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Morrigan They've found the frigates, but the GTVA is already there - in force.

    The Ranvir is there - a long, slender vessel with a trio of powerful engines and a substantial rotating section - and it's engaging a pair of blocky GTVA warships. UEF intelligence identifies the larger of the pair as the GTCv Idomeneus, Deimos-class, and the smaller is the GTC Cho, Aeolus-class. Missiles streak from the Ranvir to the pair of attacking GTVA vessels, who respond in kind with emerald-green plasma beams - great white-hot gouges are ripped down the length of the Ranvir.

    They're sticking to the artillery frigate's blindspots, preventing her captain from getting her spinal-mount mass drivers into the fight.

    "We need artillery support fast, Ranvir!" The Akula's captain calls, her voice hard, "These Tev captains have the taste of blood!"

    "We're trying to assist but the Idomeneus has us pinned down!"

    Far away, little more than a spec in the distance, explosions and green flashes of beam fire point out the Akula. The Karuna-class is smaller and more maneuverable but the GTVA is hitting her hard with two more corvettes - the GTCv Cardinal and GTCv Regensburg.

    "Christ and Allah," That's Kassim, voice recognisable from the convoy raid, "They're carving up the Akula like a slab of meat!"

    There's significant long-range jamming in place. "Can anyone reach command authority?!" the Akula's captain barks.

    GTVA fighters dance with Brie, Kassim and Laporte. It looks like there's a lot to do - warships to disarm and suppress, fighters to take out, and some way to track down whatever it is that's jamming any and all long-range transmissions.
Ixqor Nathrach Ixqor strode down the hallways of the EUF frigate, holding his helm between his left arm and chest. The boots of his power armor collapsed against the floor with heavy thunks, announcing his pressance far before his arrival in this cramped space. Upon reaching the hangar he rounded the corner and gave curt nods to any crewmen who looked to him. He moved to his ship and inspected the engineer's work, forming a half smile as the Hellblade was in perfect condition. Hewas lucky to only get away with scrapes against the two TEV fighters he goaded into chasing him. He looked about the room then, searching for any othe rpilots who may be joining him on this next excursion into the void.

     Ixqor was dawning his power armour, a blue hulking piece of equipment with broad shoulders. The material was made of thick ceramite, an extremely dense material made of various fibers and carbon. THe shoulders and chestpiec eof the amror bore insignias or a Hydra and the signs of devotion, such as an eight pointed star. The words "Hydra Dominatus" encircled the insignia of his legion on his right shoulder.
Bahamut      As the Idomeneus and the Cho pound the Ranvir, a strange reading appears a short distance away. Those looking might see the runed white spellcircles that form in the vaccuum of space, then a few more form in front of it before a grey shape with colorful wings forms behind them and comes crashing through them like a cannonball through a set of glass windows.

     Sensors or viewers would show that the entity is a large dragon with what seems to be metal skin and feathers. There is a reading of building energy, likely on or above the level of one of the attacking ships' own weapons. Sparks of yellow arc over the gyro hovering over his back as energy builds around him and focuses in front of his gaping maw. The energy coalesces into a ball of brightly glowing white and blue, then...the dragon lets it loose. A beam as thick as the dragon himself fires at the Idomeneus, and if the Cho is close by it is likely to be caught in the beam as well. Like a super powered laser, it threatens to oversaturate the plating of the ships and cause massive explosions.
Alexis Maaka     Not far from where the fighters are fighting one another, the Crimson Spectre comes in from warp. The ship is still in repairs from the damage sustained before, but Maaka has no time to waste and no other ships on hand to engage the enemy with. Amid Kaz's protests, she was intent on getting involved with this one.

    She begins to focus targeting on one of the star fighters Laportie, Brie, and Kassim are engaging before she fires off a short burst of cannon fire. "Afternoon, folks." Maaka says into comms to the fighter jockeys, "Figured I'd make myself useful if you don't mind."
Zephyr Windstar     Zephyr is here again. It's almost like she never left, though she had gone to help with another incident, involving the Metal Horde... All this action has put a lot of stress on her Linker Core, but it's recovered enough for high speed operations. She sees the distant flashes of laser and plasma beams, the explosion flashes of missiles and torpedoes, and the crackled chatter over long range comm...

<---d Artillery Support!>

    That she can do. She converts her Device to Mistral Form, and flicks her eyes over the long range contacts. Cardinal and Rengenburg attacking the UEF Akula huh? Not for long.

    <SHIFT TO LONG RANGE BOMBARDMENT MODE. MISTRAL STORM TO CONDENSER FORMATION.>

    A purple spell circle forms under her feet, and high energy readings would likely spike for the three corvettes locked in mortal combat. <ALL MANA CHANNELS CONNECTED. ANCHOR POINTS AND RECOIL DAMPENERS LOCKED.> Energy starts to gather at the head of her Device, as the 'vanes' spin, and the Bits rotate counter to the vanes. <LINKER CORE PRESSURE RISING NORMALLY. STORM RING HAS STARTED REVOLVING.> she pauses, as the energy builds, Zephyr watching a small bar building in her HUD. <READY TO FIRE!> "MAELSTROM BREAKER FIRE!"

    The gathered energy condenses down to a tiny pinprick of burning bright plasma... then surges outwards in a torrent of barely contained energy. The Bits fire their own beams as they spin, making the energy 'wave' begin to spiral around itself, condensing the energy into a spinning lance that then splits off into two high energy beams. These track onto, and aim straight for the Cardinal and Rengenburg. These beams aren't quite as powerful as the plasma beams they themselves sport, but focus on a single point instead of raking across the hull, and they've focussed on the highest energy signal they can find, though may not be able to pierce the hull.
Rory White As before the Cognizant Odysssey is not a warship and not keen on trying to play one. It appears 'above' the battle (in so far as such concepts mean anything in space - it's relative to the other ships' locations of course) at the tail end of a space-warping FTL jump powered the insane element called Erchius. Space ripples and shimmers as it slips free of the constraints of possibility and into the real!

    And this time the ship is ready for battle. Rory's spent some time REFITTING a lot of her onboard drones and constructing a few more. The cargo bay doors open and out fly a few dozen man-sized... things. Some look kind of like space fighters? But they're way too small, and have thrusters in all directions. Another batch look like tiny flying saucers, ringed with thruster jets. A few four-legged things fitted with harnesses, each the size of four men and heavily armored.

    Then there's these freaky-looking silvery disks covered in gun turrets and flexible tendrils that end in yet more weapons and tools? ALSO ringed with thrusters? Also man-sized...

    The cloud of drones assembles into formations and begins approaching the GTCv Idomeneus in a bizarre pattern of swirling around each other and braiding in and out of each other's flight paths.

    Not only are these things MUCH SMALLER than space fighters, but they don't move like one. Constantly changing course and making themselves harder to hit, yet somehow not crashing into one another... it's pretty obvious what their intentions are.

    Board the Idomeneus!
Ixqor Nathrach The hellblade's engines roar to life as the cockpit is locked in and the starting procedures are finished. The daemonic and ferocious machien spirit screams as the Hellblade takes off, hungry for new prey. "This is hydra one, I'm in the air, give me coordinates. I've no weaponry dangerous enough to pierce a capital ships armor, but I'll provide what support I can." The sorcerer scans the void then, catching sight of the two battles occuring, waiting for further orders from his allies.
Morrigan      Bahamut opens up with a great beam, slashing into the molybdenum armor of the Idomeneus. The Deimos-class is hit hard, but she retaliates with blue-white beams of her own. They're different to her main armament, the green anti-capital beams. These ones fire quickly in staccato stabs designed to pick off small objects - fighters and warheads usually but space dragons will do in a pinch!

     The Idomeneus turns off as Rory's armada approaches. Those blue-white beams just don't stop firing and, soon enough, the GTC Cho is adding her flak batteries to the Idomeneus' defence. It's a huge amount of firepower but some of Rory's craft will get through, even if just through sheer weight of numbers.

     But it gives the Ranvir an opening. She turns to face the direction of the Akula firefight and opens up, all six cannons firing.

     Even with the Ranvir forcing the issue, it'd still take a minute or two for her to get enough rounds over there to force the GTVA corvettes to back off. Zephyr shows them the door by lancing high-intensity beams into the armor that protects their reactor cores. The Cardinal warps out, slipping through a subspace vortex, followed in moments by the Regensburg.

     That's two down.

     Alexis Maaka and her Crimson Spectre slip into the dogfight around the Ranvir. "Good to see you, Spectre!" replies Brie. One by one, the GTVA fighters are caught by guns or missiles and vanish into nothing but flame and debris. "Hydra 1, we need protection on the Ranvir, we've got- Hells, incoming Ares wing! They'll pop Trebuchets and jump clear, go evasive!"

     True to Brie's word another wing of GTVA fighters jump in. Each combatant gets locked onto and they fire off a set of long-range warheads - Trebuchets. "Ranvir here, if you can't countemeasure the missiles then put us between them - we can handle the hits you can't."

     Of course, at that same time, a different kind of GTVA fighter slips onto the battlefield. It's not jamming but there sure is a lot of data flowing from it. Seems convenient that the GTVA will suppress anything at the same time they sortie that thing.
Alexis Maaka     The Spectre is just done polishing off one of the GTVA fighters before they're rocked by explosions, Trebuchet fire rattling their vessel as they grab onto their seats for dear life. "Shit-!" "Bogies coming in fast!"

    The Spectre holds fast as shields protect them from the worst of the impacts, but they're still rattled hard as they try to realign their flight path. Maaka grits her teeth as she angles turrets to take aim at the arriving fighters, firing away aggressively while making a hard bank to make the ship as hard to hit as possible.
Ixqor Nathrach Two missiles home in Ixqor's ship as fighters from the GTVA forces begin screaming towards the Ravnir. "Shit!" Ixqor lets out into the vox before attempting to make evasive moves. He was caught off guard, but he was convinced he wouldn't let himself die here. He punched in on the thrusters and attempted to put some distance between him and the missles. He zig zagged through the void in an attempt to lose them but it didn't seem to be working yet. As he did so he fired off into the streams of incomming missile barrages, hoping to ping some of them before they hit the ravnir. "Damnation, their bombing the Ravnir with squadrons of fighters, we need more pilots in the air, now!"
Zephyr Windstar     Zephyr whoops in triumph as the telltale flash of a jump-out signals her gambit worked. She releases the locks and turns to get into the furball around the Ranvir, when her Linker Core /throbs/ and she catches herself short. "GNNNGH..." she crumples to the 'platform' she created, panting in her breather mask. She recovers, gradually. Thankfully she was too far away for those Trebuchets to get a lock on her, providing the needed 'breathing room'.

    Radio chatter points her to look for something out of place, a ship far off the main bulk of GTVA craft. "Divine Wind, deploy Area Search, energy signal scan... look for the strongest consentration of those jamming signals. If we can find the epicenter of the jamming bubble, we'll find their AWACS.

    Divine Wind chimes, and spits out a multitude of small 'wisps' that flit out in all directions, like a starburst. Space is huge and there's a lot of range to cover, so her method is likely not going to be very effective, but it's all she's got. "For now though, lets go say hi." She turns, and with a flare of white jets from her back, launches off toward the massed dogfight around the capital ships.
Bahamut      Bahamut's powerful wings start working as soon as the Mega-Flare tapers off, and he is barrel rolling toward the cruiser to avoid cannon fire. But, there is a lot of cannonfire, flak, and assorted other things flying through space. The big dragon can't help getting hit several times. Each hit leaves a welt in his metal armored hide, but he presses on. He hears the chatter on the radio, but in a vaccuum Bahamut can't really talk. So, he moves in to back up Ixqor.

     It might worry Ixqor a moment to see the dragon barrelling toward him, but soon it becomes clear that Bahamut is fighting the GTVA. Especially when he launches magic spells at fighters he can't reach, and slashes into any that get close with those powerful claws of his. Fireballs explode against fighters, magical lightning blasts hit others, and still others are hit with bursts of pure energy. But, Bahamut knows he is ill-equipped to be a dogfighter. He is fast, but he is hardly what one would call maneuverable.

     However, he has a chance when the Ares wing warps in. Bahamut comes to a stop in space, then aims his hands at the incoming fighters. And just in front of them what can best be described as a black hole appears. A Gravity spell! It increases the relative gravity of each fighter to many times their normal levels, drawing them toward each other and attempting to crash and compact them into a harmless orb of scrap metal.
Rory White WEEEEEEELL. Operating as a distraction works too, Rory supposes, as she watches around half of her deployed assets reduced to scraps of metal. Some of them even paradoxically explode instead of half melting. Must be the locale!

    Her stuff doesn't normally explode in space. It gets her peering a little over the sensors. What the heck?

    Oh well.

    The ship itself is abuzz with activity. Its computers work furiously to support her digital consciousness as it expands and she activates neural subsystems that were perhaps meant to be much greater. her consciousnses splits - not into separate awarenesses entirely, but separate thought threads operating in parallel, all sharing a memory and holistic awareness of the situation.

    And this awareness reaches out over the Mesh to deliver reams of indirect commands to the squads of drones, weaving them through the screen of fire. After a hellish plunge the drones reveal their purpose:

    The two remaining DWARFS slam their piston-pylon legs into the hull and deploy pylons. One is damaged and only two of its four pylons get purchase, its aim is slightly off, but the MINING LASERS that are so good at shearing through asteroid guts will eventually cut through that hull. Thing is, though... they're not trying to cut out a section of hull for the other drones to slip through. That would be a waste of time.

    The SAUCERS are tiny, no bigger than a human baby. But they've been packed with EXPLOSIVES. A saucer manuevers into the pit... is then SEALED IN with repair foam...

    ... Then it detonates, distributing all of that energy efficienctly into the armor and towards the ship's inwards instead of loosing most of it into vacuum. Each explosion carves the hole open wider and blows the Dwarfs back, but they reseat themselves - taking mostly cosmetic damage and some dents from any debris.

    This process will be repeated four, five times... whatever it takes to penetrte the hull.

    That's when the four surviving REAPERS (one only half-there and sparking) would plunge into the ship's guts and try to establish themselves.

    The REAPERS unfold some of their arms and side ports, revealing barrels and tubes and claws and what look like laser emitters! And if there's Artificial Gravity, they navigate by rolling around in the strangest way. If not, they use vector thrusters to manuever like squids where they can't use their flexible tendril-arms to clamber along the walls like spiders.

    Rory's not sure what kind of resistance to expect in there, but the things aren't actually armed too lethally. The lasers aim for eyes to blind. The tubes fire FREEZER FOAM and flashbangs. Anyone dumb enough to expose bare flesh - or rather, anything not shielded - will face a horribly painful (but non-lethal) MICROWAVE AGONIZER. being on the wrong end of one of those makes it so your flesh feels like it's all ON FIRE, bringing people to their knees with pain or driving them off.

    And if that fails, there's always emitting HORRIBLE NOISES in pressurized sections, noises that set human brains on fire and kill concentration.

    Rory White's become very versed in how to bring down biologicals without killing them, leaving them in a recoverable state.

    Brutally so.

    But disabling the crew with a handful of Reapers isn't her goal. The Reapers fan out through corridors, seeking access panels and maintenance hatches where they will attempt to physically splice into whatever networking and signaling conduits the ship uses.

    She wants to HACK INTO THIS THING, and she's found that few people go so far as to design their computer components to encrypt communications on the internal layers.
Ixqor Nathrach As the draconic being slices upwards and flies into and quickly out of IXqors flight path, he makes a sharp turn to his right and then steadies himsself, having to dodge past other enemy and allied fighters amidst the chaos. "What sort of Daemon is this? Do either sides possess the power to summon such a monstrosity?" He asks, regaining his composure as he returns to a cold and calculated state. He continues in his attempts to lose the missiles, catching an eye of what the dragon was doing to the enemy fighters. For the moment it was serving as useful ally, and for the moment it would be considered one. It could be dealt with if it turned on them, though he certainlyw asn't hoping for it. He went back to picking off any other missiles that may cross his path, aswell as any enemy fighters, still under pressure from the hunter killers behind him.
Morrigan      The Spectre evades, its speed helping it slip away from the Trebuchet strike, and its cannons find a few of the Ares fighters - blasting them to pieces before they can jump away. They begin to jump but Bahamut is there, twisting them around a singularity and disrupting their subspace vortices - crumpled as if in the fist of an angry god, not even a single Ares fighter makes it back to their carrier.

     Ixqor's interception techniques work, picking off many of the missiles before they hit their targets. "We're all we've got, Hydra 1!" snaps Brie, "These ships are less than two minutes from getting out of here, we just need to hold for a little bit more time!"

     Meanwhile, Rory's drones slam into the hull of the Idomeneus. A transmission is intercepted, "Cho, Idomeneus. We are being boarded by unknown assailants. System subversion in progress. We're crash-jumping in five."

     Inside the ship, Rory's drones clash with GTVA marines in heavy suits of powered armor. They've been trained to fight Shivans, so, they're not caught as off-guard by wallwalking or strange maneuvers, but they can't stop them quickly enough. While the Idomeneus jumps, followed by the Cho, it's on an unknown vector. Wherever they show up, Rory's going to know - and she's still going to be able to have access to their systems all the while! Even in subspace, there's a nice stream of data coming n.

    Meanwhile, the jamming drops.

    "Stand by," the Akula transmits, "SSM strike! All hands, brace for impact!" All around the Akula, just visible at this distance, there's blue white spots - dozens of them. From each one comes a missile and each one strikes the Akula.

     The frigate detonates catastrophically.

     But vectoring in that subspace missile strike exposed the AWACS ship to the two hunters, Zephyr and Ixqor. One of them is a smaller fighter, an Aurora, which is lurking somewhere near the Ranvir - Ixqor won't have long before it brings the jamming back up! The other one, a Charybdis-class dedicated ECM vessel, is some distance away - but well within range of Zephyr. The Akula might be gone but without those AWACS the GTVA can't do it again.
Morrigan      The Spectre evades, its speed helping it slip away from the Trebuchet strike, and its cannons find a few of the Ares fighters - blasting them to pieces before they can jump away. They begin to jump but Bahamut is there, twisting them around a singularity and disrupting their subspace vortices - crumpled as if in the fist of an angry god, not even a single Ares fighter makes it back to their carrier. Behind Bahamut, the Cho and Idomeneus burn - he's made them bleed and they appear to be disengaging.

     Ixqor's interception techniques work, picking off many of the missiles before they hit their targets. "We're all we've got, Hydra 1!" snaps Brie, "These ships are less than two minutes from getting out of here, we just need to hold for a little bit more time!"

     Meanwhile, Rory's drones slam into the hull of the Idomeneus. A transmission is intercepted, "Cho, Idomeneus. We are being boarded by unknown assailants. System subversion in progress. We're crash-jumping in five."

     Inside the ship, Rory's drones clash with GTVA marines in heavy suits of powered armor. They've been trained to fight Shivans, so, they're not caught as off-guard by wallwalking or strange maneuvers, but they can't stop them quickly enough. While the Idomeneus jumps, followed by the Cho, it's on an unknown vector. Wherever they show up, Rory's going to know - and she's still going to be able to have access to their systems all the while! Even in subspace, there's a nice stream of data coming n.

    Meanwhile, the jamming drops.

    "Stand by," the Akula transmits, "SSM strike! All hands, brace for impact!" All around the Akula, just visible at this distance, there's blue white spots - dozens of them. From each one comes a missile and each one strikes the Akula.

     The frigate detonates catastrophically.

     But vectoring in that subspace missile strike exposed the AWACS ship to the two hunters, Zephyr and Ixqor. One of them is a smaller fighter, an Aurora, which is lurking somewhere near the Ranvir - Ixqor won't have long before it brings the jamming back up! The other one, a Charybdis-class dedicated ECM vessel, is some distance away - but well within range of Zephyr. The Akula might be gone but without those AWACS the GTVA can't do it again.
Zephyr Windstar     Even in the vast near vacuum of the Void... Zephyr hears that explosion. She doesn't know how, but the Akula's reactor going critical makes her turn around, just in time to watch it break apart. "... NO! Damn it!" Tears streak down her face behind the faceplate of her helmet, and she grips her Device in a white knuckled grip. Her jaw clenches, and she literally shakes with building rage.

    <MASTER. HOSTILE ADVANCE WARNING AND COMMAND SYSTEM CRAFT LOCATED. COORDINATES ARE SPECIFIC. STUN MODE HAS BEEN CANCELLED.>

    Zephyr turns her eyes onto that pinprick of a dot on the backdrop of stars, its hull just catching the light as it maneuvers. "Strike Mode." she says in a dangerous monotone. "Blitz Shift."

    Much like a miniature Mobile Suit, the Mage turns, angles and brings her Device into position, as the Bits maneuver to latch onto the counterbalance point, spinning up and emitting energy like tiny plasma engines. The order to 'kill it' receives a single word, layered in ice. "Done." Before the white 'jets' flare brilliantly from her back, and she surges towards the Charybdis. "I am the Wind Dancer of March. You just murdered a ship and her crew in front of my eyes. For that there is NO MERCY!"

    <GET SET. HURRICANE THUNDERCLAP!> chimes Divine Wind, as the blade of that axe begins to glow angrily, boiling magic bubbling along it like some angry monster. She adjuts course to intersect directly with the AWACS craft, and aims to not only slam her Device into it, but push it all the way through the craft! The blade /explodes/ on impact, like a shaped charge. It's designed to punch through shields and armour, while the blade retains a 'sheath' of plasma-like energy for shearing through internal structure... a very nasty way of doing things especially since she's gone Lethal Mode.
Ixqor Nathrach The sorcerer has had enough cat and mouse play and violently changes teh direction of his craft, knocking his helm against the side window and nearly cracking it. WIth a shake of the head he leans forward, keeping his eyes set on the jamming craft. "To tzeentch with this fool!" He proclaims before his twin linked autocannons spin up and spew forth an explosive hail of flak like munitions, each round detonating on contact. He passes over it then, continuing to avoid his troublesome company. In doing so he makes yet another looped pass at the AWAC and repeating his assault, zipping past it and diving in like an enraged hornet.

     During his multi pronmged assult on the ship he sense sthe intense magical energy being unleashed by his nearby ally and glances over for just a moment to see the violent arcane explosion as her weapon collides with the enemy ship. He would marvel at this, but his battle sense keeps him focussed, and instead he returns to the task at hand, and continues his evasive yet aggressive maneuvers. "A Sorcerer with such power? You held back all this time then?" He seemed somewhat adgitated by such a notion, but kept a calm and cllected attitude as usual.
Bahamut      Bahamut grins as the Ares fighters are crushed within the Gravity spell, but his grin is soon replace by a look of anger as the Akula detonates. Then, the two large warships jump out, leaving Bahamut floating amidst a lot of fighter debris and staring at the spreading remains of the Akula.

     But, there is still work to do. Ixqor flies by again, and Bahamut falls in behind him. He fires a plethora of spells at Ixqor's pursuers, then when they near the AWACs...Bahamut aims right for it.

     He flies in, firing lightning and fire spells, and ends with a Blizzaga. He attempts to freeze the small AWACS solid so that when he crashes into it the craft will shatter like glass. If there are any survivors after that, he would call in the location for pickup. But, either way he starts toward the EMC vessel next.

     And as he moves toward it, they would track the same energy buildup that he released on the Idomeneus when he first arrived.
Rory White The instant Rory hears that they're going to JUMP she activates an emergency measure and activates her countermeasure. One of the Reapers has a Quantum Farcaster installed!

    Q-bits don't care about lightspeed or subspace shenanigans!

    But the moment the ship JUMPS Rory loses contact with her drones. Now they only have their onboard AIs to guide them. And their orders in this situation is 'hunker down, guard yourselves, and await future instructions.'

    Without the advanced targeting and strategy being provided from Rory their combat power drops significantly, but the Reapers are still quite fearsome.

    When the ship does once again appear, the first thing she does is transmit a request for the coordinates over the Quantum Farcaster... where did it GO?

    Well, the rest of her thought threads are focused on the matter of hand. Those volleys of missiles from SEEMINGLY NOWHERE, that even her sensors didn't recognize as threats until a few seconds too late...

    "No... NO!"

    She doesn't have a face in this form, but if she did it would be scrunched up in a grimace...

    "This... this isn't a war... they're using massive overkill and not even taking prisoners!"
Alexis Maaka     The explosion is felt even by the Spectre's crew, as they're in the middle of engaging fighter craft. Maaka guns the throttle as she fires off a final few shots and growls in anger, "Oh, they're gonna fucking get it now." the cyborg snarls, gunning it towards one of the cruisers before she feels a hand on her shoulder.

    It's Kaz. He's looking her dead in the eyes when she turns her head, looking less scared shitless and more intense than he's ever looked since they met. "Don't."

    "Don't fucking WHAT? Is now a good time for the hear-to-heart? We just lost god knows how many people-"

    "And we'll lose even MORE if you try this, Maaka! Look, you yourself keep saying the ship's not rated for combat, right?" he points to status readouts, alarms blaring about a hull breach and imminent engine failure. "Look, we're trying to fight with a glorified sensor-equipped van against assault vehicles, we don't have the time or firepower to keep at this unless you have some sort of death wish, and I sure as hell didn't sign on to be your techie just so we could get our asses blown to bits out here!"

    Maaka stares at him. The two just keep staring for what feels much longer than a few moments, and Maaka just growls again, frustrated at herself. "...fuck, you're right. We need to bug out fast, or we /are/ gonna get roasted out here."

    They're already trying to scan out those jamming ships when they can, but it seems that Chaos pilot has the AWACs handled for the moment. Best they can do is stay alive.
Morrigan      "That's Steele's playbook," Brie tells Rory, "He hates wasting lives just as much as he likes the chance to fight. Severanti wants attrition, Steele wants this thing /done/."

     Zephyr kills the Charybdis, cutting the small vessel in half. It falls apart, burning from both ends. It hardly balances the scales for the death of the Akula.

     Ixqor falls upon the Aurora AWACS fighter with a hawk on a mouse. His autocannons deflect off shields on the first pass, and but his second past punctures armor and hull, cockpit and pilot. Bahamut crashes into it and the craft disintegrates into a fiery display for one brief second.

     Ahead of the Ranvir, a trio of ships flash out of subspace. Hydra, Pilum and Marcus Glaive, three of the GTVA's newest strike corvettes. The Ranvir is already firing her forward batteries - but Serkr Team is already charging their weapons.

     Nine beams find the Ranvir and burn her from stem to stern in not even a few seconds.

     And then Steele's elite begin firing on everyone else. The crew of the Spectre might have the bright idea - the only thing to do now is stay alive.

    Elsewhere, the Idomeneus appears in the Solar system equivalent of the middle of nowhere, well above the galactic plane. From what Rory can get, it seems to be fairly disabled - it'll be there for a few days at the very least, until the GTVA can find it themselves and sortie a repair vessel. With any luck, it'll be enough time to hunt it down.
Ixqor Nathrach Ixqor scoffs as teh AWAC is destroyed with the garunteed assurance by the dragon beast. "A burning wreck remains, their AWACS lie in ruin!" He sighs with relief, seeing the dragon also took it upon himself to free Ixqor of teh bind the missile shad on his flight patterns. He looks to the Ravnir then, spotting the warpgates open as teh three new ships enter the fray. He squints beneath his helm only to have his eyes go wide as teh Ravnir is torn to pieces by the immediate oncomming fire. "Curses! We need to pull out now! This battle is done!"

     He connects his comms directly to Odyessy then. "You said you had a bead on that straggling enemy ship yes? Where is it and what's the status on the boarding crew you sent with it? Answer quickl, I have an idea!" He began to make evasive maneuvers, moving to reinforce the odessy and pick off any missiles that may come it's way.
Zephyr Windstar     Momentum carries Zephyr on past the burning wreck of the Charybdis. Her rage is still burning, but her Linker Core has given up the ghost, as it were. <EMERGENCY. STASIS LOCK ACTIVATED. LINKER CORE INTEGRITY CRITICAL.> intones Divine Wind as the mage just floats, unconscious and helpless, as those warships start lasering literally everything.
Rory White "... I can appreciate pragmatic thinking, but when it involves sapient life..." Rory replies unhappily. Then... Ixqor brings her back to the matter at hand. That blip on her long, LONG distance map.

    "Coordinates..." She transmits them quickly.

    "However, they're many astronomical units away. You won't be reaching that without FTL before they've had time to get their acts together. The Odyssey can pursue but I'm out of... anything useful to throw at them. The drones won't last long in the current situation! I'd give them a half-hour at most. The ship HAS taken a beating though.. they won't be LEAVING for hours, maybe days. They probably don't realize we have their location. Quantum farcasters can't be detected or traced!" She sounds proud of THAT much.
Ixqor Nathrach The Hellblade makes it's way for the floating capsule that was Zephyr, slowing his ship to a near halt. He then does what most would believe to be the unthinkable. With his hellblade idle he unstraps from the binding and pushes the Hellblades cockpit open. His power armor immediately seals and begins providing what oxgen it has stored away into his body directly. He steps crawls lightly onto the wing of his hellblade, as navigating like this in the vacuum is difficult to say the least. He extends a hand, and the warp energies begin to coalessce in his palm as he begins to manifest his sorcerous powers. Bits of his life energy are pulled into the spell and he visibly hunches in sudden pain. It had been quite a while since he had to call upon his mortal coil to manifest his powers, and in a way he missed this feeling. The spell manifests in a weak telekenitic pull, bringing Zephyr closer to him. He then maintains the power, holding her in space there. Strained, and through grit teeth he goes on the vox.

    "Now get yourself ready, you'll have just over twenty seconds to get yourselves in the gate. Got that?" He Steadies himself then releasing his grip of the hellblade and using his other hand to point in the direction right in front of the formation. Another mass of strangely coloured energy forms in his hand and a beam of warp force is sent into the vacuum. His entire body tenses and he lets out a groan of pain over the vox. "I command thee, ocean of souls... Open to me!" As he mutters these words the beam collides with a seemingly inviisble wall and opens up to a strange purple and red gate. THe rift looks terrifying, as lightning and clouds flow from it, though nothing like this could be possible in space. THe terrible vista that is shown already fills with the vague faces of daemonic creatures and strange beings as they attempt to break into real space.

     "Now go! Close your eyes, cover your ears and go! Don't stop until you hear my voice again! Got that?" IT doesn't look like he can hold this gate forever...
Alexis Maaka     The Spectre is almost, ALMOST ready to play ambulance for Zephyr when Ixqor comes on the line, mentioning he has not only a plan but he's closer to Zephyr as well. Good enough for Maaka and Kaz, their ship's fucked as it is.

    They don't' argue this time, instead they gun it towards the gate before suddenly a massive portal opens up in space. It's recognizably the Warp. Maaka has seen its might before, when she first met that Commissar fellow, and she was not pleased with it then. Now, it's an even more galling prospect to think CHAOS of all things is gonna be saving her ass tonight.

    "The friends you make in battle sometimes..." SHe mutters, before she braces for the worst as the Spectre begins to fly towards the gate, shields up to maximum as the vessel braves the unholy realm that is the Warp.
Bahamut      Both support craft are destroyed before Bahamut has to use his Mega-Flare again, and he turns around to head back to the Ranvir. Seems like the battle is over, except maybe a few stray fighters. Bahamut hopes to put his engineering skills to use helping the Ranvir get back on its feet.

     And then, those corvettes appear practically out of nowhere. In seconds, the Ranvir is gone as well, presumably with all hands lost. Bahamut is enraged! This is a coward's tactic! Flashing into existence and striking with no warning after your ships have already retreated! With his Mega-Flare already charged, Bahamut unleashes the powerful attack on the new attackers. The powerful beam rips into all three ships thanks to the close formation, but now they need to worry about getting themselves out of here.

     Bahamut starts taking fire from the corvettes, and roars before setting up a Reflect spell. For the next several seconds, any energy bolts that hit him are reflected back at the source of that energy bolt. He uses this time to catch up with Ixqor and the others, then curls his wings around himself to protect himself as Ixqor suggests. Closed eyes and ears, just momentum carrying him now. If he were a less trusting soul, this would be quite unnerving.
Morrigan      Serkr Team continues throwing out firepower for a minute or two, but slip away into subspace - presumably returning to base given Bahamut's display - as the UEF fighters and their allies depart into the warp, leaving behind nothing but debris and the dead. Serkr team got bloodied by Bahamut, so, hopefully the elite corvette squadron will be off the field for some time.

     The trio of pilots obey Ixqor's commands.

     To Noemi Laporte, it's almost familiar - this Warp and its sensations. But that was years ago and Ken was never real. Wasn't he?
Rory White Perhaps easing the strain on ixqor from this strange endeavor of his - one that has a large amount of Rory's sensors focused on him - would be smart. The warnings have her a bit worried - maybe she should spool up her own FTL drive? But then... she might not arrive in sync with the others.

    "I HOPE you know what you're doing."

    And she does indeed heed the warnings...

    As the Odyssey slips through the portal, she shuts off her feeds from most of the sensors. They are, however, still recording...
Ixqor Nathrach "Steady yourselves! Onwards!" Ixqor voxes before sliding his way over to the cockpit and sitting in it, though he is unable to close the hatch, knowing if he does he will lose Zephyr. He pauses, knowing without complete protection the warp will come to him, and he sighs. "The things I do for otehrs on the food chain..." He mutters to himself before pushing his throttle to maximum and then returning his psychic focus onto holding Zephyr close and shileding her from the horrors of the Immaterium.

WIth that, every ship is thrust into the great ocean, the immaterium, the realm of souls. The Warp. It is a place of pure madness. The clouds and storms rage off in a space like environment, and floating terraces of shattered earth and stone loom in the chaos. Upon them are towers and illogical geological formations. From them the faint shillouttes of daemons and monsters jeer and shout at the passing ships. They hunger for the mortals souls. Even being in the warp was taxing on the body, as nauseia and a sense of dread would rise from such exposure due to a lack of a gellar field, though their current technology would at least protect them from possession or worse. The whispers they could not escape though, and what seems like five seconds of travel time may feel like ages to some as the wap suddenly disappears around everyone in a flash of blinding light.

     All is quiet then.

     Ixqors voice comes over the vox, first in heavy breathes, then in actual speech. "I... I live... Is everyone else responding? Hello?" His panting continues, following by coughing and hurling sounds as he comes to the verge of vomitting.

     Below them, luckily, is terra's frozen northern pole. They made it.
Bahamut      Although he keeps his eyes closed, the maddening whispers of the Warp reach Bahamut. He growls softly as he tries to ignore them, and being what he is it is easier for him to avoid any maddening effects. Still, he is grateful when they emerged safely. He opens his eyes and spreads his wings, coming to a stop. He looks around quickly, then blinks at the planet below them. Being from Spira, Earth looks rather alien to him. Land and water, yes, but nothing looking like any landmass from his world.

     "Is everyone alright?" he asks over the radio, going between the different ships and checking on them.
Ixqor Nathrach Ixqor takes a deep breath before setting his ship adrift towards teh odyssey, holding zephyr close in his telekine shielding. "Coming your way now Odyssey, have a docking bay or hangar?"