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 Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:14 pm
"Chaos is right. Nothing but Anarchy in this damned Void." Garrett smirked, reminiscing briefly in silence. Then, "He's not worth it, Jack. I don't need you getting worked up before this s**t hits the fan, alright?"
Some distance away, a Pilot was speaking similar words to members of her Squadron. "Let it go, Captain." Then she gave a faint smirk to Raji. "Apparently so. Somebody's in trouble somewhere, and I'm guessing they're really important if they need the Hymn to save their asses."
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:55 pm
Dante's expression went grim as he heard the news. He kept his head forward towards the window so the other's couldn't see it. s**t. First, Hymn leaves us almost naked with no ejection coverage, now the ship they assigned to get us the ******** out of here is the one I've called home for most of my life. I know this is war but is this some kinda sick and twisted joke? If so I'm going to beat down the one who's laughing. After a minute of silence in his head, Dante grinned. I wounder if John would s**t a brick when he finds out I'm on this mission? All of a sudden he was yanked back to his mind as he heard Garrett joke the name of the ship. “You know why they call it chaos? It's because that is how they always leave the lizards: drowning in the utter chaos of they're defeat.”
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:14 pm
The mess of the Hymn was empty. Hold on a second, thought Adrian; let’s go back a step the mess was emptied. The ship had jumped a bit, much to Adrian’s discomfort, a siren had gone off and orders had been given out. Everyone in the mess had stood up and bustled out right past Tern and his fellow marine.
Sitting down in an abandoned chair, propping his boots on a table and snatching a sandwich from a tray, then Adrian looked up at Tern. “Well,” he said between bites, "I say we head to the hangar, with all those activity there is bound to be an engineer around, and anyway if there isn’t I know there is a tool box we can borrow.” The marine smiled, his thoughts taking on a tinge of wickedness, nothing like two marines playing with a high powered weapon in the middle of a transit to get the engies stirring.
Bouncing to his feet the sniper threw the reminder of the sandwich into the air, caught it in his mouth and swallowed. Picking up the nearest mug he sniffed its contents. It was a dark ale, sticking his finger in it he tasted the liquid, spiced to perfection and so close to a solid that almost doesn’t need the cup. Draining the mug he set it back down on the table.
Getting his duffel from the floor and shouldering it, Adrian pivoted so he was facing Tern. “So, what’cha thing, fine weather for my plan or do you think the fogs a little thick?”
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Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 12:10 pm
Evelyn took one of the sticks from Cibo "Thank you. And I don't mind so long as it doesn't affect the equipment" she said, Smiling at the Intelligence officer. The avatar stuck this stick of Kombu in her mouth, before making a displeased face and taking it out quickly. She looked around for a polite way to dispose of the snack before finally sticking it back it it's wrapper. With an embarrassed cough, she muttered "Little too sour for my taste."
****
About an Hour later
****
The scene that unfolded as the Battle Hymn of the Republic reverted back into realspace was not as calm and pristine as it had been the last time, at least according to most people. Some people find space battles to be beautiful, if viewed from a distance. This Battle was no exception to either rule. Blazes of Crimson, Verdant Green, Audacious Yellows, and violent flashes of white betrayed the ferocity that was fought in the battle below, and this was just the fire being exchanged by lasers. Innumerable objects flew, invisible to the naked eye, between the ships, impacting on Hull and shield, causing explosions, sparks, and rainbows of color on impact, Hundreds of tine dots with needlepoints of light spun about, signifying a ferocious stafighter battle for superiority going on in between the two opposing groups of warships.
Those groups were quite handily disproportionate in size, too. On one side, colored in ghastly reds and grays, was the Drathonian fleet, comprised of about 200 ships, most notably a huge number of Drake and Raptor class ships, but the number of smaller support ships was staggering, all told the Hymn counted 25 Drakes, 60 Raptors, and 125 assorted smaller ships.
The other group was comprised of Two battlegroups, the battered remains of Arcturus, comprised of two Mars class destroyers, a Pluto missile boat, and three Glaive class cruisers. The other, showing little sign of wear, was the newly arrived Kentaurus, bringing a Neptune, ten Mars, 15 Glaive, and three Pluto into the fray, its two medical frigates hanging back and out of the fight.
"Pilot, Take us in!" Evelyn ordered, watching the Hymn ramp up to flank speed, arriving within Solaris range in a matter of moments. From here, orders weren't really needed, the crew knew what to do. Evelyn and the Hymn's computer assigned targets to the stations, and the stations carried out their duties. A Dual blast of Supernova-strength energy lanced out from the battleship's main cannons, slicing through an Unsuspecting Drake as if it were nothing. The resulting explosion damaged the shields of several nearby Drathonian ships, who turned to face their new attacker. The Hymn began to take a beating to its shields, but the multi-layered system could be buffed and reinforced several times over, so there weren't any worries, Except for fighters and light cruisers, which could fly within the shields and hit the massive ship.
The Hymn retaliated to this threat by launching its fighters. Green squadron would be the first out the MagCon fields and into the fray.
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Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 4:13 pm
With all the hangar bay completely rearranged, she noticed that Green Squadron was front of the line for deployment. When orders began lighting up datapads, she didn't even bother to read it. Arcadia took off at a run to the Stygian Retribute. Even though everything had already been calibrated, checked for proper conditions and so on, Langdon couldn't help but check it all again. It was perfect, though, and she just made sure she was ready to go when the call was made to deploy. In the passing moments, she actually bothered to see what the orders were:
To all pilots: Prepare for combat
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Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:44 pm
Cibo laughed a little, her voice delicate and young, "Of course it's too sour!" Suddenly, her voice shifted, and sounded more her age, "It's the whole point of eating it. Something simple like this can be so unpleasant, that for the moment, it outweighs what's happening. This way, whoever eats it, doesn't brood for too long. It doesn't work all the time, but it's something." She paused for a moment, and then added on, "Well, on the other hand, you could try getting something really tasty instead, but for me, that's asking for trouble." Cibo looked the Admiral over once more; "Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be fine." she smiled back.
****
"The Drathonians! It looks like they're focusing on Battlegroup Arcturus, like saving us for a later snack, Admiral!" Cibo told the Admiral. "I'm sorry, but there's too much chatter for me to make out anything meaningful of the Drathonian communications." She painfully admitted; one of her favorite parts went out the window. Ciob quickly pulled up specifications about the ships from each fleet; from what she understood of the Terran/Drathonian ship to ship ratio, they'd be fine after all. "Well, almost."
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Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:57 pm
As they approached the planet, Dante started working from memory as he started the planetary entry protocol. “Everyone strap in and hold on. We're going to land.” And this was the part where most crashes occurred. Dante could be seen nervous at this point. His eyes were jumping from one meter to another as he started muttering what he was doing. “decreasing acceleration and prepping reverse thrusters. Deploying atmospheric shields in 5 mins...”
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Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:38 pm
Steven grinned wide and then stuck his thumb and fore-fingure in between his teeth and whistled loudly, after a long wait it was finally Green Squadron's turn to have some fun. He eagerly jogged off towards his fighter in its new place at the head of the line. After swinging up onto the wing and hopping into the c**k pit, he slid his helmet into place and sealed up his suit. The rest of flight prep had become a habit for him as he went about checking the statuses of his wingmen as well as finishing prepping his own fighter.
"This Green Leader, time for the pre-flight comm check. Sound off, pilots!" Steven said as he finished up.
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Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 1:14 pm
The Terran fleet formation rallied around the Hymn, ten Mars destroyers and three Pluto missile boats taking up tactical firing positions in a frigate formation parallel with the Hymn. The Neptune quickly veered itself behind the Hymn, the two battered Mars and the Pluto moving to ensure the carrier's safety. The com officer of the Hymn patched a connection over the bridge speakers. "This is Admiral Tarrel Higgins of the Kentaurus. It's good to see you, Hymn. I'll keep the situation report brief. Arcturus was able to make it here fairly quickly, which put them in a tight spot. By the time I got here twenty minutes ago, the lizards had put some serious damage into the Arcturus. Admiral Levens was forced to separate the aft segment and evacuate it from the system. The fore segment was destroyed briefly before you arrived. We have no idea if Levens was able to evacuate successfully. We should be reinforced by the Procyon Battlegroup within the hour. Whether Drathonian infantry has been deployed to Ovid III is unknown, all our communications with the surface have been jammed. The Achernar Battlegroup has reinforced the Alcor, and their last communication indicated Drathonian forces will soon be forced to retreat. I'm forwarding all our information to you on a level-1 encryption laser stream. Command is yours, Fleet Admiral. Over and out." The voice crackled into silence, leaving a faint hum as the bridge returned to the vacuous silence of space.
Presently, the focused fire of the fleet managed to destroy a Drake that had sustained considerable shield damage from the Solaris Cannons. The Drathonian fleet adjusted formation to protect the more injured ships, and within moments, the Hymn found itself being assailed by hundreds of freshly-launched starfighters.
The launch sequence started its rushed countdown, and Raji gave a tap to her confirmation button, lighting up an indicator over the number '5' in Steven's HUD. She looked beside her to the Icarus. That idiot better pull through, she thought to herself. If there was one person in her squadron that she disliked more than Captain Kerning, it was her moron wingman.
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Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 7:35 pm
"Send me whatever sensor data you can on the enemy fleet, and we'll try to exploit their weaknesses." Evelyn said "I want us to act like a C&C for the entire Terran fleet here" she ordered, her eyes gone oddly blank and her body completely still, aside from her moving moth that was shouting out orders, not only to Cibo, but to other bridge crew as well. "Communications, try to find the most common Drathonian signal in use and jam it" went one order "Engineering, what's the status on our power source and propulsion?" went another. "Pilot, Bring us to bear on target 88-0427." It was rapidfire orders, each one clear and concise, loud enough for the intended recipient to hear. It was obvious that Evelyn was in tactical mode, She had every known Naval tactic at her disposal, through the ship's computer.
****
The five minutes passed silently, and the few minutes it took to land passed quickly as well, the moment of tension when passing the access codes back and forth ended in relief as they were accepted without question. Quickly the transport dropped below accurate sensor levels, dropping into the trees outside of a prison camp. At this point the pilot thanked Dante for his help, and opened the loading ramp to offload his cargo. The three squads walked off into seperate groups, each with a different target.
"Allright boys, Our target is the nearest prison camp. We're to break in undetected, find the leaders of the Local groups, and break them out. Intel shows that this prison, while the most heavily guarded, is the least populated, meaning we'll have plenty of rifles for the people we save. Hopefully we won't need them until later" Kai explained quietly to SS 215, looking them all over, the dark green Terran gear blending in quite well with the local flora. "Split off into pairs, and find a way in. try not to kill anyone with a gun if you can help it. Luckily a knife to the throat is still effective on lizards. Understood?" the Lieutennant finished.
****
"Green four, reporting in, all systems read green" Emma checked in, staring out the Magcon screen, she was ready to be out there, in the fight.
****
The Drathonians took advantage of the sudden movements, catching several ships off guard as they exposed damaged shields in order to form around the Hymn, they fired their main guns in a barrage that took out a Glaive, and heavily damaged a Mars, as well as one of the Pluto-class boats. The ships all formed up in a defensive grid, far enough away from one another that the Hymn could only hit one at a time; obviously they had learned something. The undamaged Drakes set their frontal shields to full, depending on the fighters to keep their flanks and rears clear, they set up a pattern of fire that, while covering a large area, was predictable and easy to dodge if a ship was paying attention and running at full. The smaller support ships formed a line behind the fighters, getting ready to move in close once the Fighters head dealt with each other, they would fly inside shields and pummel exposed hulls from point blank. If they made it through that was.
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Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 7:51 pm
Still was thankful for the cover of the trees, but darkened the helmet anyways. She scanned the surroundings quickly, listening to Kai. "Yes Sir..." Her roaming eyes stopped on his, although the darkness of her visor would make it hard for him to tell, "Shall I go with you Sir?" She fingered her knife holsters to be sure they were still there, even though it was unlikely they wouldn't be, force of habit she supposed.
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Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 9:31 pm
Garrett smirked. He was a little miffed at having to go in completely silent, but using a knife had always been an interest of his. It required skill, patience, and timing, and said a lot about a soldier who could use it successfully more than once. "Alright," he said quietly, "The engy's mine." While speaking these words, the Demolitions Expert grabbed Dante by the back of the neck and gave him a light shove in one direction. "We'll head North some yards and see what we can make of it. Any other useful information before we commit suicide for these weeds?" Although Hendlow was speaking with blatant derogation about their "allies," his irritation truly stemmed from the lack of information on this mission as well as all the plans that had changed. It was a bad idea in his opinion and until they succeeded, no one would be able to convince him otherwise--and even then, it wouldn't be likely. "Oh, and don't forget about those new buggers we found: I'd hate for someone to get much by one of them damn sandfrogs.
Arcadia had responded immediately, giving the Captain the "all green" signal as soon as she heard his voice. Now it was just a matter of time before she could actually get to prove herself in this unit. Last time had been one bullshit flight, cut short by some idiot in engineering. Thinking of that reminded her to be sure to give their department some serious s**t when she got back...
...If she came back.
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Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 9:45 pm
"Looks like the Drathonians remember the Hymn, and have set up large ship formation accordingly." Cibo's hand sliced across her console, and a small display of the formation came up; here eyes gave a quick glance before she went on, "Defense. They want the fighters to do the work first, then the support craft, and then the larger ships." This was all new to her; sure, she received more training on ship to ship combat, but she hadn't....hadn't thought it would give her such, dare she say it? Thrill. The idea of killing so many of the Drathonians in such a pretty way gave her chills that ran down her spine. The explosions lit up her face, and gave her new life. She wanted to punish them, crush them, and make them squeal! Her brains were wracked for ideas. She found one. "Admiral; recommend taking them down in that order, hitting their flanks covered by the little ones. Maybe start kiting their somewhat clunky formation and pick them off. Keep our own forces' formation fluxing, moving, spread out the damage." she smiled out with chilling glee. She loved coming up with ideas, and this job was getting better and better.
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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 12:02 pm
"Allright then, got no problem with that, Sehene" Kai responded to the Intel agent, making sure to get the combat knife out of his back and strap it to his belt in it's sheath. "Let's sneak around to the other side of the compound" the Lieutennant suggested, waiting a bit for the groups to be sorted out before he headed off.
****
"Thank you Cibo. Your conclusin is the same as mine, so this is obviously a good way to work." Evelyn answered her assistant, a smile on her otherwise impassive face. The Hymn shifted it's orientation, bringing the monstrous Solaris cannons to bear. "Weapons, How long till the Solaris cannons are ready again?" The avatar asked the Weapons Engineering department, which was in control of monitoring the temperamental weapons. The Hymn's Turbolaser batteries continued firing, whittling away at the shields of the Drakes.
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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 2:46 pm
Steven was running through several little mundane tasks he did to pass time will waiting for launch comformation, such as: adjusting the seat, inspecting the flight control systems, stretching himself out, and even checking to make sure all the lights were flickering with the right shade of color. Mentally checking off pilots who checked in, he habitually went about his tasks. His mind continually stopped on the question that nagged every commander just before a battle, which was 'What do I have to do to get my men through this alive?'.
"From what it looks like outside, this is a decent sized fleet battle," he thought as he spared a glance out the MagCon at the ships passing silently through the dead of space. As well as seeing all of the ships, he also caught sight of the edge of a planet through the opening in the hangar. "Hm, a gas giant. Fun." he mumbled.
As the pilots of Green Squadron finished prepping their fighters, Stevn keyed the comm to message hangar control.
"This is Green Leader to Hangar Control. We are reading green acrossed the board and are requesting permission to launch when ready." Steven said.
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