Duty, 7: Giving the Chance
07 May 2022Meowers
Oh, hello, it's me again. So, techs got our newbie wing up and running, all our ships were repaired, rearmed, refueled and ready to give some hell to the Thargoids again. And the pilots were ready too, at least one of them, hah. I hope this little break didn't make me less sharp, but also I realised that... I really, really missed that!
Hearing the low roar of Marshmallow's engines warming up instantly made me remember those recent skirmishes with the Thargoids we had. And I knew I'm taking off now to blast even more of them out of the sky, and nothing else. And... Ow, I felt goosebumps all over my arms once again! Once you hear four Gauss cannons thundering, feel the heavy recoil shaking your body to that beat and the wave of heat following up and touching your face, once you see the Thargoid bastard falling apart under your unstoppable power, and then its last voice will echo within you... Oooow. It sets the bar for the stuff that can get you excited unbelievably high. Definitely better than many other interesting things people can do for their entertainment. And I want more of it!
Yeah, many people say that you should fire them in pairs, two after two, but hey, I like getting the possible maximum of these sensations, hah.
Thargoids were moving around in packs, and we did that as well, joining the formation with two other wings and beginning the patrol. Before the takeoff, Joseph said that such an organised behaviour and targeting the transports and civilian vessels usually means presence of larger and more dangerous types of Thargoids in the system. So, the transports and civilian ships...
Even those cruise liners! What the heck they're doing here, in a goddamn warzone? Luxury suicide-tours for bored moneybags? Or they're being paid to see how do we react on their distress signals by dropping nearby and shooting Thargoids, while those bored moneybags watch it like a GalNet show, but in real? At least the pilots knew what they're doing and where. The transports had their escorts in most of the cases, they were getting outnumbered fast, but still giving us some time to react and reach their positions before it's too late. And passenger liners were quite fast and hard to catch.
I remember one of the passenger vessels, a Dolphin-class liner. Attacked by a pack of Cyclopes and a pair of Basilisks, the ship was trying to get away on its top speed, until we arrived and shredded the Thargoids to bits. Was a pretty intensive fight, one of our ships took serious damage and retreated, but my wing was doing okay. Got two Cyclopes personally. I wanted to take a look on what's happening inside the liner, radioed the captain that I'm going to inspect his ship, assessing the severity of possible damage, and moved closer. The ship itself was okay, some little breaches here and there, but nothing critical.
However, the thing that will probably remain in my memory... A little girl, standing near the slightly-tinted side window and looking at me, waving her hand. I waved back, smiled and made a 360 roll before flying away... And, returning into the formation, I thought... She was alive, she survived that day thanks to us. Maybe we gave her an example of who she can become in the future, when she grows up? Maybe. But, what's the most important, we gave her a chance to live.
Sometimes we were too late, arriving only to see debris, escape pods and cargo containers floating around in the disgusting greenish clouds. That was... Sad. But that's how reality of this war looks like. Reporting the coordinates to the evac team and making sure there's no more Thargoids around, we were resuming our patrol. Yeah, there were more distress calls rather than long-range sensor signals of possible Thargoid presence, several systems were under attack and we had to deal with this.
And then today's battle that forced all of us to retreat for repairs. Started as something quite usual, some Cyclopes around a convoy of miner ships, we dropped in, perforated the bastards with Gauss cannons and miners had a chance to jump away, but then... Seems like it was a goddamn ambush. They were starting to appear from hyperspace just everywhere around us, sensors became red, we tried to break through, I've seen one of the Chieftains from other wing catching fire and spinning out of control, and the escape pod ejecting... They were taking a risk, moving forward to cover us, newbies. Still no chance. We had to fight here and now.
Joseph gave a command to stick together and work with one target at a time, we blasted three Cyclopes and one Basilisk, but then more of them forced us to disperse. However, we still tried to stay close to each other. Three wings were caught into three pockets. Comms were filled with orders, damage reports and curses, I remember I was chasing a Basilisk when I heard Christine's call for help, two Cyclopes were trying to catch her and I've managed to shake one off, damaging it severely, but then my previous target attacked Joseph's Krait, and it was a bit too much for him, he was already busy with three other Interceptors.
He was calling for backup from the Atlas, trying to drag the Thargoids away, but remaining ones also tried to catch up with them, forcing us to move the fight into the same direction. Shit, they were really better organised than we thought. Other two wings had the same hell too, they separated us from each other. Joseph told me to take command of the wing, but... It was a chaos, we were outnumbered two to one at least, all of our ships were damaged, my sensors and power distributor were malfunctioning already, repair modules had a hard time to deal with the damage, I saw David struggling with the flight stabiliser failure... What a damn hell I say.
So, then their boss showed up. A Medusa. It attacked Joseph's ship when I had only one Cyclops trying to chase me. I've boosted towards Joseph, telling the wing to do the same, trying to gather everyone close to each other, giving our leader a chance to see the rest of us, and fired some shots at the Medusa to attract its attention. One of its hearts lit up, and Joseph knew what to do, blasting it away. But this bastard was really tough. And it locked on me.
Joseph's voice sounded too nervously, he was in the middle of the fight with the other Thargoids already and told me to retreat, almost yelling, but it was too late, that freak was already close to me, like, five kilometres away, and if I did that, someone else would have even more Thargoids firing at them. Commanding others to help Joseph, I've boosted towards my already damaged Cyclops and turned it into a rubbish before the main fight of the day. One ship from another wing helped me, lighting up the heart so I could destroy it, but they couldn't hang around for too long, they had their own problems to deal with.
That goddamn Medusa was tough as hell. It can soak up several volleys from four Gauss cannons before its heart start to glow, and its goddamn cannon was piercing my armour, turning modules into a mess. And the freaking Thargon swarm, we were evaporating them without any problems, but this one... Shit, they were able to form a wide circle to evade my flak shots. Crap.
Tough or not... Another heart was gone and... Ha! If it bleeds, I can kill it! Joseph took command of the wing again and I was one on one now. What the folks didn't know... I had some music to fire my cannons to the beat, hah. So, the Thargoids have the ability to make an electric attack if you got too close, it decimates the shields, slows you down and forces some systems to reboot, but the hull damage is minimal, and... It stops firing its cannon! And Marshmallow has no shields, only a thick armour. Turned out Medusas have quite a wide triggering radius, so I could tease it to make that attack. And it worked!
If your thrusters are off, it means you should run away as soon as they kick in again, but... Hah. Losing control over one of four cannons, or something like sensors or atmosphere controller wasn't dangerous at all, and I was shooting the Medusa point blank. Whatever the Thargoids have for a face, I was literally spitting in it each time. Still, failing to do that trick was forcing me to perform an usual attacking run with more damage in total, but... The vulnerability was found. Medusa's hearts began turning into showers of burning debris and freezing green ooze. I had a gift of several nasty hull breaches, some holes in the wings, but, hah. When that shit exploded with the awesomely deafening noise... Other Thargoids started to lose their cohesion so we were able to regroup and return to the Atlas at last, leaving the battlefield to incoming reinforcements.
Shit. Our ships were a mess again. David had to leave his Chieftain for the techs to recover and took place in Christine's one. More work for the repair crews, at least they were working more intense as much as us, pilots.
And Joseph called me a predator.
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Destroyed Medusa Interceptor