Swag Man turned his Vult III towards the Centaur that carried the tag "Temmin Shard", unleashing neuts in a long burst, scoring a pattern of damage across the ship. He rolled out and re-engaged, going in for the kill. He missed the twin lightning mines that Temmin had dropped, and spun directly into the left of them, getting his own ship smashed in return. Swag Man cursed hard and turboed out of the kill zone. He was now at 8%, and he had a Warthog approaching fast. Knowing that the likely loadout was going to be flares and turret, he spun his ships while dodging left and down, firing neuts like they were free. Scoring a pattern of hits across the ship, he disengaged as fast as he could, ready for another fly-by.
Tramshed in the meantime had engaged one of the two proms with his own Warthog, easily outmanoeuvring the larger ship and peppering it with gatling bolts. Dodge-spinning his own ship, he managed to avoid his opponents flares and turret, only slightly grazing his own armour as the larger ship exploded. He twisted for a new target and found William Cutting in a Valkyrie approaching fast.
Retractile continued to chase the EC-107, dodging several flares and energy shots, but not landing any hits of his own. Azumi spun her own rev c in an aggressive flight pattern above his, attempting to take out the twin vultures that pumped shots after her wingman. Retractile opened a radio link to Az.
"Seven"
With that, he turned the reverse thruster to full on, spun toward four o-clock, turboing straight up under one of the vultures and fired directly at the winglets. The Vulture pilot had anticipated this move and so turned and twisted to avoid getting hit, alas directly into the stream of positrons from Azumi's rev c, turning the ship into an expanding ball of fire.
"Right on Az, next one twelve."
He turboed towards the EC again, and then turned and did an Immelman. Well, not quite, since he moved sideways at the same time and an Immelman needs atmosphere and wings and a lot of things that the rev c wasn't able to provide, but close enough. Azumi had at the same time boosted down and turned her ship, pointing the deadly end at the second vulture that was now forced to choose. He chose to stay on his previous target and so continued for Azumi. By doing that presented his top to Retractile who tore the armour plating off and destroyed the light fighter.
"All Right!"
They turned the attention once more to the EC that was turning up towards the Centaur. A Warthog was trying to avoid the hits from the Vult III, but took most of it head on. Reduced to almost no armour, it twisted and tried to avoid more damage by hiding behind the Centaur, but it was too little too late. The last stream of neuts tore through the medium fighter, exploding it and scattering Swag Man with debris. 3% armour left now. He turned and tried to bear once more on the centaur that dropped more lightning mines but in the process showed the belly to the oncoming EC. A flash of positrons and Swag Man's pod was violently ejected from the ensuing explosion.
Tramshed and William Cutting were dancing around each other, hardly scoring any hits when the second prometheus sent a pair of flares up into his belly armour, spinning his warthog and enabling William Cutting to slash his armour to 12%. Disengaging, he called for help.
The odds were now more even, with the CLM pilot flying two rev c's and one damaged warthog, and KAOS flying a prom, a valk, a cent and a 107. Tramshed growled,
"That valk is mine, cover me."
He engaged his turbo and got ready for evasive action. Retractile and Azumi engaged the centaur and prom respectively. Tramshed dodged to the right, and straight into the flank of the valk. Aligning, he stiched a string of holes into the thick xith armour around the left side weapon pod. Twisting and rolling, he managed to outspin the valk and drew a targeting solution once more. More damage wrought to the valk, once more twisting and turning, but this time William was ready for him. With a cry of "Fuck me", Tramshed took a flare shot head on, exploding his ship and ejecting his life support pod.
Retractile moved towards the centaur that kept on dropping mines. Like a dancer, he twisted, ducked and weaved in and out of the radius of the mines while trying to get an opportunity to shoot. There, at 487 metres, very long range for his weapons, he fired a long stream of neuts and positrons. Scoring multiple hits, Retractle smiled as Temmin started doing evasive manoeuvres, a fatal mistake. Retractile boosted close and unleashed everything in a slow roll strafe, hitting with every shot, and unfortunately missing the mine that Temmin dropped as his ship exploded. The entire front of Retractile's ship fused solid as the extreme voltages of the lightning mine savaged his ship, dropping him to 0% in armour, but by some miracle not exploding it. His weapons were slag however, now he was reduced to flying an unarmed rocket. He moved out and away from the expanding cloud of debris and looked back at the fight.
Azumi had dropped on the prom, evading the first volley of flares and managing to get away from the lethal cone of the advanced gauss turret. She spun her ship for all it was worth while pumping accelerated protons into the side of the prom to little effect. The ship was so massively armoured that even six direct hits failed to make a colour change in her damage scheme. She kept on twisting, this was as much for survival as for sheer joy of killing. Her ship was rocked upwards by a flare shot, delivered by the valk that had killed Trammie, and she appeared once more in the lethal cone of the AGT. Taking three quick hits, she spun out and placed the prom between her and the valk. Three more shots and the armour was in the red. The valk pilot tried to squeeze a flare in between the prom and azumi, but managed to miscalculate and hit the prom dropping its armour even further. Azumi sent a string of shots into the doomed ship and shouted with joy as it exploded.
"Az, run. They are two and you are hurt bad. It is you they want."
Azumi reacted to Retractiles warning with look on her armour status, 21%, not enough to a valk that was halfway there and a 107 at 30%. She started boosting out for the safety of the 3k mark.
###
Surbius cursed inwardly, he would never have guessed that someone this high in UIT would do such an attack on a friendly guild, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. After all, the killing of the markets was nothing if not regular trade war, and this was something that TGFT could counter. As far as NP had been able to see, there was no linkage between the Senator and the attack to extricate Asteroth. Which meant that it was probably KAOS acting on its own. He put down a note to classify KAOS as a terrorist organisation, KOS with TGFT and its allies. Surbius wondered how he could get back to the Senator without showing that TGFT knew his dirty secret. Maybe Miexon or NP had an idea.
###
Slowly he managed to align the moth towards the wormhole while the fast charge battery trickled power into the jump core. Aligned and at 250 power he initiated the turbo switch and thundered towards the Latos/Sedina wormhole. His auto jump switch engaged and fed the entire content of the battery into the jump engines that surged and propelled the 47 ton ship through the unreal of the wormhole and exited him to Sedina in a shower of Tachyons. Hortan had arrived in sector B-8. And in the middle of the remains of a fight.
