And There Was War In Heaven
And There Was War In Heaven
Arc: Paradise Regained
Summary: TCS Majestic enters the Tingerhoff system, escorting the transports of the 12th Marine Division.
Date: 2658.269
Related Logs: None
Participants: Kanani Walsh Victoria Draygo James

Well, it didn't take very long for this patrol run to turn sour. Then again, the Kilrathi were bound to try and hit the marine transports sooner or later. It so happens that one of the middle groups is the unlucky first victim of a Kilrathi strike… four drayman-class cargo transports and four Diligent-class troopships catch the brunt of the Kilrathi's assault. Which, of course, leads to the understandably panicked call from one of the transport's commanders. « Mayday! Mayday! Element zero-three is under attack by Kilrathi fighters! All Confederation craft, please assist! »

Tori is out in her rapier, for just about the first time since her return actually the highest ranking officer on a flight. Darn it, she was getting used to letting Voodoo figure out what was what. Ahem. Okay, so maybe that's not quite the case, but as it happens, she's out in her rapier, all systems go, on patrol duty with a few friends when that mayday comes in. « Roger, zero-three, this is Flight Delta-1. We're on the way. » A moment, and then she says, « Alright folks, It looks like we're up for a tango, since we appear to be the closest. Remember our goal is to protect the transports. Let's get over there and disturb the kittens' games.» With that, she hits her own afterburners, changing course to head towards the incoming Kilrathi.

When the emergency may-day call comes out through the comm, Razor looks down and scans the HUD before glancing out at the Rapier that is leading this patrol. His helmet bobs up and down as he nods, acknowledging the orders before increasing his Stiletto's speed to match the Rapier's, his own afterburners kicking in as well but not to full power. As they detour to the transports in distress, Kell begins to do one more cycle through his systems, making sure everything is in working order.

«Got it lead. Looks like it's time to earn back all the money we blew on shore leave.» Kanani remarks dryly, even as her Stiletto alters it's course towards the direction of the distress call. She then hits her own afterburners, rocketing off after Tori.

James is sitting in the cockpit of his fighter thinking dark thoughts about whoever came up with the bright idea of sending Stilletos on this kind of run. When the distress call comes in he reaches for the throttle and hits the afterburners even as Tori is issuing instructions.

«Ah, well there's our 'routine' patrol.» Walsh remarks as he alters course towards the origin of the distress call. He checks his systems for readiness as he goes.

And as the Confederation pilots draw closer, the reason for that distress call rapidly becomes apparent. Six Kilrathi fighters (Two Jalthi, Four Drakhri) angle in towards the transports, just about to make their first pass on the craft. Flak turrets on the eight transports swivel, picking out their targets from among the Kilrathi… and the exchange of fire begins.

«Alright, look sharp. We've got our hands full, I'd think. Let's try to take out those kitties. if you see one targetting our troops, kill it first.» Tori says, simply. Well, you know - they're all targetting the troops at the moment, but Tori doesn't expect that to last entirely. "Now where the heck are our bombers when we could use them?" Ah well, she targets one of the Jalthi, as she vrooomwhoooshes in from behind, afterburners glowing hot, and lets fly with a dumbfire. « Tally ho! » she calls. « Delta-1 engaging. »

Once within sensor range, Razor picks up the blue blips as well as the red blips, «Razor here, looks like we got here just in time… weapons hot, locking onto a Drakhri.» He switches his weapon to Heat Seekers and sets the master arm switch on before hearing the beeping as the targeting system begins to find a lock. Since the Kilrathi are all focused on the transports, Kell kicks his afterburners to full and slips in behind his intended target, the distance closing before he presses the trigger stub, sending his first Heat Seeker screaming out at the Drakhri.

Kanani takes stock of the beginnings of the battle as her sensors start giving her some readings to work with. As her fighter darts in at high speeds she goes after one of the Drakhri, hoping to mess up any shots that it might take on the transports. «Tsunami here. Let's not give them a chance to do any damage.» She remarks calmly, as her heat seeker gets a lock on her chosen target. With the lock she pulls the trigger, and the missile flies off to play with the kitty. «Fox 2!»

With the sight of the oncoming Kilrathi, Walsh is suddenly glad he's not on one of those transports. Closing with full afterburner, he targets one of the Drakhri, playing his usual game of chicken as he fires before breaking off at the last moment.

To say that the transports win the first round is probably putting things a little mildly. Their courage bolstered by the approaching fighters, the transport gunners find their mark on a number of fighter craft… between the transports and the fighter cover, every Kilrathi fighter is soon displaying damage of some sort or another. The Kilrathi fighters streak straight past the transports before turning around again, still ignoring the fighters in favor of attempting to hit the vulnerable marine craft.

James cheers as his mass driver rounds as multiple transport laser blasts tear into his target. He snaps into a tight turn and boars back in for a second pass «Cutlass Guns!»

Tori's rapier comes around as well, making another run at the attacking cats. She switches to her full guns, fingers hitting the various switches as her rapier speeds back in. « What's the matter, furballs? Don't want to play with us? » she taunts, taking a leaf out of - someone's book. She notes that she has a better shot at one of the Drakhri so she takes it. « Queen, guns, » she calls out. « Remember to watch your wingmen - if these kitties decide to take offense. »

Her fighter remaining stuck on the tail of the lead Drakhri, Kanani doesn't even bother to curse as her missile bounces harmlessly off the shields of her target. The accuracy of the transports does get a nod of approval from her however. «Hey, nice shooting. You guys have some pretty good gunners on board, it looks like.» She comments lightly, before launching another of her heat seekers at her target. «Fox 2!» This followed by a muttered, "Do something this time, damn it!"

With his first Heat Seeker impacting the Drakhri and exploding for some damage, Razor continues to trail after the same target, sticking to the Kilrathi's six. Switching to his set of Mass Driver Cannons, choosing to conserve the warheads in case more hostiles show up, Kell latches on into firing position again, this time coming in at six o'clock high. Putting his targeting reticule slightly ahead of the Drakhri, he tugs at the trigger and sends out a quick burst of Mass Driver fire.

Walsh's mass driver might have done predictably little damage, but it at least threw the enemy's aim off. «With shooting like that from the convoy, what are we here for?» He jokes. Twisting around, he lines up another pass.

More and more fire from the Confederation transports lashes out at the Kilrathi attackers. Spurred on by the succession of hits on the Kilrathi fighters, by the explosions of two of the craft as they're chased by friendies… the gunners redouble their efforts, throwing a tremendous amount of fire into the sky after the rapidly declining number of targets.

« Delta-1 - let's try and take down that lead Drakhri, and the third, if we can, » Tori says, after a moment of examining the situation. « They look still functional, and we can't have that. I'm targetting on the lead Drakhri.» She flips her rapier around, jukes to the left, ducks some debris that is zooming by and puts herself coming in from about 11 o'clock on the lead Drakhri which is still focussed on the transports. « Queen - full guns. »

James cheers as his target blows apart «Scratch one!» He pulls back on his stick and settles his sights on one of the Drakhris. He flys into a headon pass waiting to the last possible second to squeeze his trigger «Cutlass guns!»

«Watch that flak guys. They're putting up an awful lot of it.» Kanani remarks as the Transport gunners keep up the fire on the enemy fighters. Does she pay attention to her own advice though? Not likely, she switches over to her guns and charges in after the heavily damaged Jalthi, looking to finish it off, before it can do something crazy like fly into one of the transports.

With his burst of Mass Driver fire slamming into the Drakhri's cockpit and splattering the pilot, Razor watches as the fighter gets pummelled from the sides right after and explodes. He switches to the next target that is least damaged and returns to his Heat Seeker missiles. With a locked on tone, he fires off a missile but at the last seconds, «Copy that, Lead. Missile away.»

Walsh curses as a perfect shot is foiled by the target's sudden jinking to avoid fire from the transports. Seeing it get blasted by another barrage a few seconds later, he decides to try his luck with one of the other surviving Kats. This one seems to be in its own world of hurt.

Unfortunately, Confed gunnery proves just as accurate for the Confederation fighters as it has for the Kilrathi. A line of shots tracks into Walsh's fighter, tearing ugly chunks away from the craft. The Kilrathi inaccuracy continues as well, however, three craft destroyed for no damage at all to the Confederation convoy. The last Kilrathi fighter turns in towards the Confederation ones, hoping to at least kill something.

« Now that's very nice shooting. Ozone, you okay over there? » Tori calls, wincing as the one fighter gets damaged. « Let's finish this last one off - don't want him running anywhere telling tales. » She whips her Rapier around from where she was attacking a now defunct kitty. She gets a good shot and fires at the poor last remaining Drakhri, feeling somewhat more relaxed about the situation. Though she's still on alert, wondering if there are reinforcements not too far away.

«Transports. Hold your fire, you just shot up one of our guys, and I think we can take care of this last one ourselves.» Kanani remarks dryly, before calling out. «Ozone, you alright over there?» With that finished, she opens fire on the remaining Kilrathi. From her point of view, this whole fight's been a disappointment, since all her shots seem to be just scraping paint, but at least all the transports are still in one piece.

James watches the havoc and opens his comm as he sees his shots plow into the enemy fighters cockpit followed a milisecond later by a transport laser burst that plows into the area just in front of the cockpit «Scratch one, I think.» he calls over the comm then notes the last enemy fighter heading his way. He turns to meet the lone cat adding a few jukes to help evade fire before snapping a shot off.

«Shit! Check your fire and targets, transports!» Razor calls out over the comm as a few rounds flash by him from one of the friendly transports they are escorting. When he sees a Stiletto get pummelled by friendly fire, he can only grit his teeth as he focuses on the last hostile that is left in the area, convering with the rest of his patrol mates as he unleashes another burst of Mass Driver Cannon fire.

Walsh had been concentrating on putting rounds on target when he got the feeling that there was an awful lot of laser fire in his vicinity. Before he could act, a series of holes tracked through his wing, followed by small explosions. «What the fuck?!» With some panic, he glances through his canopy, then towards his damage control readouts. Realizing the damage is luckily not as bad as it could have been, he takes the time to report in. «Ozone here. Not much left of my wing, and I'd love to kick whoever's on that gun, but I'm still in one piece myself.»

And it's safe to say that ganged up on by the rest of the Confederation fighters, the last Kilrathi never stood a chance. Hit from all angles, the craft explodes into a slowly-expanding cloud of debris.

« Alrighty then, Delta-1, let's fall back in and go back to our patrol. Except you, Ozone - you need to dog it back to base and get repairs started,» Tori says calmly. No point keeping a shot up stiletto out here, after all. « Zero-Three, we'll be continuing on our regularly scheduled flight, unless you need anything more? »

James watches the last enemy fighter explode then opens a commline to the other fighters in the patrol «I guess we've discovered what the cats do with cadets who flunk out of flight school. They shove them in fighters and throw them at transports, hoping that they cann kill something before they die apparently.»

«Copy that lead. Lets hope the rest of the patrol is a bit quieter though. Nearly out of missiles now.» Kanani remarks as she checks over her status readouts, and prepares to move on out towards the next destination on the outerspace highway, that the flight is keeping an eye on.

«Copy lead, turning tail.» Walsh adjusts his nav system, choosing the Majestic as his destination, and settles in for a slow flight back home. «Just hope it's a quiet flight. And nobody else wants to use me for target practice.»

Unhindered by the Kilrathi attempt, the line of transports continues on towards the planet, where flashes of light visible from space on the night side of the planet show the impact of the first round of orbital bombardment. The Kilrathi are in for a long night…