Resurgence Raven Alliance Chapter 1
Rudolpho
“I don’t give a damn if they have blockaded us, get those ships out of here and to Alpheratz now! Have all remaining fighters converge and punch a hole!” shouted Chairman Vicente Gupta.
“Yes sir!” responded the panicked XO, who then began reorganizing units to push through.
High above them a dogfight to end all dogfights was taking place. For dozens of kilometers in every direction aerospace fighters were corkscrewing, barrel rolling, and weaving through endless waves of weapons fire.
The air wing was a powerful regiment but, they were not expecting a full assault from the Periphery. Rudolpho’s primary headquarters was a strong fortress, all across the walls of the facility anti-aircraft batteries were aiding the severely undergunned and outnumbered 2nd Alliance Air Wing.
All space faring vessels had been pressed to the edge of the atmosphere, holding position above the facility, shielding it from potential naval weapons fire. Satellite readings showed that one by one, the vessels were being destroyed. It was up to the XO to find a way to warn the Capital and hope that Khan McKenna could arrive in time to support the Capital.
Gupta had split the focus so he would cover the main defense of the planet with air and ground forces so that his XO could focus on getting a warning out of the system. Shielded between their assault dropships, warships, and the planet were two jumpships with full charges. They had to make a run for it.
With the CO’s consent the XO took command of two Battalions of fighters and a handful of assault dropships. The plan was as simple as it gets. The two Battalions would form up, punch directly up through the atmosphere, then the larger vessels would follow and shield their assigned jumpship to their separate pirate points. Two formations would have a chance to make it to Alpheratz.
With a sudden sound of metal on ferrocrete, likely cracking the wall, a trooper burst through the door. “Chairman Gupta! We have a dozen aerodyne dropships with fighter escorts en route to this facility, right now, we need to evacuate that Command Staff!”
Looking over at the XO, Gupta simply stared. With that the XO sent the new orders to all the vessels involved. Once the orders were away, the Command Staff began funneling out of the Command room, after the trooper, to their transportation.
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Command Regiment of the 2nd Air Wing was known for their elite skills and would try their hardest to pull off their new orders. Director Ricky "Fireball" Lutz had made a helluva name for himself over the years as Battalion Commander. His lance of Hellcats are the fiercest machines in the entire Regiment, possibly even the entire air wing.
“Listen up you three, stick close on me, we are going to drop to low altitude, meet up with two Battlions of fighters and we are punching straight up, your HUD should show the new orders from the XO. Our entire objective is to ensure the successful departure of Jumpship Athena from pirate point Alpha. Any questions?” All three of his lancemates responded in the negative.
All around them, dozens of other fighters began merging into formation as they gave away altitude. Using his underside camera, hundreds of meters below Lutz could see a mass of aerodyne dropships fighting and deploying Battlemechs at the command center, he realized how bad it was now.
Like a twister, the two Battalions formed up and began rotating, creating a funnel of fighters suddenly driving up into the atmosphere. Just ahead, where the remaining ships of the defending fleet held position, under hellish broadsides, were the two objective jumpships.
Seconds passed and the two battalions of fighters blew by. Waves of fire were focused on fighters and dropships in their path. Right behind them, multiple dropships escorting the two jumpships accelerated to maximum velocity, driving directly through the blocking line of Blakist attackers. Even if it meant their death, all other holding vessels redirected fire to larger craft in the jumpship’s path.
Massive barrages of PPCs, Lasers, Autocannons, and Missiles were acting as a protective barrier around the escorting fighters, dropships, and the jumpships themselves. Lutz’ Hellcat spun in a barrel roll, firing off all his laser weapons with a Rusalka that tried to play chicken. One by one, on his HUD, various fighters from his formation were showing as red.
He knew exactly who they were fighting, that is why this got so bad, so fast. Rusalkas were Spectral series fighters from the Word of Blake Jihad, these were Manei Domini pilots. He could have sworn he saw a Celestial mech at the base below, when he flew by earlier.
These invading pilots were also unhindered by fear and would fly directly through the escort formation, killing a fighter, then corkscrewing off out of the formation for another attack run. Some made it out, some were taken out by a vengeful Raven Alliance pilot.
Ahead, a Blakist warship, with its attendant assault dropships, was attempting to deter them from their path but, this is when the volume of support fire mattered. All the combined fire from the holding vessels near the atmosphere finally started making contact, full broadsides from multiple ships, all impacting intermittently. Pieces of the ship were ripped clean off, however, it was giving as good as it got.
In a single return fire broadside, ten fighters from the escort wing and one assault dropship was taken out, exploding and being carried by momentum off course. Then another salvo from the supporting vessels impacted it, in just a couple seconds the fighters would sweep by both above and below being able to add their fire to it. It was severely damaged but, still firing. About eight fighters met their fate with the next salvo it fired into their escape formation. Only this time, rather than targeting a support dropship, it bypassed them entirely, ripping apart the starboard side of the other jumpship, Jumping Julie.
“Lead Hellcat! Director Lutz!”
“Send it for Lutz!”
“This is Captain Horatio of the Jumping Julie; that impact did us in. We are venting atmo, make way and we will set a collision course with the warship, our jumpdrive is gone.”
“Dammit! Give them hell!” Lutz switched channels to the entirety of the fighter escort. Only 12 of his wing and 8 of the other remained, the other assigned commander was dead. Lutz had even lost one of his lancemates.
“All remaining escape elements, give that warship space, Jumping Julie will be dealing with it for us, form up on me and push through to Point Alpha!”
His HUD registered the affirmative responses and all remaining craft formed up. Slightly shifting the original flight pattern, they began blowing by the warship by hundreds of meters. It tried to take them down but only landed weapons fire on a handful of fighters.
That pass by the escort was followed by a blinding flash. Following another salvo from the supporting vessels near the atmosphere, the jumpship collided with the center of the warship’s starboard side. Two gigantic vessels with at least dozens and possibly hundreds of personnel onboard shattered on each other. Explosions rippled through the decks of both vessels with debris being ejected in all directions. A secondary explosion went off as a nuclear warhead detonated onboard the Blakist warship.
Where the two ships were a single, crumpled mass, of burning wreckage venting atmosphere, they were now hundred ton pieces of each vessel hurtling in all directions. However, these were not fast enough to catch the escort that had now completed their objective. With only sixteen fighters and one assault dropship, it was a devastating loss to break through.
Taking a moment to breath, review the formation and how far it was to the objective, was simply not going to be allowed. A full Battalion of Blakist fighters were pursuing at maximum velocity and catching up fast.
“2nd Air Wing, it is likely we are all that is left. We were outnumbered on Rudolpho and many of these are Manei Domini pilots, Captain of Athena get out of here, we will stop them. All fighters, on me, Dropship prepare your weapons, everyone, fire at will!”
Performing a flip maneuver where the fighters shut down their main thrusters, use underbelly stabilizers to flip 180 degrees, then hit their main thrusters again, the formation was suddenly surging directly at the inbound Spectral fighters. Using the dropship as cover until the last second, they wrapped around all sides of it, firing at their nearest target the second they had visual. At the same time, the dropship began unloading on the attacking Blakists.
It turned into a savage fight, Lutz’ Hellcat ripped armor panels and cockpit Ferroglass from a Striga, did a barrel roll to get behind a Stuka and ripped the fighter to shreds. Turning about he flew directly alongside the dropship, finding another Stuka to trail. The two wove between weapons firing from the dropship itself, his Hellcat pulling a wing off of the enemy fighter.
Before pulling away to hunt for a new target, he could see the wingless Stuka get hit by a piece of debris from the warship, flattening it, a puff of atmospheric venting from the small cockpit. He banked hard around the backside of the dropship, the direction Athena was headed and at the same time, saw a bright flash as it made the jump to Alpheratz.
Lutz breathed a sigh of relief that he was able to complete his objective. He reviewed his HUD to see how badly they were being beaten as he came about the dropship thrusters to the main battle area. There were twelve Spectrals remaining and two of his own fighters, one being another of his lancemate Hellcats.
In a bizarre turn of events, the Spectral fighters broke off, returning to the planet. Like machines, they seemed to only care about their objective. While, yes, only 3 Blakists were undamaged, they would have still been able to finish off the nearly crippled dropship and the three surviving fighters.
Looking into the distance, using his Hellcat’s instruments he could see that the fighting had almost entirely stopped and that Blakist ships were the only ones intact. “Dropship Captain, are you there?”
“Yes, Commander Lutz, we are barely alive.”
“What are your recommendations? It appears Rudolpho is lost.”
“Aye, I do see that. There are at least a couple facilities on moons throughout the system, we can start by checking there.”
“Solid copy, can the dropship still move on its own?”
“Barely, sir, only two thrusters remain and a third of our weapons. Half of the ship is inaccessible by crew but, we can move.”
“Ok, let’s get in formation and see what we can do, Lutz out.”
All four spacecraft formed up and began moving away from Rudolpho at whatever speed they could muster. They made sure to move in a direction that the Blakists would not be going to reach a standard or pirate jump point. All that mattered was that the objective was completed. Alpheratz may have a chance…