easily transferred through the Carrier's energy shield by using one of the departing Battle Pods as it exited the NMX Carrier protective barrier. Now she was on her own. Cut off from retreat and stuck on the NMX Carrier till its shields were non-functioning. She zipped through walls, as she passed through small processing computers she would switch a few of 1's and 0's of the computer chip programming she encountered. If she hit enough of these, it would cause cascading ship wide computer processing failures or glitches that would become very annoying leading to ship wide failure. But unfortunately, she would have to hit billions of chips to really have a major effect or target specific computers and command relays within the ship's computer system to really matter. And that was on the bridge and engineering sections of the big Carrier. This was a recon mission and sabotage when the opportunity struck.

Assistance

Seeing the battle pods heading for the White Lament Spacecase began to fire his point defense turrets when ever the NMX craft would begin to slow down. "This is the Pilgrim I have your back Lament. I'm releasing combat Junkers." Around 30 Junkers would then leave the Eternal Pilgrim and begin an intercept course with the NMX fighters. "If anyone gets any prisoners, though I doubt we will, bring them to my ship. I can detain them."

Spacecase then turned his main guns at the primary fleet. "Firing main guns!" Firing at the closest functional carrier Spacecase knew he probably wasn't going to do much damage, if any, but he wanted to pull it's attention towards his ship which could deal with any fighters sent it's way.

Main Fleet Engagement

Apparently, they were largely being ignored by the main section of the NMX fleet. Marcus couldn't really, say he was all that surprised. Three ships, only one of which was capable of doing any significant amounts of damage, were rather little of a threat when measured against an entire fleet being destroyed by another fleet. Still, they'd managed to do some damage to the carrier. Nevertheless, Marcus quickly developed another plan.

="Captain, new plan. Reposition behind the enemy fleet. Keep weapons and systems on defensive readiness. Monitor the planet for any surprises. The Mishhu are in control of it, after all. I'll maintain defensive readiness and fly escort."=

The irony of the escort ship being given a fighter escort did not escape Marcus. Nevertheless, the nature of his own origins didn't escape him, either. He, more than any of the members of Uso's makeshift fleet, to include the Nekovalkyrja, was expendable...and replaceable. Still, the desire to not make that a reality was strong. He removed a couple of his mental blocks, enhancing his mental capacity by several degrees beyond where it sat at a passive level. Recent experience reminded him that he did not want to remove all the blocks, (the physical ones would've been pointless to remove inside a fighter craft, anyway) and most certainly not the Alpha Block. But, a couple mental ones would only be minimally troublesome for him later, and would give him a slight advantage in ship-to-ship combat.

Both drones took up flank positions to the Watchkeeper. Marcus kept his little fighter between the trio of ships and the enemy fleet as they maneuvered between them and the planet. He knew very little about the Mishhu, and remained on maximum alert as they continued on. After all, these weren't simple Rixxikor or Graxlat fighters. This was a civilization with which the most powerful empire in the sector had been to war...twice. The only advantage he had in this scenario, was the fact that his experience in combat was from an entirely different universe. Surviving in combat in Ayenee required...well, it had been said before...

Shenanigans.

Queen's Slave

Uso dashed up to the cockpit from the command area, "GO SAVE GUTSTRIPE!" Uso shouted, The neko arriving seconds too late to really do anything about what was going on. "It'll be hard to hold this all together if we loose the I'ee...."


"WE HAVE IT COVERED!" Vier shouted from the control room just beyond the cockpit door.


"... welll.... fine, ok. Keep flying," Uso said, preferring to remain up in the cockpit with Errowyn for the time being, "..... We're winning right?"



Outside of the Ship, Hazel, and hound squadron, were forming up between the Necromancer and the White lament, launching missiles at long range, some guided towards the group of battlepods, others heading towards the damaged NMX carrier, looking to acquire fighters that were launching out of the main bay. Though Uso could only process what she was seeing on the displays, Vier and the fighters she was assisting were moving much faster, reacting to large amounts of data being rapidly handed off, shaving precious seconds of reaction time off of their responses to the enemy battlepods.

Hive Squadron

The Codetalker jerked her head back, and spoke rapidly, on multiple channels. "Sraveena is still intact. The enemy commander called off all the battlepod squadrons before they could land a single hit. She shot down a few as they turned tail, and is proceeding unmolested with her attack run. They're just ignoring her."

It was strange how good news could so often sour the expressions of many on of those on the bridge. Nirvana One-One decided to say something commanderly. "If Sraveena ever wants to take part in a sortie again, it will obey all my orders to the end of this operation.

"Gunships, form into triads and continue bombarding the cruisers. As you three are so eager, engage with torpedoes, but remain in formation. If the battlepods return, you will have to cover your wingmens' retreat. The rest of you, cover us as we close into Starjammer range. The first fleet must be pushed to the breaking point before we can prepare to deploy to the second."

Groundbreaker sighed. She wondered how long Nirvana would keep coming up with excuses not to use any nuclear weapons. Needling it on the point would only make things worse. She decided to look at the bright side. "This is fortunate. At this rate, those cruisers won't be much more than target practice. What are those pods after, anyway?"

"The I'ee vessel," replied the Stargazer, brusquely. "No, wait... It just collided with the mothership. Hm, so much for that."

The Codetalker let out a series of non-verbal sounds best described as a clamour of wingdings, before almost gasping, "This can't be happening!"

"It isn't," Nirvana One-One replied, pausing for a moment while the bridge crew wondered if it was being philosophical. "I still have telemetry for both ships."

"Ah," said Groundbreaker, as if she understood. More honestly, it didn't seem worth thinking about. "So, they are distracted?" The order she wanted to give, 'Attack now!', hovered in the air, unspoken and not thought about. Lights flashed on their view screens as now every ship in the squadron began to fire at will upon the crumbling hulls of the first Pillager strike group, as fast as they could recharge their capacitors.

Though the Nirvana had no guns, it was relatively safe behind its powerful shields. Its escort of three corvettes were each armed with warding rune cannons for point defence, which had all remained still and silent, so far. It was as if they were still waiting in transit, not battling at all. Somehow, that made Groundbreaker all the more anxious.

She drummed her fingers on the arms of the big chair a few times more.

Necromancer Bridge:

"Deploy the drones. Begin flak fire on all those battle pods. This mission is bust if we lose the I'ee!" Werner yelled, as the chaos began. "Tactical, fire all the torpedos. Retarget all missiles on those battle pods, full spread!"

"Aye sir!" The System's officer called. The set of 30 drone fighters took off from the Necromancer and began attacking the incoming battle pods in a swarm, pulling off maneuvers that would kill normal pilots for the amount of G's they were pulling.

"All missiles retargeted." Kovac replied.

"Fire the missiles. Fire all torpedoes at the oncoming enemy fleet! Get the big guns firing at them as well." Werner ordered. "Helm, keep us out of range of that carrier's guns!" He added.

"Aye aye sir." The Helmsman began to move the ship so it was staying ahead of the battle carriers guns for the moment. The missiles fired in a flurry, streaking out towards their intended targets. The large rail guns began firing massive flak rounds into the incoming pods, and a set of 4 torpedoes flew out towards the enemy, with more on the way as the Necromancer reloaded her armaments...

------

Necromancer Moon Pool:

Cyrus stepped into the Moon Pool with his black Hostile armor toting his heavy revolvers and an assault rifle, followed closely by Raphael and his Black Anthedon armor, with his black AMR-1 rifle. "Well hell..." Cyrus said as he entered. "Shit's getting good now..." He said looking down into the mess that was the AO. "I am half tempted to deploy now..." He looked over to Corgan. "How about it? You, me, Raph and a small squad try and go wreck some shit on that carrier?" He asked looking back at Raph who just shrugged. "Your call Corgan."

In the span of ten seconds, via the judicious application of no small amount of their munitions stockpile, the loss of most of their drone compliment, and a bit of subterfuge they had brought the NMX fleet to their knees with few real setbacks. One carrier all but crippled, others damaged, a number of pillars reduced to ruined husks, and the remains of numerous battlepod wings strewn across local I'ee space. Of course, despite whatever gains they had made, now that the initial ambush was over the remains of the fleet were doing their best to make good on Vier's prediction of a nine out of ten loss ratio. Myriad sensor's with ranges measured in astronomical units fed a cornucopia of data points from each of the warzone's hot spots, the frames AI feeding it's pilots head with extrapolations in equal measure. If Jason was a normal man then the information overload, especially in the middle of a heated battle, would have rendered him useless.

However between the filtering that "Elohim" was performed" and his own internal cerebral implants processing the information was near instantaneous. Not only was the native vessel that had been sent to fight alongside them destroyed, but they managed to take out The White Lamen...presumably along with the person who had been backing his planetside plans. Who had freed him from slavery. A pang of regret nestled in his heart at not being able to return the favor...or it might have if everything he knew wasn't telling him that the outcome he was seeing was near impossible. For now, he just pushed it out of his mind, hoping that the suspicion of his own sensor's when dealing with 'spacers he was taught worked in their favor.

At least the job his own team was assigned seemed to be going about smoothly as expected. The remains of the first carrier's assortment of small craft seemed to have written it off, leaving the way open for Vier's drones and any of Ragnarok's assault team to follow the Frames lead, with the Junkers already carving their way into the innards of the USO's captured prey. Of course, Jason was far more preoccupied with a target that didn't require them blowing through quite as much reinforced space age materials. Of his wingmen, Alex was the first on the scene, but the pilot's clone wasn't far behind. Anti-Personnel Vulcans rained down a wall of lead into the NMX crew preparing the battlepods, peppered with the occasional round from one of the four gauss turrets embedded in the Seraphim's forearms when he was sure it wouldn't strike anything potentially valuable.

Mowing down a bunch of unarmored Neko and Mishuvurthyar was childs play compared to dealing with the gunships still being warmed up, almost certainly about to plow their way through the precious containers. Had he not had to worry about the cargo, he might have simply filled the exposed innards of the ships with Antimatter, but given the circumstances, he couldn't be that frivolous with that kind of explosive material. Towards each of the Shredder's open entrances, a few minimissiles streaked, their detonation sending an EMP throughout the inner system, hopefully allowing them to overwhelm systems made to withstand the forces thrown around by starships. Outside the recently launched battlepods found themselves engaged by the lighter, faster Kirin feathers, hoping to distract enough of their attention for Hound Squadron to score some easy kills.

The Pumpkin Eater

Having attacked the second carrier ad naseum, Aashi was ready to try a different tactic.

"Let's keep them guessing!" Aashi said with a flourish of her hand as she let loose a series of suicidal Wazu-designed drone missiles. They took aim for the numerous battle pods and pushed on, through to them.

"I want to get these smaller craft taken care of! We'll redirect our efforts again to the larger ones when we've got an opening!"

Queen's Slave Bridge

Errowyn spoke as she maneuvered again. "With the first engagement, we slammed them hard. But they're rallying faster than we expected. Which is giving time for their second fleet time to come in and engage." She looked at Uso. "I'd say cut our losses and jump while we can. Lucky we haven't ran into NMX Phased Mines. Once deployed. I don't even think the Squids will bother to retrieve them. If they're forced to leave. They'll definitely deploy them to make our job of final rescue of these I'E wasp-like beings home-world a real pain in the arse."

Operation Bright Venom: T+ 20 seconds

White Lament

The Necormancer's fighters would quickly pull in behind the battlepods, a mixture of Necromancer Drones, Combat Junkers, and the Hound Squadron starting to tear appart what few battlepods remained.

From one of the NMX's remaining carriers, Fhion would be watching with dissapointment. These old-model battlepods were certainly under-performing. Witha dismissive glance to her control panel she'd trigger the drones to fire their missiles and dive right at the White Lament.

The small, anti-fighter, missiles that the pods carried would streak forward, lazily fanning out in a large shotgun approach as the battlepods themselves were picked off one by one. Bursting in place until only an expanding cloud of sharp ex-battlepod fragments were heading towards the White Lament.




NMX Second Unit

The NMX's second unit wasn't fairing much better.

The battlepods that were protecting the fleet had quickly scored several kills against the Mercinary force's small units, and had deployed far enough out that they were able to pick off dozens of missiles a piece before the swarms launched from the Pumpkin Eater could reach their targets... but then the missiles changed their targets, one by one slamming into the smaller battlepods and thinning out their numbers. Those that had been shooting at the mercinaries now had to divert their attention towards the incoming swarm, barrages of gunfire and missiles sending blasts and chunks of ex-starship through the NMX fleet.

Then, for a brief few seconds, one of the remaining carriers became the brightest thing in the sky. All of the remaining C5 drones focused their lasers on it at the same time, the thick black shields protecting the ship quickly failing, followed by the hull of the ship getting hotter than any star. The intense light was so bright, battlepods lauching from the ship would flash-boil and explode... followed quickly by the carrier itself. The intense flash of light briefly overpowering the stars themselves, making the expanding cloud of gas that was the carrier look like it was the only thing in space.

This brought the C5 drones right up next to the NMX ships, there was no chance either of them would miss their targets... and even as Fhion was giving the pillagers new instructions, she felt two more of them leave her as the C5 drones simply smashed into their targets, Two of the remaining drones taking two of the pillagers with them.

The remaining two Pillagers weren't fairing much better, their engines having been damaged, only a handful of torpedo launchers left, and the number of defensive turrets quickly dwindling.

Fhion could even feel what felt like a single, small, projectile hitting her ship launched from a power armor... That was just insulting...

The carrier would split its fire, one barrage of shots heading into one of the C5 drones, quickly disabling it by tearing out the interior... the other heading towards the mercinary fleet, taking out another ship at nearly point-blank range as they passed underneith.

The remaining carrier was also finally able to launch its gunships, the sleek shredders forming up beside the carrier. The first squadron of 3 staying in a tight, defensive formation, launching missiles at anything that started moving towards the carrier.... picking off incoming missiles and the long range slugs from the spacer's warding runes and missiles.

The pillagers had just about seen the last of their usefulness... and as Mercinaries started cutting the last few apart they would get off one last barrage of torpedoes... one of the pillagers firing from a damaged launcher, the blast nearly tearing its own wing off. These torpedoes headed straight forwarded, and then performed an abrupt 170 Degree turn... now that they were no longer facing the White lament... they were free to pick a target without the Spacer's ECM getting in the way. They would shoot off at extreme speed, missing the Mercinaries and the C5 drones entirely.

Instead of targeting a ship, the NMX had sent their last barrage towards the planet I'ee!




Mecha Team

The entire carrier shook as it was hit by the I'ee particle cannon, more of the defensive turrets being scrapped off the bottom by the blast... with only a token amount remaining to take shots at the Necromancer. The exterior of the hull was starting to be torn apart as well, the craft lurching each time the Junker drones cut into a pressureized room, tearing neat strips of hull off and tossing them into space along with whatever crew was unfortunite enough to still be underneith.

However, the NMX was a professional military, one that was quite capable of fighting to the last man.

Inside of the carrier, there seemed to be fewer and fewer squids floating about to load drones for launch... The control room overlooking the area had been shattered by mecha-gun-fire, and the gunships themselves seemed to be quite stuck in place. NMX Soldiers would head back to the rear doors, anti-tank weapons in hand... missiles would have been fired... had the second wave of gunships not fired first.

NMX cannon fire tore into the rear of their own gunships, as the Carrier's second squadron took off! Their shields pushing their allies out the front of their own carrier, along with a wave of destroyed battlepods, a pair of still working shredder gunships pushing out of the carrier with the bodies of their own allies as cover.

Alex, deep inside of the NMX carrier, would also see one last ship lift off from the floor of the ship. The radiation levels spiking for a moment as it flickered, and then passed through the ceiling of the launch bay like a ghost. The dagger like shape only visible for a few moments.

...

After the shredder gunships launched, there seemed to be little left inside of the carrier's flight deck that could still fly. Storage containers seemed to fill the back area, and were postioned along the walls. In the center of the flight deck was a pair of lifts that were opening up, mechanical arms reaching inside to bring up more battlepods.


Queen's Slave
Uso would pat Errowyn on the shoulder... and then quickly jump into the seat beside her so she could fasten her seatbelt.

"Yeah, don't take any risks, I'm not big on getting killed. " Uso said, "If you feel like we need to get this ship out of here, don't hesitate to leave the others behind. We've got plenty of fighty-ships to do the actual fighting. We're just here to pad out our numbers."

Hive Fleet

"The battle is won," Nirvana One-One reported, as the chaos of explosions subsided. "Demolish the remaining Pillager-class vessels for reclamation and call in our salvage vessel. The NMX are known biohazards, we will not be recovering their crews. Gunships will hunt down any remaining battlepods, but must remain in formation. We are not safe until we return home."

No celebration followed the announcement, though some were relieved. Even when the targets were NMX warships and the crews had been chosen for this battle, the Hivemind was far more comfortable taking apart ships with with 30 kiloton mining explosives and cutting lasers than engaging a fleet with a battle squadron.

Groundbreaker was not impressed with her squadron's performance, but she would express that 'behind closed doors', so to speak, not while Nirvana was still in command. For now, she did have a certain role to play in instructing the other crews, which was rare enough. "Try to sever the wings without damaging them; the most valuable salvage by volume is in those sections. Other than that, sever them straight through the center hull. We have no use for aether generators."

One by one, the nukes were dropped and the lights went out, as the corvettes carved up their prizes, with Nirvana watching to make wary estimates. One that went unspoken was the death toll to crews who had not evacuated. No one brought it up, to Queenie's further aggravation. Well, she could save her speech for another time.

The Stargazer had something else on his mind. "So long as someone can stop those torpedoes, it looks like this mission will be a success," were his sardonic words of encouragement. "Yes," Nirvana agreed, in a tone that could be read however the listener desired.

Moon Pool
Corgan nodded. "Hell yeah. Let's go kill some squids." He pulled up a map of the battle. Wendy calculated the best route for him. "I hate space." He muttered and launched himself out of the ship. The armor's AI took care of the flying for him. He watched on his HUD for any incoming targets. A warning popped up about the missiles launched at the planet. Nothing he could do about that.

Space, Approaching NMX Carrier

"Turn off that warning. Can't stop those missiles, but we can kill some of the bastards." He ordered. The blinking red warning lights disappeared. They were replaced almost immediately by red dots indicating the gunships that had just been deployed. And they were coming towards him. "Uh, shit. I really should have asked for some green UMDs." He said regretfully. He switched to the channel used by the boarding team. "Guys, I got some incoming gunships. The kind that can turn a PA into scrap. Might need some assistance."

The UMD launcher already had a red warhead loaded. He tried to locate a suitable target. No point in wasting it. "Wendy, find me something to shoot with this thing."

"Yes, sir." She replied, highlighting several possible targets.

The most appealing targets were the group of battlepods in front of the gunships. Something seemed off about them. They were much too close and they were going straight. Maybe with the seemingly dead 'pods in the way the gunships wouldn't be able to get a clear shot at him. At least until they passed him, but then what? With a shrug, he fired the red warhead at the screen of battlepods. He quickly loaded a blue warhead and waited for the red one to detonate before firing it at the gunship that would soon be almost on top of him.

The Eternal Pilgrim

Spacecase would gun his ship to the front of the fleet. He then launched the rest of his Junkers at the remaining carrier to disable its engines. His Junkers were followed by a volley of missiles heading to the same target. "Ms.Uso any further orders?"

"You guys should just surrender. I'd totes shelter some Neko-Mishhu hybrid hotties," Akemi transmitted as he continued to pew pew at the carrier while waiting for an opportunity to shoot its engines. As he flew he moved once more into the safety of fellow light ships to lessen his chances of getting instantly killed since more gunships were deployed. With enemies designed to take out power armor nearby the Neko started to use up any missiles he had left to try to jostle them a little and possibly impair their aim.

Mecha Team

The large ball of half working battlepods and gunships would blast out of the front of the carrier in one huge wave... only to get met by a big, red, UMD shell. If any of the ships happened to have their shields up the results might have been a bit different, instead the shell touched off the first battlepod it hit... its missiles quickly cooking off and exploding, the ball of battlepods quickly turning into a rapidly exploding blast of ship parts!

The shredders that had started this whole mess were still moving, but their shields were clearly weakened.

Even as the mass of battlepods were tossed out the front, Junker drones were climbing in the front of the carrier like ants, some being thrown clear of the ship entirely, while others managed to make it inside, scurrying forward with weapons at the ready as they began cutting into the ship's floor, blasting holes in the lifts bringing up new battlepods, and latching onto containers in the rear of the ship.

Ghost ships?

Alex was uneasy as he saw the new ship flicker and phase through the carrier.

He sent several volleys of missiles into the cluster of enemy ships before sending a copy of his sensors and visual feed of the "ghost ship" to Vier , USO and Jason, Alex inquired as to what he should do.

"If everything is handled in here, Vier, do you think you can track that ship? I've got this feeling that if we don't take care of it it's gonna be a problem soon."

The Eternal Pilgrim

Spacecase would come on over the all hands channel. "Hey all you ladies and gentlemen out there fighting bring any prisoners or wounded to my ship I'll take care of them." Spacecase would then redirect his Junkers that were at the White Lament to pick up life signs that were floating in the void and bring them to the ship.

Outside Ravaged NMX Ship

As gunships raced out, one of the mecha raced forward through space toward the scene. Alex had breached and abandoned the outside, along with countless mercenaries arriving and attacking in such high numbers with free riders. If only Ronin were so lucky to have some pilot crazy enough to zip him over to target, but instead the Tengu fired its thrusters at a lighter feed as battlepods and shredders alike raced outward. Just enough thrust, of course, for his mecha to lean back and brace both his IPW and Hyper Rifle in either of the machine's arms. A smaller, power-armor pilot had dealt out a serious blow in softening the NMX craft up. With shoulder cannon preparing and the pulse weapon humming with the connection to his mecha's power suite... it was time to mop up.

"Well little guy," the comms kicked out his voice as the satisfied and now far-more pleased pilot got the best shooting galleria around, "Let's take out the sushi."

The flicker of light silently gave way to destruction as the shoulder cannon smashed one of the shielded craft. But the IPW, a weapon designed for harassing electronics, came next. Pops of the anti-electronic weapon landed series of pulses against the shielding in an effort to finally push it over and slip in to do its fatal job. Knocking the ships out was a hopeful condition, since it would require a nice shot to land and somehow knock the engines offline... but the final goal was met with nuclear slugs. The Hyper Rifle opened up at nearly full-auto, his own efforts and the Tengu's AI working overtime to keep him stable with both propulsion and recoil fighting one another. Any ship that didn't get knocked out but lost its shielding could be met with a nice rip of the anti-small fry rifle. And anything else he could spot, to buy the others time and to keep racking a squid kill count, could be given a nice gaping hole from the cannon. The only downside, of course, was knowing that the Tengu's power source could very easily get eaten up very quickly with the shoulder cannon and IPW firing with the thrusters working overtime. But, of course, the one thing on his side was having some knowledge of when to flip a kill-switch. The scrap and surviving craft were going to be put through the ex-Star Army mechanic's grinder of a gauntlet.