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 Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:04 pm
((lllame post ;D))
Sehene nodded a quiet "Yes sir." before following silently, scanning the passing trees.
Nervousness.
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:42 pm
The damaged vessels edged closer to the Hymn. It was the most powerful ship in the Terran Armada, yes, but it was also an excellent meat shield. The rest of the fleet did similar, slowly letting themselves drift closer to the Hymn's powerful shield bubble. The missile boats let off a barrage of fire. Most of it slammed into the oncoming wave of ships, and the rest did a fair amount of damage to two Raptors. The missiles wrought havoc on the fighter screen, blasting out countless fighters and support craft. In the confusion of the effective cheap shot, a cloud of Scimitars, from the Kentaurus and Arcturus battlegroups, swarmed out like angry bees to meet them. The dogfight had begun, turning into a massive cloud of speeding ships, laser shots, and explosive impacts that filled nearly half the space between the two fleets. As ship-to-ship blasts shot from side to side, they tore through the fighters, vaporizing friend and foe alike. The Hymn hangar sent an urgent message to all of its pilots: launch immediately, all ships are authorized to launch. A flare of light stood out amongst the darkness of space on the other end of the MagCon. One of the outermost Mars came asunder in a massive explosion, bursting debris out like a microwaved hamster. The fleet focused its fire on either flank of the Drathonians. Another Drake was reduced to scrap, and two Raptors burst at the seams.
Jack frowned as Garrett grabbed the engy and pranced off into the bushes. "I never loved you, anyway." Jack looked back over the squad to see who to take. Kai and Garrett were gone, so he had to come up with a #3 pick. "Who wants to get themselves killed in an unfathomably stupid, suicidal way? Jack said loud enough for them all to hear him. If I he got a volunteer, he had himself a partner.
Raji idly stared into her visor, focusing intently on the game of Space Invaders she was playing over her HUD. It felt a bit ironic. She jumped in her seat at the launch command. She quit the game and punched her throttle, her scimitar shooting out the MagCon and into the midst of the massive fleet formation. She idled for a moment, realizing that, despite her reservations about him, she needed her squadron commander to figure out where to even begin.
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 6:55 pm
Steven's eye twitched and he ground his teeth as Raji blatantly took off. He and the rest of the squadron took off shortly thereafter and flew past the MagCon and into the fight.
"Green Five, regroup, now!" Steven growled into the comm, doing his best to keep from getting angry. "And, mind you, while there is no time now, we will be talking about this after the conflict dies down."
As he had said, now was not the time for discussion. A point that was quite evident once one got a good look at the sheer size of battle being waged. It was a sight that reminded him of images from World War II taken at the Battle of Midway; massive ships firing on one another as fighters swarmed everywhere, only this time it was taking place in three-dimensional space.
"Alright, as of now our main objective is to repel enemy fighters and light cruisers who attempt to get through the MagCon. Form up into your pairs and follow loose on my right wing. On my signal break off and engage the enemy. Pilots, stay alert and watch each others' backs. Do that and we will get through just fine." Steven said into the comm as he scanned over the battle that was being waged for a good opening.
As he looked about, his eyes caught sight of one of the moons of the great gas giant. It was decent sized for a moon with what looked to be one great landmass covering most of the surface with soft wheat brown, almost lavender colored plains that must have covered thousands of square miles in both hemispheres. This great landmass was split by a single vast ocean that stretched acrossed half the planet along the equator before turning and stretching up towards one of the poles to make a large 'L'. That was when his mind began to connect dots together, and out of curiosity looked around. To one side of the gas giant he saw the planet's sun, a small blue star, and on the far side of the giant he saw a far away red giant star, the second sun making this a binary system.
"Oh my god, that is Ovid III," he said, momentarily dumbstruck.
"Did you say something, Green Lead?" Green Two asked over the comm.
"Hm? Oh, it is nothing," Steven said with one last look towards the besieged moon before regaining his composuer. "Enemies closing in on our possition. Get ready to break away in...now! Break off!
With that fighter groups broke out of formation to engage the enemy.
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 10:00 pm
Arcadia sighed as Raji jetted into space without a command or even a thought to the matter. She really liked the woman because of her unusual distaste for everything masculine, but it was becoming more and more difficult to defend her actions. This time, there would be absolutely nothing Pilot Langdon could do for her.
Per Captain Kerning's order, Arcadia exited the safety of the Hymn's magnetic containment field and formed up to the right of Green Two, assuming her proper place as Green Three. She took a brief glance to where Emma should be as her wingman, a multitude of thoughts flitting through Arcadia's mind. Mostly, it was worry for the younger pilot. This was going to be an extremely intense situation.
Then the signal was given and Langdon's thoughts broke off as she separated from the Squadron. A thought still lingered, however. "Four, take the lead. Targets are at your discretion; I'll make sure we don't have a replay of our last engagement."
Garrett smirked and looked over his shoulder. "I know you can hold your own, Jack, but the Dante's gonna need a damn guardian angel looking over his shoulder for this one." He drew his knife, eager to get this mission done and over with.
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Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 6:01 pm
When Dante finally landed the ship, He breathed a heavy sigh of relief . “Good news, We're not dead. Bad news, you can figure that out for yourself.” Dante got up and looked throughout his bags. Everything was still intact and ready when they get these guys out of there. He walked off the ship and over the the rest. As Kai explained the situation, Dante's eyes were shut and his ears picked up every word that came out of Kai's mouth. So we're pairing up. I'll be lucky to make it through the night. Almost at once, Garrett's voice entered his ears with a bit of news that shot his eyes opened. “What?” was the only word that he could get out before feeling the pressure of Garrett's hand on the back of his neck. Dante stumbled as he caught himself before falling. He listened to Garrett and Jake joking while they walked off. “Alright then. Lets go, my guardian angel.”
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Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 7:45 pm
"Copy, Three, Four is in the lead. Range to target, 200 Kilometers. They should be in effective range in about 5 seconds" Emma said, moving her fighter in front of Arcadia's. She began tracking a number of targets, looking for those who were moving slower or showing poor tactics, they would be the easiest to take down and reduce the amount of confusion in the battle. She modulated her shields to 75% forward, 25% rear, and armed her laser cannons, getting ready to fire, which she did as soon as they were within range, her first few blasts missing wide, but finally tracking and scoring hits on the shields of a Scourge. The craft shook and it's shields sparked and flashed as they were whittled away by the pure energy released into them by Azure's lasers.
****
The Hymn continued it's path of destruction, meticulously destroying the Drathonian ships as the Fleet at large fired on everything else. So far, she had taken out 4 Drakes and a raptor, but the ships were becoming harder to hit. the Hymn's shields had been pummelled down to 50%, and while still fully capoable of protecting the ship, they would go out long before all the Drakes did.
The Drakes themselves, concentrated fire around the ships along the edges of the formation, forcing the terran ships to either bunch together and become easier targets, or flee and become prey to the support craft. It seemed Numeric superiority was winning the day, despite the Hymn's contibution.
****
Kai just kinda shook his head and laughed at Jack and Garrett, as well as the seemingly lost Dante. "Make sure to meet up back here once you've finished your part of the mission, or else. be back here in 2 hours, or you're staying, Got it?" thr lieutennant informed, stalking off to go around the compound. his helmet's HUD showed him where all the pairs were and where they were going, so he was well informed.
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Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 7:50 pm
The fleet battle continued to rage, considerable numbers of fighters exploding in tiny flares all across the backdrop, like whizzbang fireworks were going off. The Drathonian vessels, recovering from the initial clash, began to break off and head for their target: they Hymn.
Jack snorted. "And I'm Jesus..." he muttered.
Raji rolled her eyes at the tight-a** captain's admonishments. She broke off and up the side of the Hymn toward the oncoming Drathonian vessels that had snuck out of the massive dogfight. Green Six was on her five, hanging back a good bit. It seemed like he wanted to keep his distance from his unruly wingmate. She gave an angry sneer. She quickly picked up on something to fight, as the dogfight started to drift more and more into the Terran formation. She eyed her target... it was a bit much to take on herself. "Stygian Retribute, this is Black Jupiter. You two care to join me for a party? I've got a Drathonian corvette with half a dozen escort fighters entering shield perimeter up the Hymn's keel. Six and I can kite the fighters while you lay down some hurt on the gunship. In?" As if she had a choice...
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Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 8:57 pm
"Ma'am! Some Drathonians are breaking off and are heading for the Hymn...wait, it looks like some fighters are going to crack at them." Cibo sounded. It wasn't exactly in their favor, advanced tech or not. Frustration began to creep into her voice as new information blurred across her screen. "Recommend rearranging formation order. The ships at the outer edge need a breather. Again." It was a numbers game, and so far, they still hadn't reached that critical ratio between Lizards and Terrans yet. "Not good...there has to be something I hadn't thought up yet..."**** They were something new, he had to admit. They wore armor, and were likely not native to this planet. What looked somewhat like a SeFlaurind female, if only in size and silhouette, darkened it's visor, and scanned the area. He held absolutely still as this newcomer's gaze swept by. The figure fingered it's knife, and said something. Next, one of the larger ones or what looked like a male, he could not tell for certain due to the getup, singled out another. The others broke up into smaller groups, with that female accompanying what looked like the leader. He begun to creep away, when suddenly, a voice hammered against his sensitive ears. He froze, and slowly looked back. They still didn't see him, which was good. He recorded some more of their speech, and drew back to his group. The SeFlaurinds were curious about what he found and he told them in their flowing speech, "" sounding just like any other SeFlaurind. """ 'Let's sneak around to the other side of the compound' " the Not-SeFlaurind spoke, perfectly mimicking the speech of the other. """""" the person in front of Yotruyan grinned. "" Yotruyan strode forward flanked by some of the SeFlaurind resistance. For a brief moment, Yotruyan, or 'Killy' as they called him, stepped into the light. He looked smaller than most Drathonians at only seven or so feet, standing upright. His black armor glistened, resembling skeletal structure. Details of the spinal cord faintly glowed red as the light hit it, while the helmet resembled a skull with eyeless pits. He, and the SeFlaurind rebels faded into the dark.
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Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 9:09 pm
"We'll be there in due time, Black Jupiter. Four, let them go, I'll keep watch. If they give us trouble, we'll take care of them. For now, hard left, keep to the Hymn's underbelly." Following her own orders, Arcadia tipped the controls left and headed for the small assault convoy. "Seven and Eight, I'm extending that invitation. Party at the Hymn's underside, and we could use a few more guns."
Seeing that this portion of the mission was to be stealthy, Garrett left his bag of goodies aboard the transport. ((And then I realized I don't know what the complex is supposed to look like, SO.... Go Kai!))
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Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 9:50 pm
The Compaound could best be Described as a circular clearing in the forest. There was a 3 meter buffer zone around a tall razor-wire fence, with concrete buildings at four points around the perimtr, which were obviously the guardhouses. About a quarter kilometer in Diameter, it was fairly small, and at this time of night, there were few lights on, mostly sweeping along the perimeter. Inside, there were four more buildings, long and low, which obviously housed prisoners. Other than a raised platform in the center, the grounds were devoid of any features. It seemed to be at low alert, which was very good. Guards only stood near the entrances, and only looked outward, but they were armed with Dross rifles that attached to the buildings by cables.
****
"I copy, three" Emma responded quickly, mildly annoyed that she had to break off, but that annoyance went away when her final shots punched through the Scourge's shields and scored a direct hit on its powerplant, turning the once hideous fighter into space dust and shrapnel. She followed her Peer to the underside of the Hymn, scanning for enemies.
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Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 5:50 pm
The squadron of red striped, grey Scimitars idled in the shadow of the Hymn. The scarred fighters where close in formation waiting on their leads orders.
“Sir, Orders?” asked Jimmy “Red Ukraine” over the squad channel, not questioning why the Corporal had pulled them out just waiting for his next move. When all he received was a quick flash of light from his Squad Leader he began to tense up.
The squad stayed motionless and then, the Corporal came over the channel, “Red Squadron, it is my regret to inform you that The Great Fox is gone, we have lost our berth.” His voice was solemn, backed with steely determination.
The shock of the destruction of his home stunned Jimmy, silencing any sort of useless protestation. As he focused his mind getting back into discipline he heard his wingman asked, “Red Siberia, is this confirmed?”
“Yes,” responded the Corporal, “I am going over the fleet channel, stay steady pilots.” Jimmy just nodded his head, a silent response to the Squad Leader. Checking his systems he waited for the announcement.
“This is Corporal Denisov of the Great Fox’s Red Squadron, we have received confirmation that the Fox is gone, requesting a temporary berth for the remainder of the battle. Respond swiftly fleet, Red Lead out.” The quiet announcement of Red Siberia would be a deep cut felt only when the battle was done.
As Jimmy warmed up his Scimitars weapons, it was clear to him that the Squad was restless for revenge. Red Squadron waited for the Fleet response, they could unleash their fury soon.
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Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 10:09 pm
"Ma'am, It looks like we lost another ship, 'The Great Fox'. A fighter squadron belonging to it is under our shadow. Temporarily reassigning it to us. We're the main dish, we'll need their help." Cibo told the Admiral. Now that she looked at her, it appeared as if she lost her emotions, if just for battles. She'd have to keep that in mind; if the feelings didn't return, odds of a more...severe malfunction could increase. She quickly sent out a message to this 'Red Squadron' telling that they were reassigned to the Hymn. These pilots wouldn't lose their home twice in the same day. "I bet the away team is doing better." Cibo thought to herself. **** The SeFlaurinds kept pace, shadowing the Terrans from a distance, weapons ready, just in case. Magazines loaded with glass-like spheres filled with red, blue or green liquid silently slid into the weapons. The instruments were alive, something Yotruyan appreciated; they were plants specially developed for the art of war, much like his own rifle. The wood furnished weapons would regenerate, making them reliable to no end. Just add water, sun, and some ammo. " He said to one. "" "" another SeFlaurind whispered at him in it's elegant tongue. "" He replied tonelessly. He gripped the alien looking rifle on his back, and slashed it through the air in front of him, stretching it out to it's full length. A small eyeball under the barrel opened up, sighting the Terrans. "" he continued, annoyed at their pace.
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Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 8:11 pm
Still narrowed her eyes at the guards, and crouched more, making sure to make little noise. Drathonians may be dumb, but they can hear...
She sent a silent message to Kai; Are we planning on killing any of them? Or will we sneak around?
She would rather kill them, less to fight later on, but he was the one to decide, not her.
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Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 8:24 pm
Jack Gallagher waited for a long moment, as no response came from the remnants of the huddled squad. Kwon shifted uneasily, then stood. "I'm not crazy, mate, but I'll have to do. Come on." Kwon gave him a friendly marine smack on the shoulder, then started off in the opposite direction of Kai and Garrett. Rutthinger came up behind Kwon, and smiled. "Odd numbered squad. Suppose I'll join your madness." Jack grinned at him, then started off after Kwon, and took the lead. They arced around the compound until they reached the far guard tower. Jack halted, then turned to the other two. "What's the hold-up?" whispered Ruth. Jack grinned, then pulled the pack of supplies for the rebels off his shoulders. He pulled something cylindrical out, about the size of a football. He held it up for the other two to see, grinning. It was an APE-7 Spatial Charge. "Hymn got a shipment of them just before we left Saratar. I grabbed half a dozen. Figure we stick them on the guard towers and blow them when the time's right." Jack radioed the rest of the squad, and repeated his plan to Kai and Garrett. "What do you think?" he said over his com.
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Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 10:39 pm
((I should post whatever I have now just so I don't get left behind! God, I waited a long time. I am still not happy with it either.))
It was just then as Frank finally found gave himself a break Stacy told him of the new task. 'Frank, although you might be enjoying the view right now, you have some matters that you need to attend to. The Hymn is moving into combat and you need to check the guns.' Like Stacy said, the Hymn was heading into battle and all the big guns needed to be checked out and prepped for the show.
Now walking toward the engineering section through the twisted hallways and corridors his mind was back in focus. Frank started to work on the way using the S.S.W.D.D has he navigated the hallways, not even looking up to see if he was going the right way.
Frank had inspected the guns not to long ago, so mostly everything was working just fine.
*****
((I get five a asterisks because I am special.))
The battle had started and Frank was finished with the prep work long before the Hymn had entered realspace. Frank had positioned himself inside the access point to one of the Solaris cannons, watching the battle unfold through a nearby window. Stacy spoke to Frank, right as the Solaris canons started firing.
'Well Frank, here it is. This is what you have been waiting for isn't it?'
A grin large grin escaped from Frank's lips as the large destructive beam tore through a drake turning it into a large pile of shrapnel.
"It's one thing to know these inside and out, to work on it, but it is nothing compared to watching it at work. Hey Stace..." Frank was relaxed, leaning his shoulder against the window. It was odd, Frank hadn't been this at ease in forever, always making himself busy with work. Now, at the oddest of times...
"Thanks for all the help, really." There are few people alive that would thank their tools for helping them finish a job after all, a tool normally can't respond and the person would look rather strange talking to his screwdriver. To Frank, Stacy is more than just a common datapad.
There was a long pause between Frank and Stacy's response. Everything seemed still and quiet to Frank. The raging battle outside seemed to sit still, his heart seemed still. Even for something small like this, it meant so much to Frank.
"Thank you Frank. That means a lot to me."
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