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The Battle of Loum

Sushi said:
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Rev slammed an open palm into the main console in the middle of a gut-churning reversal. She craned around in her seat against the crushing restrains, looking for the specks of her flight behind. "DAIJOH, ANEMOS! On my ass and stay there. Spear. Delayed-detonation, on my missile. Ensign Robbins, lock up that sucker and turn him into the biggest fucking target on the battlefield. I want simultaneous attacks, no more fuck-ups!" Her trigger finger itched as she laid the sight on the looming Zeon vessel, the green giant filling up her canopy. As the fuel dwindled and their distance closed, the only thing Rev wished she had more of that moment was more nukes.
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"KUSO!" Isamu punched his canopy roof as he picked up Johhny's fiery last ride. His nose came over as he pulled hard making a beeline for the Red suit.

The laser comn came to life and Rev strained voice snapped him out of his Vengeful streak. Isamu flipped over leaving the Gattle to others. He flipped to a stop on her six half a klick behind Reva. He blinked away angry tears as he fell into line.

"Smelling what you had for lunch Boss. Bingo on canned sunshine but go on Spears."

Half his payload was gone but he was prepared to empty every round, missile,and ounce of blood he had to to take these fuckers out for good.
 
Sushi said:
Rev slammed an open palm into the main console in the middle of a gut-churning reversal. She craned around in her seat against the crushing restrains, looking for the specks of her flight behind. "DAIJOH, ANEMOS! On my ass and stay there. Spear. Delayed-detonation, on my missile. Ensign Robbins, lock up that sucker and turn him into the biggest fucking target on the battlefield. I want simultaneous attacks, no more fuck-ups!" Her trigger finger itched as she laid the sight on the looming Zeon vessel, the green giant filling up her canopy. As the fuel dwindled and their distance closed, the only thing Rev wished she had more of that moment was more nukes.
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Snapping to attention at his superior's order, Mack swung his Saberfish around from his attack on the Zeon rear lines to move to intercept, desprately hoping he would not get he by anymore flak that would probably rip apart his fighter in his current state.

"Yes, ma'am!"

The laze was a bit of a quick job, Mack's mind was in a thousand places at the moment. It was not anything special, but it would have to do.
 
Achilleia's voice was flat as she replied to Rev's order.

"Spear One-Two, wilco," she said. Her Saberfish slid into formation like a rifle bolt locking into place. A tiny part of her mind wondered where her erstwhile wingman had gone - had the rookie been caught up in the furball, been chewed up and spit out like the thousands who'd already turned into space dust?

She might never know.

A strange hush descended over her as her heartrate rose steadily. The blood pounding in her ears deadened all other sound. The radio chatter turned into mere mumbles, the beep of her targeting systems as they acquired the reflected laser light barely cutting through the drumming. A green light flashed at the edges of her rapidly tunneling vision.


More flashes - gunfire and missile launches from both sides, filling the void with a kaleidoscopic display of furious energy. Charged particles, coherent light, machined steel, all methods of conveying energy to a target, energy that would overwhelm its molecular bonds and increase its state of entropy to catastrophic levels. Enough energy, in some cases, to convert matter into roiling, chaotic plasma.

In one case, in particular. The massive gleaming missile under her wing.

Rev launched. The missile showed as a livid caret on Achilleia's HUD.

Annie followed hard on the heels of Rev's missile, Achilleia shoving her throttle forward, right to the wall, giving her own Spear as much of a kinematic boost as she could. The shorter the flight time, the less chance anyone had of reacting to it.

The harder it would be to get out of dodge after.

That was fine. Mission first. In a fight like this, conservation of forces had gone out of the window a long time ago.

And if she failed, there wouldn't be anywhere to land afterwards anyway.

The hell with it.

Achilleia's finger stroked the firing stud, and in that moment she was Death, Shatterer of Worlds.

The missile screamed in, striking true. Delayed detonation, so the proximity fuze didn't activate. Instead it plunged deep into the Zeon ship's vitals, slamming through bulkheads and interior structures with its semi-armoured cap. Only when its tiny electronic brain realised that it had made impact did it initiate the uncontrolled fusion reaction that was its reason for existence.

Energy delivered, energy unleashed. Entropy. Plasma.

A blossom of fire, a blossom of death.

Achilleia couldn't see it. Annie was already screaming away from the fireball as it spread and consumed the Musai.

She toggled her laser comms. "Good shot. Splash one Musai," she said.
 
Zone 2:

O'Brien hailed the Fuji. "Okay boys, this is probably the best shot you've got. Hit those boosters and don't stop for God himself!"
 
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"Zeon in front, Zeon behind, a burning colony to port... Sir, what's the call?"

"XO Mei, secure all wounded! Tell the boys in engineering to light the fires. We're breaking through!"​
_____The Sagami listed forward in the wake of rocket plumes and burning debris. Texas colony was so close that the trailing edge of the miles-long solar panel barely cleared the conning tower. It was hard to get a sense of perspective on Texas with colony being so close, but the smallest of the tears along its body were big enough to swallow Sagami whole. The sight brought a sober quiet to the frantic confines of the bridge, and all eyes were on the grainy feed of the rear-mounted cameras.

_____"Burn in 10... 9.... 8... 7... 6..." The deck hummed and creaked, the chief engineer quietly prayed that the booster installation would hold. They weren't even certain if the rockets would actually ignite or blow the vessel apart. Either way, they didn't expect mercy at the hands of people who had dropped a colony much like theirs onto the Earth.

_____The rocket boosters flashed, tongues of flame corkscrewed backward as the Sagami gained speed. Ten seconds into the burn, it outpaced the Saberfish beside it, tearing toward the Zeon lines where the wreckage was thinnest. The prow smashed into a cloud of Texas debris and scattered it like so many glittering stars. A handful of cannon rounds from Zakus slammed along the starboard side before it came perpendicular to them, the hospital insignia in plain view. Their weapons fire ceased as the red Zaku fluttered among them, and in the turned-head exchange a decision had been made.

_____One of the Musais made a half-hearted attempt at intercepting the transport, a pair of beams clipping a radiator fin. After twenty seconds, it had cleared the gauntlet of ships entirely, tearing through their formation with a pair of Gattle fighters in distant tow. As Sagami passed from the battlefield, a dozen glaring red eyes turned back to the remaining Federation forces...
 
"Well, boys and girls," O'Brien said to everyone in the Nephilim with him and over the radio so that the remaining pilots could hear him. "We've done our good deed for the day. I think it's about time we gave these bastards their parting gift."
 
"My, my, is it that time already?" Maion said, trying to play it off cool but incapable of hiding the relief in his voice. "It's just as well, I do detest long goodbyes!"
 
Mack had a hard time processing that while trying to steer a wrecked fighter through the gravesite of his destroyed home.

"What? We're retreating, just like that? There's just gotta be something more we can do..." He stammered on.
 
tankdrop24 said:
Mack had a hard time processing that while trying to steer a wrecked fighter through the gravesite of his destroyed home.

"What? We're retreating, just like that? There's just gotta be something more we can do..." He stammered on.
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"Yes but not here, not now. If we stay, the only thing we achieve is a meaningless death. They've hurt us. Murdered our families, our friends, and us dying here will not avenge them. Everything they've done will come back thrice-fold and I intent to be one of the messengers of that retribution they have sown for themselves. This is only the beginning."
 
"That's exactly it, you know. I don't know if they can appreciate it yet, but they've kicked over a hornet's nest.

Understand this: I think you will agree with me when I say none of us want to look this way a second time," Maion remarked, a peculiar tone in his voice that wasn't quite there before. It wasn't just annoyance that he looked like yesterday's news: he was growing angry at what being in that position meant. All that relief had barely lasted a minute or two as one thought started to consume him:

Zeon had wounded his pride.

And as a test pilot, Maion thought that was almost all he thought he had. Knowledge that was frequently classified or didn't produce any better results than the next idea was impossible to share, but the pride of having such a direct hand in things, of surviving even the stupidest ideas of his fellow eggheads? Other people could just feel that on him.

And now, he couldn't even leave Loum with that much.

He didn't know exactly how just yet, but he was going to repay that humiliation. He could just feel the stinging of drifting through the shards of all those shattered egos of every pilot and civilian who didn't make it back.

He looked back.

Those shards would be stuck in the ground and he'd make the next Zeon jock he found walk across it.
 
Seeing the Sagami bust through the front line, Rhea lets out a loud cheer across the radio uncertain if anybody is going to hear it with all of the Minosky interference. Thankfully the other Zeon forces have exclusevly focus on the capital ship.

Hearing the argument on the comms Rhea snaps, "I don't know about you but I've got some crumped armor. Fallback, rearm, get some sleep, and actually get enough ammo to stick into those green cyclops!"

As this is going on, she kicks in her thrusters to follow after their mother ship, but not joining up with the ship. Instead she follows the trailing Gattle getting on it's tail before launching a missile right into it's rear, wanting to take it out before it gets into firing range. "At the moment, time to play catch up and try to get the flies off the Sagami's back!"
 
Citrakite said:
"Yes but not here, not now. If we stay, the only thing we achieve is a meaningless death. They've hurt us. Murdered our families, our friends, and us dying here will not avenge them. Everything they've done will come back thrice-fold and I intent to be one of the messengers of that retribution they have sown for themselves. This is only the beginning."
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"Right, right, gotcha..." Though in his heat, Mack knew it was going to be a hell of a while before he would be able to wrap his head around this... whatever term could be used to describe the monstrosity the war had become. Still shaking, he began to angle his fighter to follow the Sagami.
 
_____A Saberfish in the debris of the colony cylinder was a needle in a haystack, as was commonly said on Mack's home colony. In the fighting, the plumes of fire and nuclear light, it was all too easy to be turned around, even with the colonies seeming as large as planets. Their sheer scale made them almost indistinguishable at this close of a range. As Mack got his bearings, he saw the pockmarked colony nearby continuing its rotation like any other day. Inside, standing on the grass and concrete, the spinning of the cylinder was near impossible for a spacenoid to notice; it was only the fleeting moments of transition between a weightless shuttle and the gravity of a colony that the turning of their world was apparent.

_____Out in space, the solar panels stretching from head to toe careened through vacuum like sharpened blades, leaving glittering trails of fragments in an expanding cloud. As the cylinder turned, the tears and gaps grew wider, big enough to lost a battleship in. It was then, away from the glare of the sun or the flash of missiles that Mack could make out the enormous letters emblazoned upon the tube's side.

Texas.

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Without thinking about it, Mack reached out to touch his Saberfish's glass cockpit bubble.

He had seen images like this before, one of Zeon's massacre of the Sides, or of the surface after the Colony Drop, but those had just been images on a screen.

But this was reality. This was home.

This was humanity's grave.

"We're not gonna make it." At that moment, Mack could not be sure if he meant his squadron, the Federation, or humans in general.
 
_____The wreckage of Johnny's Saberfish continued to glare brightly as it shot forward on momentum, breaking into pieces right in front of Isabella. The cherry red monoeye of the enemy Zaku danced as a missile hurtled off the wing of her Saberfish, doing a slow corkscrew before a gut-wrenching reversal from the mobile suit pilot evaded the errant, long-range shot.

_____Isabella's wingmate was gone. There was nobody to cover her back as the red machine bobbed, twisted and weaved like a gnat bouncing around her canopy. As she tracked him with the pipper her fuel begun to dwindle, alerts flashing insistently on the main console.

_____An opportunity finally came to her when the red machine dipped below her nose and accelerated, hurtling past close enough for the wake of the Zaku's exhaust to rattle the floor panels. He could have been making a beeline for their carrier or setting up for the scissors. She couldn't know if the Zeke was running a tuned operating system, how fast it could reverse with a crazy enough pilot. An opportunity or a trap, either way...
 
_____Rev saw Sagami lurch and race forward, her hand nudging throttle forward in unison. An entire vessel packed to the brim with evacuees and wounded, against the people who had dropped a colony. Headache couldn't begin to describe it... With that obstacle out of their way, her mind was free to wander back to the noose around her neck she called the war. Back to the letter she would be writing for Borsch. She almost found herself grateful for working alongside a separate unit. Less to write. Less to think about. "Nicely done, Spears. Don't lose it now. Chief O'Brien, order the crew to close the gap with Titan, Mutual protective fires."

_____She rubbed at her eyes. The fuzzy shapes on her main display wandered like so much dust. "Spear 3-10, Zero here. You're drifting. Adjust course and stay in formation..." After a few moments of silence, she keyed the transmit switch on her throttle once more. "Spear 3-10 —ensign Robbins, you're drifting. Who's nearby?" Her fingers drummed on the stick. A fireball bloomed in her rear camera when ensign Smokwaldcaski lit up a wandering Gattle. "4-13, don't wander off like that. Check on Robbins and pull him back in, I want us between the Zeke freighter and the bulk of the bandits."

_____Was the rookie wounded? This was the last thing they needed breaking past the zeon fleet. Then her HUD flashed as Isabella launched a missile unannounced, her distant Saberfish already doing the mad dance with the enemy's red-and-black mobile suit. "Coriolle," Rev growled, turning her nose in toward the brewing fight. "Get your hijacked mobile suit into position and kill that red bastard. Nash, back me up. Achilleia—"

_____Rev twisted against her harness as a laser ping cut through her comms. A handful of lights glimmered in the distance. A burst of static came over her helmet. "Hold on, they're trying to raise me.... No joy. Achilleia, can you get a radio signal in this soup? We don't have time for this." Rev eyed the full gun ammo counter before her as the formation begun to shift, the stars in front of her studded with ugly green Zeon suits.
 
_____The battered Saberfish waggled its wingtips at Achilleia. It was part of a four-ship, the Saberfish leading two orange shuttles. "Hey hey, is that Spear 1-2 I see? Can't believe Team 3 is still intact! This is Ensign Carlyle from team one, but call me 'Heartbreaker.' Your buddies Burning and Allen found me poking for civies in the colony tube."

_____"Lieutenant, Burning here. It's good to see you again."

_____"Hey! Is that dumb brat kid still around? That simulator match didn't mean a thing!"

_____The chipper pilot raised her hand in a quick salute, smirking. "Look, Anemos: Trafalgar bailed with a belly full of evacuees, but we didn't feel like running just yet. Zeon chucklefucks are knuckle deep in our asses right now, so I wouldn't suggest turning around, either." She waggled her wingtips and the empty missile tubes riding atop the roots. "Winchester, as you can see, but got enough fuel to be a distraction, at least. Soooo... game plan?"
 
Seeing the enemy fighter explode filled Rhea with a great feeling, something that she was all too ready to repeat.

That was when she heard Rev come in and admonish her for breaking off. She looks about to see her wingman isn't near her. "This is Spear 4-13, thought orders were to aid in the bug-out of the freighter. Turning about to help 3-10." With a brief burst from her verniers, she comes around to Robbin's last location.

Sending out a laser line, Rhea asks, "Spear 3-10, 3-10 do you read me? Mack, snap out of it. The lugger is on it's way out, now it's our turn, come on. Let's get going. Give me something to work with..." She says starting to circle the other Saberfish.
 
He could see the dots. Murderers and sons of a bitch the lot of them. The leather of his gloves creaked as he tightened his grip on the stick. #-10 was having a moment or something so they have to wait. They'd leave together or not at all.

"On your wing, Spear 4-13"

He nudged the stick over and moved the pedals so he took up a standard fly along with Rhea. Flying a slow circle around Mack He flipped on his laser comn.

"It would look bad if I left you being the great guy i am and all so you can light that fire or I can get out of this fish and do it for you and you will not like me if I have to go get in there with you. I sing badly and have personal space issues."
 
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Sushi said:
_____The wreckage of Johnny's Saberfish continued to glare brightly as it shot forward on momentum, breaking into pieces right in front of Isabella. The cherry red monoeye of the enemy Zaku danced as a missile hurtled off the wing of her Saberfish, doing a slow corkscrew before a gut-wrenching reversal from the mobile suit pilot evaded the errant, long-range shot.

_____Isabella's wingmate was gone. There was nobody to cover her back as the red machine bobbed, twisted and weaved like a gnat bouncing around her canopy. As she tracked him with the pipper her fuel begun to dwindle, alerts flashing insistently on the main console.

_____An opportunity finally came to her when the red machine dipped below her nose and accelerated, hurtling past close enough for the wake of the Zaku's exhaust to rattle the floor panels. He could have been making a beeline for their carrier or setting up for the scissors. She couldn't know if the Zeke was running a tuned operating system, how fast it could reverse with a crazy enough pilot. An opportunity or a trap, either way...
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With a white knuckle grip on the flight stick, Isabella engaged in a elegant yet deadly dance with her opposing Red machine, her body taunt against her seat. Alarms filled her dashboard, warning that she was reaching critical fuel limit. Isabella dismissed them, she knew there was only a finite of time left but she would use every second available to try to slay this Red Bastard. If she couldn't kill him now, she would need to survive so one day she could gain vengeance for Johnny.

The Red Zaku dipped below for a brief moment, a perfect opportunity finally presented itself. Had this Ace just made a fatal mistake? Or was it bait for a trap? Nether the less Isabella couldn't let this chance pass her and she pounced like a predator. The sights settled on its back and she thumbed the trigger for the guns, raking it across its back, several impacts indicting good damage was achieved on her attack run.

However her fuel was now at the point of no return. She banked away and memorised every detail Red Mobile Suit to her mind. "See you in hell you Red bastard"
 
Seeing the Saberfish come up on her wing, Rhea opens a com channel to him, "I'll appreciate any help I can get Sabre 4-14. At least there's still some proper chivalry in here rather than what ever crap those pompous Side 3ers believe in. At the very worst, we'll have to flank Mack and haul him in."
 
Sushi said:
_____The battered Saberfish waggled its wingtips at Achilleia. It was part of a four-ship, the Saberfish leading two orange shuttles. "Hey hey, is that Spear 1-2 I see? Can't believe Team 3 is still intact! This is Ensign Carlyle from team one, but call me 'Heartbreaker.' Your buddies Burning and Allen found me poking for civies in the colony tube."

_____"Lieutenant, Burning here. It's good to see you again."

_____"Hey! Is that dumb brat kid still around? That simulator match didn't mean a thing!"

_____The chipper pilot raised her hand in a quick salute, smirking. "Look, Anemos: Trafalgar bailed with a belly full of evacuees, but we didn't feel like running just yet. Zeon chucklefucks are knuckle deep in our asses right now, so I wouldn't suggest turning around, either." She waggled her wingtips and the empty missile tubes riding atop the roots. "Winchester, as you can see, but got enough fuel to be a distraction, at least. Soooo... game plan?"
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Achilleia's reply was terse. "Wait one," she snapped before toggling over to Spear squadron net.

"Boss, Spear 1-2. I have them on comms, it's Team One. Winchester but full of beans and asking for orders. I'm going to use them as a decoy."

She switched back to the newcomers.

"Spear 1-2. I copy your sitrep, Heartbreaker. Good work. You'll form up on my wing, echelon forward in pairs, and we're going to take the fight to them. Max accel, one pass with guns. Don't get into a turning fight. Take the shot if you can get it and clear anything off the ass of anyone ahead of you. Just getting into position for a guns solution will do. I'll bring up the rear so don't slow down and don't start trying to turn with them or I will personally blow your teats off. We'll be the wedge to break their formation so the rest of the guys can open the door and get out. Copy?"

It was the most words she'd spoken this entire day. It felt like the most words she'd spoken at once in her entire lifetime. And in a way it was, because with those words she took on the weight of the responsibility for the lives of those she was ordering into the fire. Tactically she knew she had a sound plan - it made the most of what the Saberfish had, it was aggressive and took the initiative into their hands, and if everyone could tell their asses from their elbows it would turn into a three-axis version of the ancient Thach Weave.

But the fact that it was her orders now, that would impel these people into the coming storm of steel and flame....

How the hell does Rev do this?
 
Maion noticed himself following the diverging fighters as if he was doing so on instinct. He followed Robbins, Rhea, Isamu and Achilleia and immediately hailed them.

"What the hell are you doing?!"
 
Aliexster said:
Seeing the Saberfish come up on her wing, Rhea opens a com channel to him, "I'll appreciate any help I can get Sabre 4-14. At least there's still some proper chivalry in here rather than what ever crap those pompous Side 3ers believe in. At the very worst, we'll have to flank Mack and haul him in."
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" I'm no paladin. Protocol says we don't fly alone in a combat zone unless you land in a furball. We just survived one so until Johnny Zeon comes over to end us or we try to shoot the line one last time I'm on your wing."

Isamu kept one eye on the screen but the soup was limiting how well it was working. New blip moving. Thermal sig was Saber.
Hoshino Yumemi said:
Maion noticed himself following the diverging fighters as if he was doing so on instinct. He followed Robbins, Rhea, Isamu and Achilleia and immediately hailed them.

"What the hell are you doing?!"
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" Spear 3-10 is having potential technical issues. we're assessing if we have to escort his fish out of here." Technically what he said was true. They had no idea why he'd just stopped and it wasn't his call to say he'd cracked and gone dead stick or not."
@tankdrop24
He flipped back to Mack only. "Need you to answer the phone. Grunt that you're alive in there. Scream to leave you to hell alone, something. Loneliest place to be isn't space. It's your mind. Don't get trapped in your past."
 
"Well technically I wouldn't be alone, I'd be helping my wingman. Sort of a gray area," Rhea comments trying to defend her own brash behavior to Isamu.

Turning to Maion, Rhea was just about to snark back at him, when Isamu did it. She just adds in, "Pretty much what 4-14 said. Getting 3-10 out of here before we're swarmed by cyclops."

Switching over to the line over to Mack, Rhea practically shouts, "@tankdrop24 Repeating Spear 3-10, if you do not respond in the next 30 seconds, we are hauling your hulk back." She says getting into a position to push Mack's vehicle back towards the escape route.
 
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