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CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit | Wolf-04, AC-409 Mk. III Valkyrie] Attn: @P.C. Haring @Stegro88 @rae @Pierce @Any and All Wolves
[Show/Hide]
Open war in the void.

For as long as sentient life existed, there had always been war; tribe against tribe, civilizations against barbarian hordes, whole species against other species. War was nothing new – only the weapons and shades of blood changed. Violence begat violence, escalating feuds to grudges and grudges to vendettas, until the minds of reasoned and reasonable beings soured with the insanity of blood-lust. Empires rose to spread themselves across the stars, sword in hand, even in an age of technological wonder where resources were rendered nearly infinite. In an age that should have made war obsolete, it still lingered on. Talia thought she knew war; she’d studied it, of course, like all of her peers at the Academy. All those great, awful battles of the past – in all their multitudes – that stained the history of mankind red: the genocides, the purges, the pogroms and geopolitical upheavals, the massacres and the atrocities. The devastation mankind unleashed upon itself as well, which practically doomed the Earth and the human race to a slow, inevitable extinction, if not for Zefram Cochrane and the intervention of the Vulcans.

Even the Dominion War, for all its horror and loss, had captivated and inspired her. She had poured over every battle-report, every memoir, every first-hand account; every tale of heroism and sacrifice back-lit by conjured imagery of vast fleets tearing into each other: The tactical genius of Sisko, the stalwart resolve of Martok. The undeniable courage of every Peregrine crew…she thought she knew war – was prepared for it – but seventeen minutes into the Battle of the Triangle had taught Shadow more of war than she’d ever imagined possible.

It was a physical assault on the senses, even within the confines of the cockpit: weapons fire flashed and flared without pause, explosions, detonations, blazing impacts across hulls and shields – were everywhere. There was a constant stream of voices in her ears; mission ops, fellow pilots, the awkward snarls of their Klingon allies – more than once they had all overlapped to the point of gibberish – until someone managed to clear the coms for a few moments, only for the cycle to repeat, over and over. Her ship bucked and shuddered with every hit, sending a tactile shiver into her body, bone deep; she was well past her normal point of physical endurance, forced to dip into wells of stamina she never truly realized were there. The smell of her own sweat and hot, adrenaline-fear soaked breath permeated her nostrils – easily ignored in the face of survival – but undeniably there.

It was madness made manifest; violence on a scale no one could truly understand unless they experienced it. Her eyes couldn’t track the engagement fast enough. Anahi, her ship’s on-board computer, fed targets to Shadow’s HUDs faster than the pilot could cognitively recognize, through the shared tactical uplink with the Ranger and her fellow Wolves. Data streamed from every direction she looked, seared into her vision; the behemoth D’Deridex class warbirds in their dozens hung like mythological monsters of the void, dwarfing everything to unleash streams of brilliant emerald energy. Around them, the Klingon attack groups splintered off into squadrons of B’rel attackers, flanked by Vor’cha cruisers. Flanking them, in unpredictable waves, the smaller, agile Romulan Mogai warbirds struck with ruthless abandon to cripple and pick off stragglers by the score. Throughout the entire sphere of conflict, fighter-craft from both sides cloaked and de-cloaked in random engagements; whole squadrons broke off on bombing runs, others paired up, dueled, disengaged or were destroyed.

“Allah, there’s so many,” Shadow breathed out in a grimace as she rolled hard, trying to stay with Goldeneye. A second later, a deft sweep of her left hand blanked her HUDs. “Track visual only, tactical data overlay only,” she grunted aloud to Anahi, then yanked the stick back hard to invert her turn. Target-lock alarms squealed as her rear shields lit up under fire, but held. A glance up and behind revealed three Stalkers on her six, wheeling around in aggressive pursuit. “Three on my six Goldie, lets move,” she warned, then focused on their objective: one of three D’Deridex leviathans that were currently unloading on the Helmet. “Anahi, target selections primary alpha through charlie. Highlight soft targets,” Talia ordered, then keyed into the joint-squadron channel while she maneuvered for a hard-torp lock, while the Helmet fired back with scarlet lances of energy at her attackers. A steady, shrill tone sounded in her ears as the lock shifted green; Talia thumbed the trigger, launching two full sized quantums an instant behind her wingmate – all four tracked ahead to the starboard upper wing of the giant warbird as the pair of Valkyrie’s pulled up and rolled out of their run.

“Wolves, Shadow – tally on the Helmet, she’s under heavy fire. Three and Four are engaged, anyone else in range to assist?” The stars spun beyond her canopy, lit with a myriad of shades of green and fire. Far off to port, beyond the battle-line of massive Romulan ships, the Ranger fought on, cutting her way through towards the Helmet, the void ablaze around her in a cloud of PDC fire. Talia watched her shields light up on nearly all sides, enduring an unbelievable amount of punishment.

Talia leveled out on Goldeneye's wing, as the pair made ready for another torp run, as the D'Deridex answered with a hammering burst of disruptor fire. The Helmet can't take much more of this, she thought, eyes hardened with resolve as she got tone. "Ready when you are, Goldie," she announced, just as half a dozen Klingon Phantoms de-cloaked in formation beside them.

["Qa'plah!"], a voice roared, or maybe all of them, as they joined their fire into the attack.

OOC: Okay folks, here we have the big battle at the end of the Episode. This thread is intended to be told from the POV of the Wolves/other pilots only, however, if you would like to jump in and NPC a Romulan/Klingon pilot to mix things up and/or add drama to the scene, I think that would be pretty cool and welcome. So, ALL Wolves are welcome, and ALL writers are welcome too, so long as you stick to our POV (as a bunch of idiots doing really stupid things at really high velocities). Have fun ;)

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #1 –
[ Dominic Winters | Wolf 10 | Local Space | U.S.S Theurgy ATTN: @Dumedion @rae @Pierce @Stegro88 @P.C. Haring - All Wolves.


Flying in this battle, evading incoming energy weapons, and engaging targets at varying ranges with the tools he had at his disposal. The Phaser emitters on his wings fired at pursuing individuals who got onto Dom’s tail or tried to do so. This battle felt like he was back in the Dominion War. Klingons and Federation on one side and a technologically superior enemy on the other. In this case, it was the Romulans, their cloaking technology was second to none and their disruptors were not a weapon to underestimate. There was so much going on in the battlefield that he had switched his comms to his current squadron and coordinated with Theurgy’s different sections, Ranger, and Helmet. Everything else was fed through to one of the side displays.

He maintained a chillingly calm demeanour in the chaos of this battle, for his culture as far as he understood a battle like this would bring great honour to the warriors who fought in it. For victory was most certainly not guaranteed, and within a moment, a life could be snuffed like a candle in the wind from a stray energy blast or by being the unexpected target of a foe getting the tactical edge over you. 

Having been seperated from his pack by a swarm of Stalkers, Dom weaved around the wreckage of a Mogai while trying to track his way back when he got the call from Shadow. “Wolves, Shadow – tally on the Helmet, she’s under heavy fire. Three and Four are engaged, anyone else in range to assist?”

“Wolf-04 this is Wolf-10 I read you. Coming in hot from Starboard side of Helmet. Target in sight.”

Came his quick response as he dove out from the remains of the Mogai and crested over the dorsal section of the Helmet. The shields were ablaze with energy discharges from the assaulting D’deredix Warbird as it got utterly hammered by the enemy. He had a quick think about such a ship and from old simulations that he and his old crew had done on a hypothetical of taking down something this large.

“Wolf-10 to all. I have an idea. Target the engineering bay along the ventral base of the head. Target data will be coming. I have two hounds, when I drop one and wreck the shields, lay in torpedoes. All we need is one good hit to disrupt the Singularity and watch a D’deridex suck itself. I’ll be danger close on the pull out, so watch the aim!”

He plunged his fighter into a tight dive down the front of the warbird, passing briefly through its Cone of Vulnerability and narrowly avoiding a blast of disruptor fire while his phaser emitters delivered some inaccurate blasts against the face of the craft. As soon as he cleared the nose, Dom swung Wolf-10 around and deployed the Cannon. Its particle laser painting the target and firing pulse-phaser blasts while his computer transmitted the targeting telemetry towards the others. As soon as he was in range, Dom initiated his pull up and dropped the Hellhound at the same location. A spectacular explosion rocked the shields of the D’deridex Warbird and now, it was in the hands of Shadow, Goldeneye and their Klingon Allies to punch a torpedo through the severely weakened shields and into their engineering section.

If done right, it should cause a cascade failure that would disrupt the stability of the microsingularity and cause the ship to implode or explode.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #2 –
[Romulan Strike Craft | Dogfight Near the Triangle ] Attn: All Involved in Fighter Combat @P.C. Haring  @Stegro88 @rae  @Pierce @Dumedion @Krajin 

The burning wreckage of what had once been a wingmate spiraled past her canopy, the green aurora of a ruptured singularity core still flickering violently as it trailed into the void. The pilot swore under her breath in the clipped, guttural Romulan dialect of her home province, fingers tightening on the controls as her strike craft dove hard beneath the dorsal arc of a Federation Valkyrie.

*How were they this good?*

She had fought Andorians in skirmishes along the shattered borders of the Velorum sector, danced against Klingon raiders testing the nerves of the divided Empire. But these Theurgy bastards flew like predators—coordinated, brutal, fast. And unlike her own half-panicked wingmates, the Federation pilots didn’t just react—they *hunted.*

Her sensor grid flared with another contact loss. A Mogai-class wing support had just vanished in a pulse of light. She grimaced, banking starboard, trying to shake the lock the human pilot had on her. Plasma bursts flicked past her cockpit, lighting the narrow space in pulses of orange and white. A momentary break in the crossfire let her breathe again.

"Maintain squadron formation!" she barked into the encrypted combat net, but there was no answer from her flight leader. Just static and screams.

And yet, through it all, her targeting systems were a mess. Her lock-on sequences refused to hold—*jamming? no, too precise*—as if the Starfleet fighters were dancing one heartbeat ahead of her every attempt to fix a torpedo track. Her fists slammed into the side of her console in frustration.

"This should not be happening. We *outnumber* them!" she hissed.

But then… something even stranger.

Her HUD pinged a contact ahead—a Romulan shuttlecraft, one of the newer Peregrine-pattern retrofits—but instead of banking into the expected defensive arc, it fired. *At another Romulan vessel.*

"What in the Elements…?"

Her eyes darted across the tactical feed. Two, no, *three* more strike-craft were peeling away from their defensive screen and engaging the tail end of the carrier wing. Green disruptor fire lanced across the void, hitting *Romulan hulls.* Was it a malfunction? Sabotage?

Or something darker.

*Have they turned on us? Who gave that order?*

Her confusion clouded the moment. A warp-sheer ripple narrowly missed her port nacelle as a passing fighter spun through the wreckage of a broken Valravn. Her focus snapped back.

And then—*yes.*

Her targeting grid flared emerald green. A lock. Clean, stable, undeniable. A Federation fighter—angled just right, its electronic countermeasures lagging half a second too long. Her weapons primed automatically.

"Target acquired," she whispered, a slow smile spreading across her lips. Her finger hovered over the trigger. “Time to even the score.”

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #3 –
[ Lt. JG Tessa May Lance | Local Space | Wolf-03 - GoldenEye | Cockpit | Mk. III Valkyrie] Attn:
@P.C. Haring @Stegro88 @rae @Pierce @Dumedion @Krajin @Ellen Fitz [Show/Hide]

Tessa didn't know the firefight she was about to come into as she pierced the open space from the ship, into not-so-much open space after all. She cackled over the intercom as she giggled a maddening laugh. Her meniacal behavior kicked in as did the adrenaline through her veins. One of the original Wolves still flying onward into battle. Worse than the previous one already. Her mind raced as she saw target after target fly past her. Her own Valkyrie was feeling the whiplash of the turns she was subjecting it to. Too bad Scruffy wasn't here to see what she'd become.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the comms opened to Shadow, following close behind. Barrel rolls were something GoldenEye loved in battle. Plus, the Picard maneuver in one of these babies gave her a fun moment of now you see me, now you don't. Rarely done, but fun when survived through. Not that she planned to use that...yet.

"That there is Shadow! Try to keep up!" Lance saw the firefight hitting her partner, and she flipped through space, spiralling out of control to get out of the fight momentarily enough to draw the fire away from her, somewhat before launching directly behind Shadow's enemies. "I think I can, I think I can." She squealed as she fired micro-torpedoes at the enemies, hitting their thrusters, causing them to collide into a gloriously lit up fireball. Not to waste the occasion, she flew directly through it and shot past Shadow to intercept more Romulan vessels. One caught her eye in particular. Three D’deridex Warbird.

Tapping the controls, she activated her fleet comms for the Valkyries and no doubt the Klingons in cloak. "What say we do some towing? Tractor them to the Warbird that's about to implode. IF we get them close enough, the implosion will clear some added space for the Helmet. Give 'em some breathing room." She yelled as she started her run at them, firing a slew of torpedoes to draw their fire, shots clipping the rear shields of her own Valkyrie.

"Wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts!" She yelled proudly.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #4 –
[Lieutenant T'Varu | Interstellar Watch Centre | Starbase 343] @Pierce @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion @Krajin @Brutus @ob2lander961 @joshs1000 @P.C. Haring @Hans Applegate

The dark skinned Vulcan didn't seem to move at all as he perused the latest reports coming from the network of sensor arrays that dotted the Federation's borders with the Klingons and Romulans.  It was considered a polite fiction that allies didn't spy on each other, but both the Federation and the Klingon's hadn't really been too interested in dismantling the network of outposts and unmanned sensor probes that dotted the great void between the two powers.  At least the politics of the situation were not his concern, and the main monitoring of those information sources were more the responsibility of the staff on Starbase.  No. The concern of his watch staff was the information coming from the Romulan border since the news of the Thalaron explosion on Earth had flashed out to all corners of the Federation and even beyond.  The fighting that had broken out across the frontier had been sudden and sharp, helped in part by the intel from the Starbase's relays.  Several dozen Romulan vessels had already been destroyed in lightning lunges across the border.  If he were human, he'd have frowned since the conflict so far hadn't been an entirely one sided affair and the stellar map showed the locations of several Starfleet vessels that had gone missing and were presumed destroyed.

Any further musings were cut off as his console began to blink with a red outline.  Lieutenant T'Varu calmly placed his PADD down and took a moment to sip from his cup of tea.  The appearance of being unworried was part making sure everything remained calm.  It also gave time his watch crew to run their own analysis package.  He punched in his own combination of keys as the advanced computers on the starbase began scrubbing and analyzing the data as it flowed in.  "Sir!" the senor watch crewman called.   The Vulcan stood and looked towards the speaker.  "Report Chief Solven."  The Bolian didn't even break stride as he delivered his report. "Initial analysis indicates major fighting has broken out in the Triangle sir.  It looks like the whatever the Romulans did, they also appeared to have ticked off the Klingons as well.  Massive energy signatures consistent with disprutors and torpedoes used by both sides."  The Vulcan arched an inquisitive eye brow at this development.  As the humans said, things were getting out of hand. "I see.  Give the information you have so far and I'll compile a report.  Yeoman.  Call Commander Eri, Se-Vijura, and Captain Quensit.  Inform them that hostilities have broken out between the Klingons and Romulans."  Someone sucked in their breath.  The name of the Lieutenant Commander Eri, and Captain Quensit were not that much cause for concern in a situation like this since they were the Watch Centre's commander and the station commander.  Commander Se-Vijura though was Rear Admiral Elena Al-Tulan's chief of staff and she had operation control over most of the ships along the frontier.  By calling the Chief of Staff, a lowly watch shift leader could possibly have started the process to move many millions of mega tonnes of Starfleet combat power into a trouble spot, and began putting thousands of lives on the line.

After a brief discussion, a decision was soon reached.  The fleet on the Romulan border would concentrate for action, but the first piece was already on the way as USS Warspite acknowledged its orders to head to the Triangle and conduct preliminary reconnaissance in advance of more vessels that would gather in a neighbouring system.

[Chief Petty Office Dominic Lau | Romulan Runabout | The Triangle]

It was not a sight he thought he'd have to see again in his life time.  Space flashed with weapons fire and explosions.  Shields flared and hulls shattered under the onslaught.  His serious features became more menacing as a severe frown gripped his mouth. His features were stone still as his mind brought forth images from USS Trident when it had fought to break through to Deep Space Nine and had been wrecked in the process.  He'd received a commendation for his rescue actions that day, but like all other heroes, he didn't feel like he'd done anything special to deserve recognition.

He could feel other gathering around him as they stared out the viewport.  A few small craft staying out of the way weren't worth notice in the titanic struggle going on.  He could feel the presence of his dangerous and beautiful tech expert, Petty Office Klaudia Cheung next to him.  "My god."  It was an apt exclamation.  "Are we headed into that?"  The team chief nodded.  "I don't know where yet, but where ever it is, it's not going to be good."  He paused for a moment before tearing his eyes away from the spectacle in front of him and gestured at the display.  "It took a moment for me to recognize what I was seeing, but it looks like chaos out there.  Obviously Theurgy and the Klingons are firing on some Romulans, but Romulans are also firing on other Romulans.  It's total chaos."  The Asian woman inhaled at the revelation of the situation.  Nobody was sure who was shooting at whom anymore.  "See if you can hail Theurgy and let them know we're in system.  Let them know we're here to assist, wherever we can."

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #5 –
[LT CMDR Thomas “Razor” Ravon | Wolf-05 | Cockpit | Valkyrie | Local Space] Attn: @rae  @Pierce  @Dumedion  @Stegro88  @Havenborn  @Eden  @Krajin  @P.C. Haring  @ob2lander961  @Dree

“Come on Tom let’s not die now”, Razor mumbled to himself as he dodged about the space near Theurgy, phasers and disruptors lighting his canopy.

A rush of Romulan fighters had separated him from his wingman so he was now using every trick in the book to get away and rejoin the other Wolves. The chaos of the space around him actually worked to his advantage as he dived for Ranger, dodging a piece of outer hull that had been blown off, the shields had been compromised, until he was skimming along the dorsal side of the ship. He then banked and rolled under the starboard upper nacelle, as he passed near the mouth of the Fighter Bay then made a high-G turn right to follow the underside of the port upper nacelle. His HUD was momentarily clear of enemies in his direct vicinity, allowing him to regroup and observe the chaotic battlefield from his position and determine where best he could assist.

Shadow’s voice rang out in his ear calling for help to defend Helmet and he jerked his stick left to put him on a course that would link up with the primary wing. He dived under a damaged and drifting Romulan D’Deridex to Ranger’s port, completely unaware of the other incoming Romulan ship attacking from above.

Suddenly his cockpit was illuminated by a great flash and then his view ahead was filled with raining pieces of large debris.

[FUCK!] he shouted, his finger accidentally hitting the transmit button as he gripped his stick and banked hard right to avoid a massive chunk of hull seemingly falling out of the sky in front of him.

The maneuver was only a temporary reprieve as suddenly all the debris and his own craft seemed to be moving back towards the crippled Romulan warship. The singularity core! He aimed the nose of his craft directly away from the D’Deridex and punched the throttle. Tiny particles of debris being sucked back into the ship pattered against his canopy like hail.

Then another even brighter flash followed by a shockwave that struck Razor’s fighter. The force was enough to sling him bodily in his harness and strike the canopy hard enough that even his helmet couldn’t fully protect him.

Everything went white and his ears rang.

Am I dead?

Luckily he was only out for a few moments as he blearily recovered. The cockpit was wrecked, the force of the impact had dislodged panels and where his helmet had struck the canopy was shattered and a hiss of air rushing out of a tiny hole. Alarms were blaring and wrestled with a tumbling craft. He had no readings from his gauges, the LCARS system was down apart from a couple of hard coded interface buttons. The tumble got worse and he could feel himself starting to slip into unconsciousness once more as streaks of light filled his tunnelling vision.

His years of experience kicked in and without thinking he reached out and pressed a button, “L3-AUX”; immediately the LCARS restored itself and his stick inputs dramatically started to have an effect. Using his thrusters he stabilized the craft and tried to figure out where he was. No Romulan fighters nearby but he was surrounded in debris of the destroyed D’Deridex, he could see Theurgy fighting some kilometers distant. The Valkyrie’s systems were fried though, impulse was out of action which meant fine maneuvers were out too, but he could still fly.

[Squadron, Razor, I’ve been hit, my systems are toast, I’m heading in for an oil change], Razor said calmly, though his heavy breathing would no doubt be evident across the comms. He was confident though that perhaps the mechanics could get the tub back into combat condition.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #6 –
[Lt. Reggie "Gemini" Suder | Wolf-13 | Cockpit | Valkyrie | Local Space] Attn:  @rae‍  @Pierce‍  @Dumedion‍  @Stegro88‍  @Havenborn‍  @Eden‍  @Krajin‍  @ob2lander961‍ @Dree‍  @joshs1000‍ 


The world exploded around her as Reggie fought to get her bearings.  They hadn’t been in the sky for more than five minutes as it was, and already this was proving to be one of the most intense battles she’d fought.    Razor had already called in that he had to pit and for as good as the Wolves were giving, they were taking their own pounding.

Tally three bandits turning toward Helmet.  Intercepting.

Reggie banked to port, pulling in behind the three attacking Romulan fighters.  To her right, Wraith stayed on her wing in perfect formation.  The Romulans either didn’t notice or didn’t care enough to evade.

Their mistake.

She opened fire, leading first with her phasers until they punched through the shields.  Switching to her railguns to finish the first fighter off, Athen redirected their phaser fire to the second stalker.  The third Stalker tried to break formation but turned directly into Logan’s line of fire and within seconds the three Stalkers were little more the debris.

The ship rocked from behind, throwing her off her trajectory.

“Fuck!”

It was a near miss but she pulled the controls back, narrowly avoiding a collision with Wraith as he crossed over her and the two split off to regroup.  As they came around a pair of Romulan Interceptors bore down towards them, the lead ship firing a plasma torpedo directly towards her.  Instinct took her and she rolled to starboard and dove as the ballistic weapon passed behind her

They’re turning to pursue.

Sure as shit, the interceptors had broken formation, one chasing her, the other going after Wraith.  She wasn’t sure what she and her wingman had done to attract such attention, but she was certain of one thing.

Now it was a fucking party.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #7 –
[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Wolf-01 | Valkyrie | Somewhere in this giant fucking space battle ] Attn: @P.C. Haring @Pierce @Dumedion @Stegro88 @Eden @Krajin @ob2lander961 @joshs1000 @RyeTanker @Ellen Fitz
[Show/Hide]
If any of the Romulan fighters bothered to look out their windows, they would have noticed that one of the Valkyries looked different than the others, the hull marked in vibrant colors. In the rare seconds when the ship stood still before leaping back into the action, the painting would have become clear. A beautiful dark-haired woman climbing out of a coffin.

Like death herself was coming out to enter the fray.

That had not been the artists’ intentions. But they’d painted it on his ship, so Janus could make up whatever fantasy suited him at the moment. Besides, he’d just gotten dinged by a piece of debris that had slipped through right as he’d remodulated his shields, and the painting was probably damaged anyway. For some reason, that bothered him more than any potential damage to his Valkyrie.

Like everything else that wasn’t relevant to the battle at hand, he pushed the worry away, placing the thought in the back of his mind with everything else that was relegated to after.

After the alert of a target lock, and the quick pulse of the starboard thrusters that flipped the Valkyrie neatly over end, breaking the narrow field of Romulan disruptors.

After another flip, so quick and violent that the inertial dampeners couldn’t fully mitigate it, gravitational forces pushing him hard into the seat as he dove, passing so close to his attacker that their shields sparked with a flash of light as they touched.

After the short, brutal chase through the combat zone, and another target lock – his, this time – that was not broken.

After the Valkyrie’s velocity took him right through another debris field, that had been a fully functioning fighter just seconds before.

“We have got to find a way to see these fuckers coming. Starting to feel like a high-speed haunted house.” He’d long since lost count of the number of times the Romulans had jump-scared him, decloaking practically on top of him. The only reason they’d survived this long was the hair trigger response time Starfleet selected for and trained in all their fighter pilots.

Before he had time to catch his breath, another dog fight erupted. He was dodging disruptor hits when Shadow’s call for assistance came through. Janus was flying without a wingman today – they’d lost Ghost, when? Only yesterday? – and it was moments like this when he sorely needed a partner to set up a shot while he led the enemy on a merry chase. There weren’t enough people left, so he was making do. It slowed him down though, and by the time he had an opening, there were already enough wolves in route to protect the Helmet.

“Wolves, Janus. Cover Razor as he limps back to the—” he cut off with a grunt, yanking the ship into a dive with such force that he got a warning on the HUD for potential damage to the throttle, narrowly avoiding a Stalker that had decloaked right in front of him. He wondered if the Romulan had decloaked in a panic to prevent a head-on collision.

“—Back to the bay.” He cut the channel immediately, trusting the squadron to do what they could. He had other things to do. He spun the Valkyrie around again to engage, but the other ship was already gone. This was getting ridiculous.

“Theurgy, Janus. Thea, my holographic beauty, really need a touch of genius and your buxom sensors to break through these Romulan cloaks.”

[You always become more flirtatious with me when in combat. Is there a reason for that?] The ship’s AI responded almost immediately. He wondered how many things she was doing simultaneously, and envied her.

“Habit.” Back in the Peregrine days, Janus and his original RIO had always used increasingly insane terms of endearment for each other as mid-combat stress relief. His next RIO, in the earlier models of Valkyrie, had hated the practice, which had only served as encouragement for him to continue. The Valkyrie Mark III didn’t have a RIO, the backseat functions having been taken over by the onboard computer. But programming and perfecting that system had meant months of work with Thea in his ear, which led to him unofficially giving her the role. Janus had sworn to never have an RIO again, but Thea was the exception. She never got tired, and was never physically in the ship. Basically perfect. “Answer the question.”

[Processing.]

“Take your sweet time darling, I love getting beat up.” But Thea had already cut the channel. Good for her. He’d hear back when she had something. Until then…

His sensors lit with an enemy contact, at an acceptable distance for once.

Science had never been his strong suit. Not as a child, not at the academy, and certainly not now. But he’d also never been one to twiddle his thumbs and wait for the blue shirts when he could bash together a workaround of his own. The Stalkers were dangerous because Starfleet had little to no knowledge of them. Not enough to build a working training sim, not enough to know where the weak points were, not enough to break through the cloak with a Valkyrie’s sensors. The ship was surely soaking up sensor data today, but he could do one better.

What Janus did excel at were precision strikes, even in high speed, close quarters combat. Sometimes a troubled youth came in handy, and as an ensign he’d spent nearly all his time in the holodeck learning non-lethal methods of disabling enemy fighters, torn between loyalty to Starfleet and a firm belief that the Maquis were right.

Admittedly, it would be a bit harder here, since he didn’t have schematics to choose targets from. But on the upside, there seemed to be plenty of Stalkers to practice on, and he couldn’t give less of a shit if the pilot survived or not.

They were getting a new chief of the deck. What better way to ingratiate himself than bringing back a souvenir?

OOC: Don't actually help Razor, Josh already has a plan.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #8 –
*OOC - be advised, the following dialogue occurs in Klingon, but I'm just too lazy to translate
[Colonel Hauq | IKS Bortas | Triangle Battlezone] Attn: @Ellen Fitz @rae @RyeTanker @Havenborn @Stegro88 @P.C. Haring @Eden @ob2lander961 @Pierce @Krajin @joshs1000 @Hans Applegate @Dree @anyone else I missed (sorry)

The void was aflame.

From the command deck of the mighty Bortas, flagship of the armada brought to bear against the Praetor's madness, Hauq looked upon the tactical display rendered in ever-shifting screeds of data beside the man he had sworn a blood oath to defend: Chancellor Martok. In the crimson light of combat, the three-dimensional display cast Martok's features in contrasting shadows; the lines of age and war upon his bearded face set in grim determination, almost sinister in appearance. Around them, the cacophony of war never abated: the hull shook under fire, orders were growled and shouted, answered in kind. Warriors of all stations relayed status, damage reports, engagements and curses upon the enemy.

Martok shook his head at what they were witnessing, his eye narrowed in contempt. "This is taking too long," a meaty hand waved at the display, then punched down into the frame as a fist. "I want these cowards wiped from the stars, now! No quarter! This ends today, by Kahless' balls, I swear it!"

Hauq frowned at the display, resting his own knuckled fists against the console to lean closer to the Chancellor; his words spoken carefully, for no other. He had consistently served as the Chancellor's blood-ward and conscience over the years, and had argued restraint against the more instinctual nature of their blood-thirsty ruthlessness. "Listen to yourself, and the path you advocate," the Colonel began, but was silenced by a hissed growl of dismissal as Martok met his eyes.

"I will not relent. Too long have we suffered these fools' influence - too many times the bastards have threatened our people with their idiotic arrogance and delusions of superiority. Look at them! Look! Witness the damnation they brought upon themselves, with their endless schemes. Bah - it ends today, Colonel."

Hauq was unbowed. "What we do today will be felt and endured by our children's children, Chancellor."

Martok grunted, then shook his head again after a brief moment. "Victory is all that matters, my friend," he replied, his tone subdued and reflective. "Never without regret, or shame, but the victor may have a chance to atone for the atrocities committed to achieve that end. The vanquished hold no such opportunity."

Hauq nodded at the words, then lowered his eyes back to the display. "What I see tells me the Romulan's unity is fractured, its faith in its leaders eroding by the minute," they both braced then, as the flagship shook around them under a particularly heavy assault. "Cut the head from the snake, and the body dies," he continued with a gesture. "End this, before it truly becomes a massacre the entire quadrant will lay before our feet." 

Martok bared his fangs, as his one eye glared at the man he both valued and trusted among one of his finest officers. "You really are a pain in my balls, Colonel," the Chancellor grunted then, before turning to speak over his shoulder to the command crew. "General - new priority tasking - find that arrogant cunt Donatra. I want her head mounted in the Hall of Trophies on the Homeworld before supper."

[Meanwhile...]

[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit | Wolf-04, AC-409 Mk. III Valkyrie]

Thirty minutes into the fight.

Shadow acknowledged Atlas with an audible blip over comms, too busy straining under a high-g turn to speak. The massive D’Deridex highlighted on her HUD, twisting off to starboard in the vast melee of capitol ship engagements, trading fire with several Klingon cruisers and other Romulan warships simultaneously. None of that was really relevant in the moment, however, as Talia shook her head at Tessa’s audacious plan, while she struggled to keep up with her eccentric wingman.

“That’s the craziest shit I’ve ever –“ the pilot hissed to herself but abandoned the sentiment altogether when she was forced to evade a barrage of emerald fire from behind: another flight of Stalkers, or perhaps the same ones, were still chasing her tail. Nimble little bastards, she grunted, then rolled hard to port and followed as Goldie dove between the upper and dorsal hull of a disabled D’Deridex, skimming the emerald hull as it erupted in blasts of green fire around her, while her own fire lanced out from the angled strips along the rear of the Valkyrie.

“Alert: rear weapons array energy reserve at forty percent,” Anahi droned.

Talia’s left hand darted from the throttle assembly to her Ops console and keyed in a rapid energy transfer, pulling power from the auxiliary capacitors to boost weapons without taking her eyes off the HUD; too little, too late, however. The weapons lock flickered grey, which meant the Stalkers had cloaked.

Shadow didn’t really have time to complain, though, as the pair of fighters soared through the other end of the wreck, then corkscrewed up and over to starboard. A blue-green tendril of energy materialized from Goldie’s bird: a tractor-beam, latched onto the hulk behind them. Lacking adequate energy, Shadow shook her head and keyed the channel to open. “Look Goldie, I’m all for unconventional tactics, but you do realize the odds of actually aiming that thing in the right direction are incredibly –“

A series of bone-jarring explosions interrupted the lecture. Sparks flew throughout Talia’s cockpit as she was thrown to the side. Every control interface snapped with glitched, incoherent data streams as she struggled to regain control. “Four, defending,” she called out and slammed her fist into the ecm/flare command and punched the throttle up to full. The void around Talia’s fighter filled with flares and chaff while the bird itself twisted into a loose corkscrew then arched into a tight turn; a standard evasive tactic - muscle memory for any pilot. Despite her reaction speed, a second torpedo detonated just outside Talia's shield envelope – close enough to hurt, but not enough to finish the job. Still, the impact rocked the pilot’s body with enough force to nearly knock the wind from her lungs.

Panting with effort, Talia craned her neck over a shoulder, searching for a visual. Tessa was gone; either engaged with Atlas’ run or dealing with her own battles. All she could see was the shadowed hull behind her, backlit by a storm of green fire, all of it aimed at her.

You and me then, asshole.

Talia snapped the stick back to port, dropped speed and banked for three seconds, then reversed the turn and accelerated. The Stalker followed, firing in a ceaseless torrent – but it flipped itself over mid-turn and held range, easily out-maneuvering Shadow’s evasive. Talia’s shields screamed under the assault but held, as instinct and survival forced her hand. For the first time in her life, everything in her mind blanked; every standard procedure, every maneuver, every limitation placed on pilot and machine based on design and research...

The Valkyrie’s hull groaned as its engines burned white-hot and flipped itself vertically. Talia fired her primary weapons on a cyclic manual pattern as she killed thrust and drifted on inertia, transferring energy from her drives to reinforce shields. “Open wide, baby,” the pilot grunted and loosed two pairs of micro-torps, then opened up with her railgun-turrets and pulse phasers. The Stalker attempted to evade at nearly the same time, pulling up and over the barrage, but wasn’t fast enough to evade the torps. Both sets struck it’s belly in a dual explosion of blue-white fire, leaving it wreathed in semi-transparent wisps of emerald lightning; with its shields shredded to tattered dreams of cohesion, less than a second later, the twin-streamed onslaught of 30mm Osmiridium shells raked across its naked hull from nose to stern and shredded it apart.
 
Talia didn’t waste time to glory in her kill, or even cognitively recognize it; her attention turned to the hundreds of other engagements in the AO – then punched her throttle back up to full to re-engage. A blinding flash stole her sight, even as her helm display dimmed to compensate. Above her, at some range but well within visual, a headless D’Deridex split open, its hull still enduring a merciless barrage of fire. Talia watched as a cascade of explosions rent it’s hull from within, then flinched her eyes away as the core of the crippled cruiser flared. Her helm filled with static-flushed voices, several overlapping each other…

But she recognized one.

Razor, Talia’s eyes narrowed. They hadn’t met under the best circumstances, but none of that mattered now.
 
“Anahi, vector on Razor’s ident, main HUD,” Shadow paused, then opened the squadron channel to answer Janus. “Lead, Four – moving to intercept,” then she tagged Goldie to regroup as her eyes searched for her signal in the madness. No joy. “Four to Three, I’m going after Razor – try not to do anything too crazy in the meantime,” Talia smirked, despite it all.

That amusement ended when she saw the shape of Razor’s fighter, however, as it struggled to clear a massive debris cloud, limping outbound for safety. Talia checked her navigation telemetry and power systems, thumping her hand against the side of her helm to try to clear the constant static screeching across coms. She strained to understand but couldn’t make out much.  “Fuck me, not again,” she grunted, then abandoned the effort all together as even more fire forced her to evade.

A glance behind revealed the source: two Romulan warbirds, Mogai-class, were trying to bracket her in place with sustained volleys of disruptor fire. Behind them, Talia watched as three flights of Stalkers shimmied out of visual.

Oh, hell no. If she was going out, she’d go out fighting – not running. By this point, it would take a miracle for them to make it out of this alive, anyway. Shadow grit her teeth in a grimace and banked hard into an attack angle, just as the flanking Warbird came under direct assault by a trio of Klingon bird-of-prey. Once her HUD flashed from red to yellow, then green, Talia added her fire to the Klingons; streaks of percussive fireballs, followed by a barrage of micro-torps. Her fighter raked across the lead Warbird’s shields as her assault blistered it’s skin in hazes of white-green crackling energy, weaving between emerald arcs of fire.

That’s the first pass. Let’s see how many I can get, she grunted, then opened comms to the rest of the squadron, after a glance at the fighter’s remaining munitions. She’d have to re-arm soon, unless someone, somehow, managed to end this insanity.  “Wolf Four in the blind: coms are intermittent, and I am heavily engaged. I can’t get to Razor – repeat – I can’t get to Razor.”

Suddenly a duo of Valravn fighters streaked vertically through her flight path, followed by a trio of Stalkers. Talia couldn’t pursue, but fired off a snapshot of phaser fire at the Romulan fighters anyway in the hope that it would force them off-pursuit. She couldn’t hang around to verify either, as the stars wheeled and she began another attack run.It didn’t matter who was flying the Ravyn’s – they were all Wolves – but in the back of her mind, Shadow hoped it was Dixiebee, just to give the loudmouth shit about saving her big ass later.

In the meantime, Talia flew her heart out - and held to hope that somehow soon that miracle would arrive to save them all.

OOC - excellent additions so far. To the wider extent, beyond the individual fighter engagements, in order to add some outside context: at this point, the capital ship engagements are not going well for the Romulans. The Klingons are now actively hunting for Donatra's flagship, too. What response this provokes from the green-bloods I leave to another to decide, but I'm sure it wont be good for any of us.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #9 –
[LT CMDR Thomas “Razor” Ravon | Wolf-05 | Cockpit | Valkyrie | Local Space] Attn: @rae  @Pierce  @Dumedion  @Stegro88  @Havenborn  @Eden  @Krajin  @P.C. Haring  @ob2lander961  @Dree @Nesota Kynnovan

The tub was still flying, that’s all he could say, but without impulse or primary thrusters it was like he had gone from driving a premium hover sportscar to a bicycle and now he had to ride that bicycle through though a busy intersection to a garage that was constantly moving away and jumping all over the place. He’s been in worse situations, or at least that is what he told himself.

The battle appeared to be shaping up to his port side and without his primary HUD he was forced to work on visual sightings of nearby ships and debris. The Theurgy fighters stood out with their tarnished but still smart white Starfleet color scheme, apart from Janus who he briefly glimpsed with his extensive nose art. The Romulans and Klingons however were a matter worse, dark browns and greens that seemed to pop in and out of existence, not due to any cloaks but simply the fact that the colors blended into the surrounding space. For the moment they seemed to be unaware of the limping fighter, but this was not a guarantee, especially as Razor got closer to Theurgy’s Ranger, herself under heavy fire.

Suddenly his systems started to flicker, and his comms went in and out, he momentarily could hear Shadow, but the signal was too broken up to discern what she was saying. He didn’t need his old Valkyrie to conk out on him, not now, so he reached down to a isolinear panel by his right leg and, through years of memorizing, pinched and pulled out the EPS-100K Overload chip. This was designed to regulate the power flow from the primary reactor, pulling it normally would fry his systems, but since the reactor was damaged and he was only on batteries it was acting more of a hindrance than a help. The power was in a sense “dirty” and the overload system kept opening and closing the circuit in response, now with the chip gone nothing was preventing the power, which still fluctuated, from reaching what he needed to fly and communicate.

The comms returned to normal, though still with some sort of sporadic issue, most likely caused by the radiation from the imposed singularity, but it was enough. His HUD even came back online to a limited degree, but thrust was still low and the fighter’s handling felt like a clapped out freighter, not a high-performance piece of precision engineering.

[Razor to squadron, I’m still here, she’s flying like a brick, but I’ll be fine, you bag a few extra for me and I’ll have some Raktajino waiting for you when you get back!]

He chuckled to himself, though this false bravado did not help untangle the knot that was forming in his stomach as he felt like he was no closer to Theurgy. As he continued his voyage, he suddenly heard a voice he was unfamiliar with come over the comms, indicated to be from Theurgy.

[This is Mission Ops to any available fighters in the area…be advised, we have a large number of hostile shuttlecraft inbound to our location and are in need of assistance.]

Damn, must be some sort of boarding action, Razor thought to himself. The thought had barely left his head when all the screens and panels in his Valkyrie went dark and everything went quiet.

“Shit”, he murmured as he tapped on several panels. He reached down and adjusted several other isolinear chips but nothing worked, his Valkyrie was dead. Inwardly he cursed himself for removing the overload prevention chip, no doubt the failing reactor spiked and fried everything. He wouldn’t know until he got tractored in and that kzinti deck chief took a look at it.

“Well guess it’s time to wait.”

Per procedure he checked his suit’s systems on his forearm display, all nominal with plenty of air for up to twenty hours, plenty of time for the Romulans to get whooped and Theurgy to pick him back up. Now all he could do was sit patiently and drift at his previous speed through the battlefield, other than a large piece of D’Deridex that he was about to pass under, there were no obstacles he needed to worry about. He stared patiently out the unshattered side of his canopy to see what little of the battle he could see, most of it was now blocked by wreckage. He hummed quietly to himself.

Then something caught the corner of his eye and he turned his head just in time to see a Romulan fighter, not just any Romulan fighter but one of the ones that were on their side, based on the distinctive marking they had painted on it. Maybe they can give me a tow, he thought to himself, and reached up to tap his suit’s communicator, only to freeze, his gut realizing before his brain that this supposed friend was in an attack run. That’s when he saw the green glint emerge from the bottom of the Romulan fighter, a torpedo!

His hands reacted immediately, he pulled the handle to blow the canopy away, but rather hit the ejection seat lever, he popped his harness off and pushed with all his might with his legs onto the cockpit floor to propel himself out. He instinctually knew thanks to his honed situational awareness that if he had used the ejector he would have been shot straight into the debris above him and had his neck broken. He watched in what felt like slow motion as the plasma torpedo streaked closer until it disappeared down below his visor. He slammed his eyes shut and moments later felt small bits of stuff hitting his suit then what felt like a shovel to the back that knocked the wind out of him.

[Bridge | Deck 1 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy]

Jaya’s chaotic screen momentarily lit up with a new blip, Razor’s intermittent transponder signal had been on track bearing to Ranger but had gone dark, replaced now with a stationary search and rescue ping indicating that Razor had left his fighter. The ping however then just as quickly disappeared. Razor should have activated his personal transponder for the SAR teams to find him but instead there was nothing but an empty space on the screen.

[In Space]

Razor gasped for air as he worked to regain his senses, he was once again tumbling, briefly catching glimpses of the fiery debris that was his Valkyrie streaking off in every direction.

The looming shape of something jagged and metal caught his eye and he reached for it. His hand caught something, his momentum causing him to swing around and smack into a hard surface, stunning him. He had stopped though at least.

It took Razor a few seconds to catch his breath and figure out where he was. He was surrounded by jagged burned metal, bits of pipes, conduit, whisps of opti-cable waving like tentacles. It was debris from the destroyed Romulan D’Deridex. Looking to his left, Razor spotted remnants of a corridor, he didn’t want to be caught by the Romulans and captured, he’d keep his transponder off for now, so made his way along the wrecked hull until he reached the jagged opening of the corridor. He checked his forearm to activate the suit’s magnet boots but found that it was smashed and non-functional. Today is just not my day.

Carefully he climbed into the corridor and oriented himself so that his feet were facing the floor, the mangled interior was dimly lit by a couple of still functioning emergency lights, though they flickered as their power source slowly died. Gripping wall panels and whatever he could hold, Razor pulled himself through. It was eerie, and based on the smears of green blood, had been occupied at the time of the destruction, hopefully the poor bastards died quickly.

His breathing was labored but he didn’t pay it too much mind. A flash of light at the end of the corridor caught his attention and he made his way to it. It wasn’t long before he emerged into another gaping maw of jagged steel, but the sight that greeted him nearly stole his breath.

As if framed like a canvas, the entire battle that he was only able to get glimpses from while in his cramped cockpit was laid out before him in a grand display. Theurgy, her two vectors in the middle duking it out with Romulan warships, great Klingon birds-of-prey swooping about, green streaks of disruptor fire, orange beams of phasers arced hither and yawn. Razor could even see the occasional glimpse of his fellow Wolves running circles around their enemy counterparts. What was revealed was his fighter’s destruction was no accident as the ships he had thought were on their side were now taking turns pounding away at Theurgy and the Klingons in addition to their own countrymen.

The awe of the splendid sight of battle, gave way to worry, his friends were now outnumbered. But there was nothing he could do about it now. Out of breath he maneuvered himself into a position to keep his body propped up in such a way he wouldn’t have to physically keep his body still and not float off the debris.

Nothing to do but enjoy the view.


OOC:

-Razor is going to die but that won’t be until the end of the battle, for now he will just silently watch as his suit slowly loses oxygen. I will write his final post before we close it out.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #10 –
[ Dominic Winters | Wolf 10 | Local Space | U.S.S Theurgy ATTN: @Dumedion @rae @Pierce @Stegro88 @P.C. Haring - All Wolves.

A torpedo from one of the wolves punched through the hull of the D'deredix Warbird's engineering section and detonated as Atlas pulled away. The damage ruptured multiple stabilization coils and cracked the casing of the singularity containment unit, which sent the micro-blackhole into overdrive as it began to eat everything. It's gravitational pull began to pull in chunks of the ship as powerful gravitational forces began to assert themselves in a short distance around the entire ship. Catching Atlas' fighter in the wake and began to pull him in. Chunks of the warbird broke off and got consumed in the sickly emerald green of the micro-black hole as fires raged nearby, their light being warped by the forces at work.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck." He cursed as Atlas struggled to pull the ship out directly. Glancing to his left and right, Atlas grinned and turned his ship to ride around the temporary event horizon of the singularity, wielding its gravitational force to perform an aggressive and insane slingshot out from it. Ducking and weaving through the wreckage being torn off he wove between the gap of engineering and the secondary hull of the ship as his speed picked up as he whipped around and slingshot himself off towards another D'deredix warbird. The vessel behind him crumpled and collapsed in on the black hole, which itself fizzled out after consuming some unfortunate stalker fighters and the majority of the warbird.

The gravitational wake left behind from the Singularity might help any sensors pick up on annoying stalkers locally at least. “Wolf Four in the blind: coms are intermittent, and I am heavily engaged. I can’t get to Razor – repeat – I can’t get to Razor.” came the comms from Shadow. Atlas pushed the nose of his ship down and pulled a hard 180 turn and burned sky. One hand danced across the console to scan for Razor's fighter but the transponder had gone dark and his emergency unit didn't come online, it seemed. People he had not met were dying out here, and at this point they were severely outnumbered. Atlas' ears flattened as cold anger simmered below the surface. "Wolf-10 to all, Razor's transponder has gone dark. Unable to locate." He pulled another tight turn to head for the shuttles coming for the Helmet. Atlas pushed to engage, ducking and weaving to be a harder target as a Stalker got on his tail in the hopes of claiming the hard target before he got a shot off. Unfortunately for them, Atlas managed to get a lock on the Shuttles and fired off a Quantum torpedo off the rack and peeled off as the Stalker behind him fired several bursts of disruptor fire at him, causing his rear shields to flare and phaser arrays to retaliate.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #11 –
[ Lt. JG Tessa May Lance | Local Space | Wolf-03 - GoldenEye | Cockpit | Mk. III Valkyrie] Attn:
@P.C. Haring @Stegro88 @rae @Pierce @Dumedion @Krajin @Ellen Fitz [Show/Hide]

Spiraling back into view, Tessa saw Shadow and Atlas on her radar. Both engaged in some heavy messes. She cackled at Atlas, pulling off a pretty phenomenal slingshot effect around the singularity. "Great moves Atlas! Hahaha!" She only wished she'd thought of that crazy move first.

That was when she heard the comms chirping with static intermittently. There's something about Razor being missing in this mess, but she wasn't sure if he was dead yet or not. Nevertheless, she had other things to attend to. "Holy smokes, is this a crazy fight! I miss this!"

Her own Valkyrie spun out of control as she pulled in some crazy-eighths with her ship circling the Romulan scout vessels while weaving between the Romulan D'deredix wingspans since she was a fly in the system. "Come and get me boys, plenty of ol' Tessa here to give you something you need!" She smirked, knowing the connotations of the verbiage, but didn't care. She managed to get two of the scouts following on her six when she pulled the Picard maneuver out and pretended to go to warp, leaving the visual and ending up behind them.

"Got a present for you boys. Hope you like it up the tailpipe!" She yelled as she fired torpedoes into the aft engines of the scouts, causing them to explode in the rear. The light was brilliant as she sped past them and up and around. The two Romulan scout vessels collided in a magnificent display of destruction. Something that was a signature move of Tessa's.

"This is GoldenEye coming around for another spin. Anyone else need assistance?" She inquired. Something caught her eye on the screen that was odd. Between random shimmers in the sensors, she could have sworn she saw a Constitution II Class vessel off in the distance. Continuing to speed by, she shook her head and focused on the battle at hand.

"How you holdin' up Shadow?"

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #12 –
[ Ens. Via "DixeBee" Wix | Cockpit | Wolf-16 | Triangle ] Attn: The Birds
[Show/Hide]

It was absolute chaos.

Explosions, sudden sensor contacts, zips and zooms, and pure utter violence. Via was human; it wasn't going to be easy to process the sheer amount of information flooding her eyes. Fortunately, she wouldn't have to alone.

"Fighter's decloaking 6 o'clock!!" Charles yelled as he expertly watched his sensors to make sense of the battle space. Via having done the drills for the exact bogey approach hundreds of times in the Academy, and now in real operations, quickly through sheer instinct, reacted with her fighter to engage the threat. It pulled her away from her formation, leaving her alone for now. Had they had a full squadron, the young pilot would've had a wingman to help cover for her. Now she had to rely on skill and skill alone...and a bit of luck.

Two shots in quick succession from her forward phasers impacted one of the Stalkers and caused the other one to veer off. The impact managed to hit a Romulan equivalent of an EPS relay, sending the fighter straight into flames, which would be overtaken by an unstable micro singularity.

Pushing the attack, Via pushed full throttle to pursue the second Stalker, which didn't take long. The Romulan pilot gave her a chase through the space battle. Stray phasers and disruptor blasts narrowly missed the two dancing spacecraft. One such blast made the Stalker pilot panic, causing him to make the wrong turn into a wrecked Klingon fighter. A fiery ball of flame followed after.

"Ha! Dumbass". Via playfully giggled, only to be cut off by Charles once more.

"Klingons need support. Bearing 22 Mark 0- More fighters!"

3 more stalkers decloaked and immediately gave chase to Via's fighter. The Valravn glanced at several hits of Romulan disruptor fire, causing her shields to blare warning signs at her.

"Come on bitch ass!"

Via came up with a loose plan in her head. She took her fighter straight towards a Romulan capital ship artillery line, which was pounding the Klingon squadron in question.

One did not need to be a veteran in Fighter Warfare doctrine to know that a single fighter taking on 2 D'Deridex cruisers was essentially suicide. Via was banking on the fact that one, she had half a squadron of Stalkers on her tail, allowing the cruisers to assume that she would be easily taken care of, two, the cruisers were too focused on the Klingon Squadron to notice her
 
Using her speed and reactions, she dodged the incoming fire, utilizing her aft phasers to try and get a lucky hit off, but to no success. One of the disruptor blasts finally impacted the hull, taking out her shields and sending sparks flying in the cockpit.

"Bloody hell! Ma'am, what are you doing?" Charles cried out as he witnessed two D'Deridex-class ships quickly getting larger in view.

"Somethin'! Shut your ass up! Get emp, and arm the torps." Via laser-focused, activated her afterburners, burning out a couple of hastily repaired capacitors as he did.

Her heart was racing. The adrenaline, fear, and near-lethal amounts of caffeine in her system made her feel like she was about to explode any second if the Romulans didn't do it first.

"This is bloody- ACHOO" Charles sneezed straight into his helmet, covering his visor in snot and mucus. "I CAN'T BLOODY SEE"

"Beachhead!!" Via yelled in annoyance as she kept her fighter moving erratically to avoid getting a targeting lock, which wasn't going to last long if the EMP wasn't activated.

"Should've bloody stayed home!! Sod it!" Charles pressed the emergency release on his helmet and quickly took it off, sniffling as he did.

"My ass can't keep this up!! Hurry your bitchass up!" Via screamed. They were running out of time

The RIO manually activated the EMP jamming sensors in the immediate surrounding area of Wolf-16. Then he armed the Hellhound and Hellbore torpedoes. "Done! *sniff"

 
Via took her fighter straight towards the D'Deridex-class that was on the right.

"Warp core!" she yelled.

"There!" Charles replied, sweating profusely.

The young pilot pointed the nose of her fighter straight towards it, flying through the unoccupied superstructure of the Romulan cruiser.

"Ma'am!?" Genuine fear was muttered through Charles' mouth as it appeared Via was going to ram the cruiser.

She was still going.

"MA'AM?!"

She was STILL going. The hull quickly took up the entire view.

"BOLLOC- ACHOO" Just as Charles sneezed, Via cut the power to the engines, pulled the stick on the x axis to face behind her just at the last split second, then reactivated them, initial dampners barely able to contain the Gs of the sudden stop. Blood vessels did burst, and her lungs, which were already under the management of her medical implant, suffered more damage.  She didn't notice anything, however. The fighters pursuing her could not react in time. All of them overtook Via and impacted the hull of the Romulan cruiser, in the exact spot she wanted. The combination of the singularity core overloads and their armaments detonating was enough to trigger a meltdown in the Cruiser's singularity. It appeared that the cruiser had a significant amount of its weapon power tied directly into its core.

Via then flew directly towards the second cruiser, launching a hellhound cluster bomb straight inside its superstructure, passing it as it deployed its micro explosives, then detonated it. The explosion disabled the cruiser's shield, and luck had it that it was close enough to its overloading twin. Both cruisers were pulled into the resulting singularity, causing a larger blackhole to form as Via's fighter sped away towards the battle at an extreme speed.

Both she and Charles were on the verge of passing out. There was a reason why Valravns were not spec'ed to go at the speeds and maneuvers they just did. The fighter may be capable of it, but the initial dampeners and the pilots were not. Blood leaked down Via's nose, forming a small pool at the bottom of her helmet. She had an urge to cough up a blood-bile mixture, but the adrenaline kept her in the fight.

"Shit...I told your ass..." Via weakly chuckled.

"Ma'am...you are insane." Charles chuckled and coughed up blood and mucus. He seemed to be relieved to be alive by the sound of his voice. "Wait... Romulan shuttles are boarding the Theurgy. We need to...." The RIO passed out at his console, but just after, he highlighted the targets on Via's HUD.

Vision narrowed, blood flowing out of her nostrils, mouth, and other places she couldn't notice. She was running on borrowed time; hopefully, sheer willpower would see her through this mayhem.


 
    

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #13 –
[ Lt. JG Donna ‘Chance’ Petterson | Wolf-06 | Deck 16 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus @rae @Ellen Fitz @joshs1000 @Nesota Kynnovan @ob2lander961 @Pierce @P.C. Haring @Dumedion @Krajin
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"What’s the hold up Chief?” Donna called out over the comm channel to the head of the deck crew currently working on her fighter. She’d been engaged for maybe 20 minutes when she’d taken the brunt of a disruptor blast to her starboard shields. It had severely weakened them, allowing a pair of micro torpedoes from a Romulan to penetrate and detonate against her starboard hull. The first one had wrecked the, thankfully empty, torpedo launchers on that wing while the second had hit the top of her hull near the starboard engine systems maintenance bay. The armour and hatch had mostly held but she’d immediately noticed a decrease in performance from that engine. She’d tried to compensate but the issues had worsened quickly, and she’d been forced to break away from her wing leader Razor and land. That had been more than 30 minutes ago.

“Reassembling the engine control systems can’t be rushed Lieutenant,” the Chief’s harried voice sounded out in her helmet as she worked her fingers inside the gloves of her suit. “The blast destroyed several of the control chips outright and we have had to test the rest of them to make sure they are all safe. Unless you’d prefer to ride in a fighter whose engine might explode without warning?”

“Not a fan of hot rods Chief,” Donna retorted. “ETA?”

“Five minutes,” the Chief responded. “The gang have already replaced the damaged launchers and reloaded you. I just have these last few chips to check, we’ll slot the new hatch on, and you’ll be good to go.” It was a long five minutes to Donna before the Chief gave her to all clear. “That’s it. Start her up.”

Donna didn’t have to be told twice as she began the sequence to bring her Valkyrie back online. Her systems went through their own checks as she reconnected to the Tactical channels. She confirmed her weapon’s loadout matched what had been mounted before running through the RCS check. By the time she had done all of that, the computer came up, showing all greens.

“Green across the board, Chief,” Donna announced, shifting in her seat to steady herself.

“Give ‘em hell, Chance,” the Chief responded. Donna looked down to right to see him standing there. “Good Hunting,” he said as he saluted. Chance returned the salute before bringing up power and point her fighter towards the main doors.

“This is Mission Ops to any available fighters in the area,” a calm voice came over the channel. “Be advised, we have a large number of hostile shuttlecraft inbound to our location and are in need of assistance.”

“This is Wolf-06, launching from Vector 02,” Chance said as she passed through the mag shield and back out into space. She immediately pulled back on the controls and pushed her engines to full power, shooting away from the hull. “Give me a bearing and I’ll see what I can do.”

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #14 –
[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Wolf-01 | Valkyrie | Future Romulan Starship Graveyard ] Attn: @Dumedion @Hans Applegate @Krajin @Ellen Fitz @Pierce @RyeTanker @joshs1000 @P.C. Haring @ob2lander961 @Stegro88
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His plan was going about as well as expected. Which was to say, not at all successful. But he also wasn’t dead. So it evened out.
 
Janus had been playing tag with one of the Stalkers, taking small potshots at it to get an idea of where the ship’s critical systems were located. He had a general idea based off Romulan design aesthetics and the few he’d destroyed already, but there was still an art to disabling a ship without destroying the critical systems he wanted the engineers and deck crews to dissect. However, wistful thinking had to give way to harsh reality. Today’s dose of reality came from Shadow, not seconds later.
 
[Four—hzzzzt—coms—intermittent—hzzzz—heavily—can’t—hzzzt—Razor—zzzzzz—can’t get—]
 
The broken message along with locations on his HUD was enough for him to get the picture. “Shadow, Janus. Acknowledge. I’ll get Razor.”
 
If the Romulan pilot opposite him was decent, he would have noticed a difference in that exact moment, when Janus stopped toying with him and decided on the kill. He had somewhere else to be, so he was going to finish this quickly. The Valkyrie flipped, a fast violent maneuver that would be a blur to anyone watching, and shot at the Stalker like a projectile. It wasn’t the safest choice of action, but he was hoping that the abrupt change in tactics would surprise him for a second.
 
It worked well enough. He was well within targeting range when it finally fired at him. Janus fired a microtorpedo of his own, then jerked the nose of the Valkyrie down so he sailed under the Romulan just as his torpedo struck. He didn’t pause to check on the kill, making another slight course adjustment to get him towards Razor.
 
The transponder was gone before he arrived.
 
“Fuck!” Thankfully, he’d turned his comms off, so the others couldn’t hear the rage through the open channel.
 
“Wolves, Janus. Theurgy will send out search and rescue for Razor. In the meantime, let’s make sure there aren’t as many Romulans around to get in their way.”
 
Another quick scan of the HUD showed him where the others were, and he marked Shadow immediately. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she couldn’t get to Razor. “Shadow—there’s too many on you, I’m incoming to assist.”
 
There was no answer.
 
“Prophets help me, I’m going to have them put five more redundant comm systems in that bird. Every fucking time…”


[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit | Wolf-04, AC-409 Mk. III Valkyrie]
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Static wash filled her helm, punctuated by chopped up bits of barely recognizable speech. One of them could have been Janus, but there was also some of Goldeneye in there, and Talia was too occupied trying to stay alive to bother with it much anyway. A rapid swipe of her finger over her OPS console killed the feed, blanking her useless coms, then flew right back to her throttle assembly. Shadow's head was in constant motion, as she pitched and rolled her fighter around beams of incoming disrupter fire. All pretense of ordered battle-tactics were long gone; Shadow was flying by the seat of her pants - split second reactions on instinct. Plasma torps sailed within meters of her starboard wing, mid-turn. Off to port, a blurred image of a wing of B'Rel attackers laid into a Romulan warbird, blanketing its ventral hull with emerald fire. As the battle swam in a whirl of stars beyond and above, two massive D'Deridex cruisers imploded in a light-show of dark matter and savage physics - a visual litany of mass-destruction - yet laughable in comparison to what the cosmos achieved naturally.

"Anahi," Talia grunted ,"secondary coms array status." It was worth a try to ask, anyway.

"Unknown. Damaged relay to secondary circuits detected. Tertiary uplink offline," the computer answered.

A salvo of Klingon torpedoes launched from behind her streaked into view then, just as Talia leveled out of her turn. A dozen warheads slammed into the starboard sweeping wing of one of the Romulan warbirds. The resulting detonation sheared the wing completely, as secondary explosions ripped out from the wounded bird's hull; its engines and power fluctuated wildly, sending it adrift and helpless. Talia grimaced throughout the display, rolled down and under the savage assault; she didn't want to be anywhere near that thing if its core decided to go unstable.

A glance behind her sent a mix of relief and continued determination; a trio of Vor'cha Battlecruisers had pushed into position near the helmet and were laying into the Romulans with abandon - their counter-attack had already crippled one warbird - along with a streak of silver-white pulling into position on her six. That was quick, she nearly laughed, but a jolt of incoming to her shields forced a snap-turn to port followed by a hard climb. Tac-IDent pinged the Valkyrie as friendly, swamping her HUD with additional data from their shared data-feeds; it didn't tell her much she didn't already know - they were outmanned and outgunned - deep into the wrong side of the chaotic battle-sphere. Still, she appreciated the assist. Even with her coms out, Talia called out a stream of ceaseless action for her in-flight recorder, just in case anyone lived to review it later.

Backlit by the pulsing strobes of her pulse phasers, Talia's eyes narrowed with absolute focus just to keep up with the insanity they were fighting through; playing whack-a-mole with Romulan fighters in the middle of a full scale capital ship engagement wasn't ever a situation she'd trained for or even considered a possibility. The entire squadron was pushing themselves and their birds to the absolute limit of their capabilities, stretching into the realm of 'possible, but highly unadvisable.'

"Alert: pulse phaser array energy reserve at 48 percent," Anahi warned.

Talia groaned in response."Coordinate tac-net with squadron: highlight targets in HUD by viable weapons range. Divert aux power to forward phaser arrays," Talia strained, re-cycling micro-torps as she spoke. I can't stay out here much longer if this keeps up, she admitted, blinking sweat-tears to try to clear her vision.

"Operational combat efficiency status now stands at 68.9 percent. Recommend RTB, pilot," the computer advised.

"Nobody asked you," Talia hissed, suddenly furious; she vented her rage on a pair of Stalkers too preoccupied with what they were doing or too stupid to notice that they'd de-cloaked right in front of her. Phaser fire crippled the port bandit before it ceased shimmering into view; it's partner broke hard to starboard, suffering only a glancing hit.

A torp from behind finished it mid-turn, however.

Talia glanced back, and caught the tell-tale nose art of Janus' bird with a nod. "Thanks," she breathed, then tried to catch her breath. "Data uplink status?"

"Tactical uplink stable with all friendly platforms," Anahi replied.

Talia nodded again. "Then I'm staying in the fight," she frowned, then cut thrust and banked hard to roll over onto Janus' wing, dropping back to cover his six. Her head panned the area mid-manuver, trying to scope out her fellow Wolves in the melee; icons flashed in her HUD - Atlas and Goldie, off high to starboard, engaged in their own fight. Dixiebee was driving hard to the Helmet, out of view; the others were out too far, just winks of light drowned out in the soup. Janus snapped hard to port in a sharp roll up and over a crippled Warbird, chasing down another flight of Stalkers. Talia rolled to keep up, throttling out to match speed but easing off her guns to let the array's charge up.

Janus altered course suddenly, in a jerking maneuver that sent him spiraling out of Talia's view. "The hell are you going?!" she barked, but then her eyes widened when she caught sight of what Janus was chasing; it wasn't a Stalker, or any known Romulan bird she'd ever seen - but it was definitely Romulan - flying like the pilot didn't have a clue or didn't have a care in the world. Janus waggled his wings and pounced on it, diving between three D'Deridex cruisers slugging it out with a Negh'Var battleship and her escorts of Vor'cha cruisers. Off in the distance, the Helmet was aflame, her hull charred and pitted, but still in the fight; even farther away, the Ranger twisted in the void, wreathed in the scattered tendrils of blistering its PDC arrays while she traded blows with a host of enemy capital ships. Between there and her vantage point, the void was littered with wrecks from all sides.

"This is not where we wanna be boss," Shadow grumbled, but angled herself on the unknown bogey for a torp-lock anyway, and stayed on Janus' wing.


[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Wolf-01 | Valkyrie ]
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It was the onboard computer that caught it – another mark in Thea’s favor – lighting up in the corner of his vision with an incessant blinking that would get his attention even in the heat of battle. Sensors had caught sight of something new. A small fighter sized craft had decloaked on the battlefield with a hull configuration that the Valkyrie didn’t recognize, but was clearly Romulan. Janus thought the paint job was enough confirmation, but the ship had marked a whole list of other quintessential Romulan design elements as well.

The fact that it was new was enough to concern him. Who knew what surprises the bastards had in store, introducing a new class of fighter mid battle.

“All Wolves, be advised, unknown Romulan fighter has entered the AO, bearing 074 mark 2. Repeat – bogey in the AO. Moving to intercept. Shadow’s on my wing.”

Janus hadn’t heard a peep from her yet, so he figured her comms were well and truly fucked. But she could still take a hint, so he changed his heading in a jarring movement that was impossible to miss. Sure enough, she followed.

Like he had done earlier with the Stalker, Janus started out cautiously, toying with the other ship to get a feel for its capabilities. He set a lagging pursuit course, sacrificing a torpedo from his dwindling supply and hoping that Shadow wouldn’t – ah fuck, there went hers too – letting his sensors track the location and power of the bogey’s weapons systems as it shot both down.

“Computer – patch communications through the stern docking lights, morse code, standard encryption.” There was some program for this buried deep within the system, a backup for when audio communication was down. If it worked, the other Valkyrie’s sensors would notice and translate. As long as the program was still there. “Pursuit course. Will set bogey up. You shoot.”


[ PO2 Knox | Space at the Triangle | Stolen Romulan Experimental Fighter ]
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“Son of a Nerflinger!” Knox pulled his ship hard to starboard and fired a few quick disruptor bursts at the incoming torpedoes. “I literally just called you guys! Why are you being so mean!” Knox muttered to himself and waggled his wings trying to signal he was a friendly. It didn’t work apparently.

“Hey Cross! Get your boyz off me! They are shooting at me!” Knox angrily shouted back to the USS Theurgy throwing all rank and protocol out the window. Getting yelled at later for being impolite seemed much better than being atomized in the void of space. Pulling the other way Knox dodged a few phaser bursts while turning.

Knox engaged the cloak on his ship but it didn’t hide the wake of moving through space at speed with his engines giving off twin ionized trails of residual plasma. They could still follow him for sure, but maybe being a little bit more sneaky would throw off their aim a bit. His ship decloaked each time he fired his weapons. He had 6 missiles that looked like they could do some damage from the readouts. (Not that he was good at reading Romulan.) Quickly coming up with a plan Knox flung the accelerator forwards to increase velocity and started a corkscrew roll as he barreled towards a large Romulan cruiser.

“Ok fucktards! Let’s see if you can pass this IQ test?!” Knox grunted as he opened fire on the Romulan cruiser causing it to decloak briefly from the disruptor impacts to its shields. “Yeah! See I am shooting the Romulans! So I must not be a Romulan!” Knox shouted angrily in the cockpit as he continued to maneuver away from the two pilots chasing him like pterodactyls stricken with down syndrome. Growing a set of eyestalks from the top of his head to look back Knox could see the two Federation pilots had not passed the IQ test he had set for them by pointing out an actual enemy target. Nope, they kept following him like they worked for the Klingon starship manufacturer Bow’eeng and Knox was a whistleblower.

Knox turned hard then pulled back looping around a Romulan ship that was cloaked, hoping that the Federation pilots would inadvertently fire at him and hit that other ship instead. Afterall he was cloaked-ish. Only two bright impulse engines leaving a twin tail streak through the black of space. They sure knew exactly where he was maneuvering under full impulse like this, though the fighter’s main body was somewhat obscured. Knox just hoped that whoever was on the USS Theurgy would talk some sense into those pilots chasing him soon.


[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit | Wolf-04, AC-409 Mk. III Valkyrie]
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Her eyes narrowed with a grimace of annoyance as the bogey blasted both sets of torps from its tail. Rear disruptors, Talia noted, then strafed her ship to port in a horizontal skid, adjusting her attack angle to give Janus room to maneuver. Shadow’s helm cocked slightly to compensate with the movement, boosted her thrust, eyes flicking back and forth between her HUDs and sensor panel for range indicators. Another second she'd be in guns range; Janus and the bogey rolled out to port – Shadow followed to starboard – the belly of her bird skimmed along the broken, lifeless hull of a Klingon Vor’cha cruiser.

Then it cloaked, but it wasn’t a normal cloak: faintly, only barely visible at close range, it left twin trails of ionized gas in its wake. I see you, fucker, Talia frowned in suspicion at the development; if Romulans could be counted on anything – it was that they bled and breathed deceit. Janus’ running lights winked rapidly just then, a pattern she recognized with a smirk. Clever, old man, Talia snorted.

”Visual Morse translation: Pursuit course – will set bogey up – you shoot,” Anahi droned.

”Flash an acknowledgement,” Talia nodded to herself, then settled back into the seat and throttled up to full. For an instant, her bird and Janus’ mirrored each other perfectly; each held range and angle with the other, spiraling “down” at the bogey in a clockwise loop – both of them holding position on its six easily as the bogey engaged a cloaked Romulan Mogai warbird. Talia thanked the idiot for the opportune target, blink-clicking weapons and engine hardpoints rapidly. As Janus’ bird peeled off, Shadow’s guns opened up on what she could hit as the three of them streaked past in a blur of fire, leaving a scorching trail of destruction in her wake.

Janus opened up off to port, corralling the bogey directly into her weapons envelope; squeezed between his arcs of incandescent fire and the warbird’s disruptor fire – the bogey had nowhere to go.

”Give me green, baby,” Shadow murmured to her HUD’s targeting reticule while she adjusted minutely, willing it to lock on to a stable lead. After another second, she opened up with a three-second pulse of phasers at optimal range – just as her HUD winked green.


[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Wolf-01 | Valkyrie ]
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He’d expected the Romulans to give their secret ship to a better pilot.

Instead, they had whoever was at the helm of this mess. Failing to adjust engine output to match the cloak, giving away the position of other cloaked vessels, and firing indiscriminately at everyone – including Romulans. Unfortunately, the bogey had the chaos of the battlefield and Shadow’s broken comm system in their favor, so their pursuit through the AO was ongoing.

He had it now though. The flyby of the warbird had served two purposes. It had given them an opportune shot at another target and it allowed Janus to veer off and trap the bogey between his Valkyrie and the bigger Romulan ship long enough for Shadow to get her shot.

[I have a solution to the cloaking problem.] Thea said, reopening the comm channel without so much as a preamble. She really needed to get better timing.

“Busy—Wait.” He had it now, the window Shadow needed would be open in seconds.

[It is imperative that we speak now. You will need the Romulan fighter you are currently engaged with.]

“Fucking—hold on.” He ripped the Valkyrie into a hard spin, an abrupt thrust to the side that would give the bogey a path out of Shadow’s firing solution. On his HUD, he could see her phasers flying past, missing the Romulan by a few meters. So long to set up, so easy to wreck. “This better be good, we had it dead to rights.”

[You have a message from Commander Cross. A malfunction in the Ranger’s communications, caused by the Romulan boarding parties, prevented it from being patched through. I found it while working on your problem. I am routing it now.]

Thea’s voice was as clear and calm as ever, and Janus had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping at her. The chase had taken them into a heavily populated zone, avoiding potshots from a Romulan battle cruiser – and sending back a few of his own – while keeping the bogey in range. He did however, stop specifically targeting it. Janus trusted Thea, she wouldn’t have interrupted just to play fucking mailwoma—

[Yo what’s up!...wait… I did that wrong. Um..USS Theurgy, this is CPO 2 Knox in a stolen Romulan fighter. I see the cloaked Romulan ships on my sensors here. Want me to point them out to you? Also, please don’t shoot me! Some of your pilots are pretty good and have nearly taken me out before I got this comm system working…Also, is there anything else you need me to do?... Oh yeah! And those Klingons that just arrived, whose side are they on?.... Over.]

“Open a channel to that ship! Reclassify it as Federation on IFF. Then send another message through the docking lights, morse code, standard encryption. Message follows: Don't fire on bogey – friendly. Shoot Stalkers. Fix your shit.”

[You’re welcome.]

“Thank you for relaying this stroke of dumb luck. You didn’t even do any science.”

[I won’t have to. Get Knox’s ship back here in one piece so I can have its computer.]

“Kinky.” As he finished, a soft ping on the comms signaled the new channel was ready. He switched instantly.

“Knox, Janus – Can you give Mission Ops on Theurgy direct access to your sensors? Cloaked cruisers in this mess might be stationary enough to relay locations through voice, but the fighters are too slow and mobile. We need it as near instantaneous as possible.” He didn’t bother with introductions, that could wait until later. “Oh – don’t shoot the Klingons.”

As he waited for a response, he was already veering off to a new target.

A joint post between myself, @Dumedion, and @Hans Applegate :)
Part 2 coming soon...

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #15 –
[Lt. Reggie "Gemini" Suder | Wolf-13 | Cockpit | Valkyrie | Local Space] Attn: @rae‍ @Pierce‍  @Dumedion‍  @Stegro88‍  @Havenborn‍  @Eden‍  @Krajin‍  @ob2lander961‍ @Dree‍  @joshs1000‍ 

Reggie shook her head, trying to clear the ringing from her ears. One of the Valkyries, Wolf-04 she thought, had managed to take one of the pursuing stalkers down. From there, it was a simple matter of breaking formation and taking out the one pursuing Wraith while he took out the one pursuing her. They had then regrouped to help out Wolf-04, but Janus had beaten them to it.

Calling the battle "chaos" was an insult to the organization of chaos. It was a fucking blood bath and fortunately much of it belonged to the Romulans.

Another wave of boarding shuttles on route to Theurgy

"Gemini to Theurgy, tally twelve more shuttles inbound. Wolf-14 and I are engaging."

If there was an acknowledgement from their ship, she didn't hear it.  For his part, Wraith responded to the report as the order that it was,  formed, up on her as they settled into attack postures and made their run un-hindered.   She found it odd that the stalkers had not tuned to engage. 

The proximity alert screamed at her and she jumped with a start as a Valdore class cruiser de-cloaked directly in front of them.

"FUCK!"

Instinct took her and she rolled hand to port, evading the larger ship as it bore down on her. She turned, bringing Wolf-13 about to take on the cruiser, but one sight of it told her, that battle was already over. It's starboard nacelle was destroyed and green plasma spewed from the breach.

"Status, Wraith?"

[Lucky shot Gemini! Damn thing startled me that I accidently fired a torpedo. Must have slipped inside the shield perimeter before they were brought up.   You okay? That was awfully close!]

Reggie find her phasers into the plasma stream, igniting it and sending a chain reaction of explosions up the wing. The warbird did not explode, but as the cascade traveled down the broken wing, destroying the port nacelle and the ship went dark. she knew it was out of the fight.

"Never better," she replied. "Form up. Lets get those shuttles."

Wordlessly they maneuvered

"Targets in range, they're accelerating their approach. Fire"

The swarm of Micro torpedoes loosed free from both Valravyns and streaked across the void. before scattering towards their victims. The Romulans broke formation in a vain effort to evade, but the smaller warheads stayed true to their course and served their purpose with Borg-like efficiency.

By the time Gemini and Wraith overflew the shuttles positions, all that remained was debris.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #16 –
[Romulan Warbird | Battlefield]

A D’deridex warbird ripped free of its cloak, green hull flaring. From the command chair, Captain Valen’s gaze burned with contempt. The Federation crew had dared strike at a sacred research facility of the Empire, had dared to steal what Romulan minds had crafted in blood and secrecy. Such insolence would not go unanswered. She’d tracked their path back to these coordinates and lay in wait. Waiting for the time when her surprise strike would do the most damage.

“Unleash the fighters,” Valen spat, the order a lash of fury.

Bay doors yawned wide, and a new squadron of sleek, modified Scorpion-class craft screamed into the fray—each armed with the standard assortment their ships were expected to carry along with a few extra enhancements, compliments of the very facility the Federation crew had dared to steal from.. Disruptors lit the void as they tore toward the Federation fighters, their formation precise, merciless, inevitable.

The warbird shimmered once more into invisibility, shifting position for its next strike.
Reinforcements for the Romulans...good luck!

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #17 –
[ Dominic Winters | Wolf 10 | Local Space | U.S.S Theurgy ATTN: @Dumedion @rae @Pierce @Stegro88 @P.C. Haring - All Wolves.


Dominic swung his fighter around in an arc as he descended upon the Shuttles on approach to Theurgy. His phaser cannons lit up the moment they came into range, followed by a salvo of his at this point, untouched micro torpedoes which streaked through space to make impact into the thin hulls of the shuttles. Detonations rocked them as they tried in vain to attempt to evade him and while a few managed to do so for a time, his pursuit was relentless as they returned fire with damaged disruptor arrays. This forced Atlas into evasive tactics at first, up until he unleashed another barrage of phaser cannon fire on their rears and followed it up quickly with the Osmidium guns rapidly tearing through the hulls of the fighters. Punching holes through the hull, shredding into the occupants or causing decompression as atmosphere is violently sucked out into space.

He didn't have much time to celebrate though as Dominic took just a moment to breathe, his ship got rocked by the sudden shockwave of a massive energetic detonation which sent him spinning. Alarms blared as the shields lit up and the systems registered a pretty impressive drop in integrity. Starboard shield at 20% integrity, port shield 60%, fore and aft registering at a steady 40%, Hull integrity at 80%. Quickly one hand danced across one console to rebalance the shields and shunt emergency power into the generator while his other hand worked the stick to try and pull himself out of the tumbling spin. Once righted Atlas pulled out and around to lurk in the shadow of the Kajanpak't while he took a quick moment to reorient himself. Shields now at 52% came the readout. Weapons showed two EMP torpedoes, two Quantum torpedoes, two hellhounds and a Hellbore left.

Ahead his sensors pinged the quintet of Romulan ships on approach to the Theurgy, the other Wolves were moving to handle the shuttles and Atlas was a mostly alone here. A lone wolf at the moment. A nearby singularity devoured the remains of the destroyed Romulan birds and the frozen bodies of its crew before winking out of its sickly green existence. "Atlas to wolves, Quintet of Romulans on Theurgy's six. Moving to engage them with Klingons." Shit was getting real as he punched the engine and accelerated to join the Klingon Fighters and heavier craft moving to intercept the Hapax and its friends. The Hapax alone was a significant threat to the Theurgy, but at least he and the Phantoms could screen the Stalkers and Valdores so the Klingon Heavies could teach that Hapax a lesson it would never forget.

Atlas primed his Tetryon cannon on an attack run as the Klingon ships began to engage the quintet and began to open fire, a bright phaser lancing out from the undercarriage and struck home on the Valdore's nacelle, causing it to leak plasma which quickly ignited when a Phantom lobbed a Qin Photon torpedo into the opening and started a chain reaction up the wing.

His ship peeled out with a cheer from the Pilot as the Phantoms began to shred the Stalker fighters and two more B'rels decloaked to finisher on the first Valdore and pummel the second. Atlas turned to look at the Hapax which was suffering a wicked beating under the power of a Negh'Var and its Vor'cha escort. He began to speed towards the Hapax, dodging and weaving around the remaining stalkers and what was left of the Point Defense system of the burning ship. He made a line for one of its two colossal Hangar bays, his shields flaring to life as a pulse of disruptor fire glances by and he returns fire with Phaser cannons while the rear strips take shots at whatever passes by. For the Klingons it likely appears to be absolutely nuts for this fighter to be making such a run and nuts it was.

The Hangar bay doors begin to close as they realise just what is coming but they are not fast enough as the fighter slips on through. The interior is crawling with flight crew, stalkers being brought up from storage and more but the terror is palpable to Atlas inside. His shields flare once more as a few Romulans fire personal weapons at his craft as he swoops through. He dropped the hellhound as his fighter flew along towards the rear door of the Hangar bay. Two micro torpedoes were fired, coupled with a phaser blast blasted it open as behind him, the hellhound made impact, ejected its terrifying payload and started a chain reaction in the hangar bay. The massive fireball was right on Doms ass, as the explosives set off other munitions, fuel and more inside the bay. From the outside, others would see fire blast out the bay, shredding the interior of this segment of the Vessel. The destruction was significant, leaving it a beautiful target for the Klingons to dispatch. Even if Atlas got the crippling blow.
 

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #18 –
[ Lt. JG Donna ‘Chance’ Petterson | Outside Captain’s Ready Room | Deck 01 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn:
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"Targets destroyed,” Chance announced across the comm channel as she watched the blast from the latest shuttle she had just detonated with a photon torpedo. It and 2 more like it had been making a run against the Helmet section of the Theurgy, intent on landing boarding parties when she had swung up over an asteroid and engaged them. They had been without a fighter escort, something that she found strange, so she had pressed her attack. They had tried to evade her, but there was never a chance of them escaping her. Her superior speed and maneuverability ensured that only their deaths were delayed. “Wolf-06 requesting new…”

Her words stopped as streaks of Disruptor fire impacted across her upper shields, bathing the cockpit in the green afterglow of their splattering. Chance wrenched her fighter over hard and rolled away, risking a glance down at her sensor display to try and see what was assaulting her. It was a Romulan Stalker, blazing away at her even as it weaved to remain on her six. She was just about to call for help across the squadron channel when another ship appeared on her sensors behind the Stalker. Seconds later, the Fighter was an expanding cloud of plasma and debris, while a familiar voice was echoing in her helmet.

“You’re welcome, Wolf,” came the slightly smug voice of Samala, Lorad's half-sister.

“Apache, this is Chance,” the pilot responded, annoyed and grateful at the same time. “Your timing is impressive. Feel like going after some more?”

“I wish,” Samala replied, her voice dropping. “But I have numerous wounded aboard. My ship has also taken damage and I am being forced to divert power between systems to accomplish tasks. I must decline and head towards Theurgy.”

“The Helmet is just past those rocks,” Chance noted, chuckling silently at her own joke. “I noticed a fellow wolf exiting the shuttlebay just before your arrival so it should be clear and safe for you,”
“If it isn't, I'm sure my brother will make it that way. He is annoyed that there is a fight happening and he is stuck here,” Samala explained, bringing another smile to Chance's face. She knew what Lorad could do in a tussle.

“Form up on my port wing then and I will escort you in,” Chance directed as she swapped channels. “Helmet this is Wolf-06. Have formed up with Apache and are escorting her into your bay. Many wounded aboard. Request assistance meet them in the bay.”

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #19 –
[ PO2 Knox | Space at the Triangle | Stolen Romulan Experimental Fighter ] Attn: @Dumedion @Hans Applegate @Krajin @Ellen Fitz @Pierce @RyeTanker @joshs1000 @P.C. Haring @ob2lander961 @Stegro88
[Show/Hide]
Knox’s eyestalks scanned back and forth! Yep, those two pilot’s on his tail seemed to get the message. “We are all friends now!” Knox smiled to himself.

“OK time to fuck up the Romulans. Those cloaked bastards are hiding from the rest of the Federation ships. Let’s highlight them for everyone to shoot at!” Knox attempted to transmit to the fighter closest to him. He had no idea if the message got through or not. Either way it would not change his next course of action.

Rolling towards the largest Romulan ship he saw nearby on his IFF scanners, Knox fired a volley of disruptors at the Romulan ship. The impacts to the shields highlighted that something was there. The ship didn’t completely lose its cloak, but the rippling effect was enough so see and more importantly shoot at. The shimmering died down in just a few seconds and the ship was cloaked again but Knox was already shooting at it again. Now with the ship firmly in his sights Knox started to rapidly zap the ship with disruptor fire alternating from his twin disruptor cannons. This kept the large craft from hiding. Now everyone in the Triangle could clearly see Donatra’s ship while Knox continued to hit it with disruptor fire from his stolen Romulan fighter.

Soon, this drew the attention of other Romulan fighters. Romulan fighters piloted by Romulans. Romulan fighter pilots that didn’t like Knox shooting at Donatra. Knox quickly found himself quite popular in the worst way possible.

“Hey! Yeah… The Romulan’s are shooting at me for shooting at them! Cover me while I reveal their location for you! Help!” Knox transmitted to all Federation frequencies just to be careful.

Quickly he ripple fired off two of his missiles towards the closest two Romulan fighters and hit them with his disruptors to knock their shields down and uncloak them. This slowed them down and made them an easy target for each of his missiles. With a cloud of debris Knox’s problems were lessened by two. However more problems of various sizes were getting closer and firing at him with a steadily increasing level of annoyance!

Knox turned back towards Donatra’s ship and fired another rapid fire volley at her, not very cloaked now, ship.

Suddenly, Knox’s screens lit up. Many many more contacts had arrived. All of them pinging IFF signatures indicating Romulan ships. Lots of them! And most of them started to converge on his location. “Any Federation station. We have contacts! Lots of contacts. IFF says they are Romulan. I will start to hit them to take down their cloaks if they have a cloak. Cleared to shoot targets as they appear! I will pants them for you!”

With that, Knox started to rapid fire as quickly as he could at the incoming Romulan ships. He focused on the cloaked ones to highlight their location for Federation ships to pick off. He spent his remaining 4 missiles in slow sequential order at Donatra’s ship to keep it visible while he focused on tangling with the new threat.


[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit | Wolf-04, AC-409 Mk. III Valkyrie]
[Show/Hide]
As if keeping herself alive and in the fight wasn’t hard enough, attempting to troubleshoot and repair her ship's communications issue added a level of difficulty that Talia had never experienced. With her left hand throttled around the stick in a death grip, simultaneously shooting and maneuvering – while her head and eyes constantly scanned around her for threats, collisions, clear visual on targets and incoming fire – not to mention the fact that it seemed like every Romulan fighter in the AO was now intent on blasting their new ‘friend’ from the stars – Shadow's right hand was occupied in a desperate blind search under the rear panel of her command seat, digging into the isolinear chips there for the correct set selection to access the coms control interface panel tucked away in the same area.

Neither of which she could actually see, but she’d read the manual enough times to visualize the compartment and its layout in her head. “Incoming fire, aft – break right,” Anahi advised, but Talia had already jerked the stick hard to starboard mid warning. “Torp lock – evade, evade, evade,” the computer continued as Shadow grunted and flipped the fighter back over and rolled hard under the wing of a disabled B’rel for cover, then popped a countermeasures pod mid-maneuver, spraying arcs of flares and chaff into the void while a hiss of curses streamed between her teeth.

Janus’ ship streaked by in a blur then, falling back with such brutality that Talia couldn’t fathom the punishment the old man just put his body through – while the now friendly Romulan bogey lit up what looked to be the largest Warbird she’d ever laid eyes on.

“Faulty circuit CCA-772 located. Remove chip and replace, row 2, fourth from left. Reinitialize primary coms array and initiate encryption algorithms Alpha-Zeta 72.56,” Anahi advised.

“Fucking slow down,” Talia yelled, pushed to the absolute limits of her multitasking capabilities, fumbling to feel for the right chip as she literally fought for her life. Just counting to four by touch alone seemed like an impossible task. “Fuck sakes,” the pilot grunted, then pulled out a blue chip, blackened and fuzed into uselessness. Her fighter shook around her in the same instant, shields lit under heavy fire from above and behind. Talia reacted on instinct: throttling back and pitching the fighter’s nose up and over in a tight inverted roll that sent the stars spinning.

Then the void erupted in green fire. Everywhere.

Blurs of ships materialized into existence; flights of Klingon fighters, disruptors blazing bright in the darkness – swarmed into the fight. Detonating ships from both sides of the conflict erupted in flashes of incandescent light, winks of destruction brighter than stars for the most fleeting of seconds. It was impossible to know or comprehend who had the upper hand – in that moment, all Talia knew was that if they didn’t find a way to end this, and end it soon, no one would survive.

Her hand dropped the fried chip and scrambled to pull a fresh one out of the reserve stack above her head, but all she could see were green sticks. “Blue one, I need a fucking blue one,” she screamed in frustration – spilling the entire compartment out into her lap like a bag of snacks. The chips, now subject to the same brutal gravitational and inertial physics that Talia had endured since the onset of this insanity, were then scattered about the cockpit like shrapnel; some floated freely in position, others pinged off the surface of control consoles and the armored transparent dome of the cockpit and HUD displays.
“Fuck – sakes – fuck,” Talia grunted, trying to snatch one of the blue ones as she followed the erratic and idiotic attack patterns of their new “friend”. “Hirek, if that’s you, I’ll fucking kill you when this is over I fucking swear to –“ Shadow hissed, then finally managed to swipe a blue chip from the air and slotted it into place. “Reinitialize coms array,” she ordered breathlessly between target engagements – then kicked her fighter over and dove back into formation on Janus’ wing.

“Compliance. Standby,” Anahi droned, followed by a series of audible beeps. “Primary and secondary array links inoperable, activating tertiary.” Another series of beeps. “Tertiary array uplink established. Initiating encryption algorithms.”

“Spare me the play by play,” Talia hissed, opening fire in a straying run with Janus and their ward as they streaked past the massive Romulan command ship. “Did it work or not,” she demanded.

“Bioreadings indicate severe stress coupled with dehydration and under-nourishment – I recommend you eat as soon as possible, pilot,” the computer answered rapidly, which forced Talia to blink in surprise.

Did the fucking computer just call me hangry?[/silver]

“Uplink established.”

Talia’s helm erupted in audio chaos then, filling her ears with the voices of the Wolves as they each fought their own parts of the battle. Another voice joined in – the pilot of the unknown mark that was somehow aiding them, no doubt. None of that mattered though; she could hear them, so it was time to know if they could hear her. A rapid tap opened her coms up after she traded spaces with Janus in a graceful rollover to starboard, setting herself up off the Romulan’s flank.

“Wolf-4, coms check,” Shadow blurted quickly – hoping somebody would answer and explain what the hell was going on – or at least what the plan was to deal with the massive warship that just decloaked on top of them.


[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Wolf-01 | Valkyrie ]
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“Theurgy, Janus – will someone please tell me if you’re getting sensor data from this lunatic?” He cut the channel before finishing, “because otherwise I’m seriously considering letting him die.” Janus was sure that taking potshots at cloaked Romulan ships was good fun – he’d always enjoyed it – but his goal was to start sending out live sensor data on all cloaked ships in the AO that was usable for all friendly ships. One guy lighting up cloaks with disruptor fire wasn’t near as useful, especially when two members of an already depleted squadron were needed to guard him. He didn’t know what this chief petty officer’s day job was, but after watching him fly for a few seconds, Janus knew that Knox had never been near tacconn school.

At this point, the battle had taken on elements of a holodeck racing simulation. Knox would hit cloaked ships and race past them, giving the fighters a single strafing run before they had to disengage to keep up with the hijacked ship. He felt more like a glorified guard dog though, harrying the many ships that had taken notice of their new ally. Janus shifted targets quickly, sometimes abandoning runs midway through, jerking the Valkyrie around to take on a fighter or warbird that turned its full armament on Knox after he forced them into visual range.

“What’s with that one?” he mused, beginning to see a pattern in Knox’s attacks, which focused on one ship in particular that never managed to stay decloaked for long. “Computer, identify that ship.” As it worked, the process slowed by the limited visual data his sensors had picked up during it’s momentary sighting, Janus busied himself with a quick, violent dogfight with an enemy fighter. His shields took a beating, the outside of the canopy surrounded by sparks of bright lights, his own phasers causing similar damage only meters away. He snuck a torpedo into the fireworks that did the trick, but Janus was already speeding off back to the other two when he got confirmation.

Knox was shooting at his favorite warbird again, the ship appearing basically on top of them. Janus was so used to cloaked ships at this point that he didn’t even jump. The disappearing act had stopped surprising him. Fucking Romulans had ruined horror sims forever.

His communications board was still green, but Janus was starting to wonder if there was a fault anyway. “Knox, Janus – Get off wide beam comms and talk to me. I’m the one on your tail, I’m tied into Theurgy and the fighters with secure comms. You’re in a stolen ship, you don’t know how to work it, we don’t know who you are, it’s a fucking op sec nightmare. No one out here is going to follow your orders without my go ahead. The field is too big for everyone to follow and take out Romulans as you paint them. Shadow and I—”

Speaking of which, the other pilot chose that moment to finally fix her own comm system, her voice interrupting with a burst of static.

“Shadow, Janus – Copy.”

[Identified. IRW Valdore.] The words flashed across his HUD while the computer spoke, assigning the name on a tag next to the ship on his screen. Janus grinned. That explained it.

“Theurgy, Janus,” he made sure to tie Knox and Shadow into the channel too, “We have a confirmed location on the Valdore. Repeat. We found Donatra’s flagship. Let’s go get it.”


[ PO2 Knox | Space at the Triangle | Stolen Romulan Experimental Fighter ]
[Show/Hide]
Knox kept up his assault. With Donatra’s ship now highlighted by a constant barrage other Federation ships also contributed to wearing her shields down. And soon the boarding party would be able to go aboard her, or she would just explode. One way or another things were starting to look up. Chaotic for sure. But chaotic in a generally positive way. It was then that Knox received his next surprise. One of the ships, a Federation fighter that had been sort of frenemies with him so far called him on the radio. Knox was surprised because he didn’t know that ship had comms. Second, the individual flying that fighter identified themself as a wolf. Unsure if that was a fursona or maybe a wolf species had joined the Federation Knox was stunned because both of those were possible yet unexpected.

“Hey…Wolf 4…” Knox paused for a moment before continuing. “Your comms are working, and who let you off the leash?” Knox hoped that joke would go well and maybe add some clarity to the situation. But instead of dwelling on it, he pressed on with more important business. “Let’s shoot at this Romulan ship until the shields are down. We almost have them where we want them! Once the shields are down, I am gonna hit her engines to immobilize them.”

Knox waited to hear if there was a bark or some other K9 vocalization to follow and wondered if he should call this ‘Wolf 4’ a good girl.

But, one cannot just sit idle. Especially not in a battle. A very chaotic battle with lots of variables and several different teams all fighting each other for rather complex reasons. Knox rolled his craft to starboard and dodged another volley of disruptor fire, before hitting Donatra's ship again. As he was ready to line up another shot the shields flashed and almost looked like a bubble popping in the void of space. The next shot from a phaser from an unseen ally hit the hull of Donatra's ship confirming that the shields were down!

Knox gave up on decorum, “Hey Wolf 4! Who’s a good girl!? We got the shields down! Ahh Wolf 4 is a good girl! Treats for you back on the Theurgy!” After congratulating his teammate appropriately to show he valued her dedication and skill as a furry pilot, Knox sped towards the rear of Donatra’s ship and fired everything he had at her port side impulse engine while letting the USS Theurgy know that the shields were officially down now and he was going in for a mobility kill.

OOC: Joint post part two from myself, @Hans Applegate, and @Dumedion

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #20 –
[Lt. Reggie "Gemini" Suder | Wolf-13 | Cockpit | Valkyrie | Local Space] Attn:  @Dumedion‍ @Stegro88‍ @Havenborn‍  @Eden‍ @Krajin‍ @ob2lander961‍  @Dree‍ @joshs1000‍ 


Reggie's ship rocked in the wake of a nearby explosion and her consoles momentarily blinked out before coming back online.  By the time she'd regained herself, Wraith had already formed up on her wing.

"How're you doing over there, Wraith?"

[Never better, Gemini.]

That was bravado, she knew.  The two of them had been through the rough of it and there were more than a few scorches that would need to be cleaned off both of their damaged hulls as an already intense fight had simply turned chaotic in the blink of an eye.  Still the wounded wolves fought on. 

Status main power is at thirty percent.  Ordinance has been expended and phaser power is at half.  Warp drive is shut down and power diverted to shields.

Even through the worst of it, Reggie took comfort in the telepathic link she and Athen kept. Even in the worst moments, she drew her strength from it, knowing they were in each other's head.

[This is the IKS Fuq'Tup requesting fire support!]

The Neg'var class battleship was just ahead of them and Reggie had already made the decision when Wraith spoke up. 

[Was that a Klingon distress call?]

"As close as you'll ever hear.  Form up.  We're going in."

The two closed in on the Fuq'Tup.  It's hull had been breached, fires from inside raging as it squared off against two D'Deridex class warbirds.  For as old as they were, the Warbirds still packed a punch if for no other reason than their sheer size. 

[I'm reading an energy build up in the Fuk'Tup's ventral cannons.  Looks like they're preparing to fire.]

"Lets give them the cover they need."

Without further word, Wolves 13 and 14 turned for the ship to Starboard and began laying down cover fire. The Target warbird's shield were already down and their phasers struck hard against solid hull scoring non critical hits, but being just enough a nuisence that power systems began to flicker.  The Valravyn's passed harmelssly through the gap in the Warbirds bifrucated hull, each sending pot shots at the Warbird's inner warp Nacelles before exiting and adjusting their heading to the second warbird.

The explosion caught them both, whether between the warbird's demise, or the Klingon ship firing without warning, Reggie would never know.  Consoles shorted out as both her and Wrath's ship were pelted with debris.  Shields failed, alerts and sirens sounded  as she struggled to reign in her bird and avoid colliding with anything that would spell instant doom for her wing of Valravyn flight.  Jerking the ship hard to port and then to starboard the already taxed intertial dampeners could not keep up and her helmet smacked against the side of the cockpit, sending her into a daze she had to shake off in order to regain her focus.  After what seemed like a few seconds slowed by time dialtion into an eternity, she leveled out. 

Damage assessment.

The link was silent.  She reached out for Athen, but found nothing.  Biomonitors had not gone off.  Either they were damaged too, or Athen was still alive albeit unconcious.

"Fuck..."

Out of the corner of her eye, her peripheral vision caught sight of Wolf-14 forming up again.

"Wolf 13 to 14, my Rio's down.  You in one piece over there, Wraith?"

There was silence and Reggie felt a sense of dread creep over her.

"Wraith?"

Another moment before the comm crackled

[This is Alith, Gemini.  I regret to inform you Wraith is dead.]

Reflexively, she turned and looked, truly looked at Wolf-14 as she flew.  The wing was on fire, smoke blowing out into the vacuum, obscuring the cockpit.  As they maneuvered, Wolf-14 rolled to avoid debris and giving Reggie the angle she needed to see the cockpit.  The forward canopy was smashed, and soemthign metalic  jutted out from Wraith's chest.  She could not see much detail, but given the size of the shrapnel relative to his body, she could only imagine that it had crushed is chest and she hoped his death had been instant so as to spare him the suffering.

"Understood, Alith," she finally said, her voice feeling as dead as her wingman.  "State your status."

[Untennable.  I have flight controls but no weapons or shields.]

A quick systems check indicated her ship was not in any better shape.

"Roger.  Form up and follow me in."

Alith gave no reply as the two ships turned to disengage from the fight.

"Wolf 13 to Wolf 1.  Janus, Wolf 14 and I are pretty torn up out here.  All ordinance is expended, main power is failing.  Between the four of us we have one confirmed one possible fatality.  We're disengaging and heading back to the den for repair, but realistically we're out of this fight.  Apologies and good hunting."

She did not wait for a reply.  Between the losses, the effort of flying, and the concern that a wayward Stalker might try to shoot them out of the sky, it was all Reggie could do to keep her composure, as the two wounded Wolves limped back to the den.

Re: CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

Reply #21 –
[ Dominic Winters | Wolf 10 | Local Space | U.S.S Theurgy ATTN: @Dumedion @rae @Pierce @Stegro88 @P.C. Haring - All Wolves.

Atlas tracked the various operations and surveyed the events surrounding them all. He could see that the Klingons were continuing to fight, and the Romulans began to turn on each other, which truly made things curious and difficult. He pulled out from hiding amidst the wreckage and shifted speed to half impulse while Atlas monitored the communication lines while he traversed the chaotic void. A warning from another Romulan faction, Klingons cheering with every take down, comms from Theurgy directing them. His ears flicked in annoyance at the comms towards another Wolf, giving her the good girl treatment which honestly provoked anger from the Pilot. He hoped Janus or other ranking individuals would deliver a shredding for that.

Then came the comm from Wolf 13 and 14 going for an RTB with failing systems. "Wolf 13 and 14. This is Wolf 10. Coming up on your Six to provide cover and a tow if needed to get you home safe." Glory in battle is one thing, but making sure that other Pilots got home safe is more important. Punching it to full impulse, Atlas weaved around chunks of debris and pinged the two fighters on his scanners. Shifting to intercept, Atlas shadowed the duo and, if any systems failed, would provide a tow with the short range Tractor Beam the fighters were equipped with. Sure, it might make him a target, but he is capable of fighting and fending off anything that came for them. "If you have your ETS functioning and things get hairy, use it."

He felt he didn't need to remind them but you never know, stress and having allot to deal with could affect a pilot who may forget about the emergency system built into the fighter. As soon as they were safe, though, Atlas peeled off from the group. As it stood, the Romulans were fighting each other, the Klingons and other Wolves to really bother with the trio returning to the Theurgy.

While on escort, Atlas noted the lack of boarding shuttles approaching the Theurgy. Klingon Interceptors had thinned them out, and with the Romulans turning on each other fewer and fewer shuttles had been launched. Donatra's forces were getting pinned down and penned in with the Flagship looking quite open now. What did catch his eye was the sudden and rather alarming alert of a Thalaron build-up onboard her ship. Fuck Not keen to be a puddle when that goes off, Atlas opened a comm to the other Wolves. "Wolf-10 to Wolf 1. I got a Hellbore and a Hellhound left. If we can get an attack run on the Emitter, I got the delivery of a lifetime."

With that, he diverted on an intercept course to the Valdore.
 
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