Scramble!

Posted on Fri Jun 1st, 2018 @ 4:24pm by Captain Michelle Bartlett & Warrant Officer Koh Otassu

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/4
Location: Fighter bay

The ship was on yellow alert. That was all he knew. As a precaution he had sent out the call for his crews to dress in their flightsuits and assemble in the fighter bay. He was in the midst of getting changed himself in the dressing room when the call came in.

=/\= Bridge to Fighter team. Stand by for deployment. =/\= sounded Bartlett's voice.

"Scrambling for sortie! What are we looking at?" Carver asked, based on the response he'd know what modules to fit, or to go out bare.

=/\= Two older vessels and potential fighters coming for the ship attempting to board us. =/\= Michelle added. =/\= I'm going to try and talk them down but that may fail. =/\=

Hmm. Sounded like time was of the essence more than loadout. Jack decided to sortie as-is, the base firepower of his KD-56 Gryphons would suffice for defensive action and intercepting older technology fighters. "Understood. Launching in 5 minutes." It would take that long to get all the crews assembled and the pre-flight checks done.

Changed into flight suit he slapped his comm badge. "Carver to fighter crews, on the double! We got the order to sortie, I want us in the black in five minutes! We're going out bare, ground crews get those pre-flight checks done! Mission is CAP!" he called out to his crews, as callsign 'Hammerhead' jogged out of the dressing room into the fighter bay, and straight at his sleek, powerful ride, Black Sheep 1, callsign 'Bad News'.

Ground crews were busying themselves, going to and fro, going over the pre-flight checklist for the sleek ships, even as pilots and gunners started trickling into the bay. He had called CAP, Combat Air Patrol, an archaic term that basically meant taking up flanking positions around the Wellington and keeping any hostiles off her.

Motions and orders that Koh had gone through a hundred times. His flight suit was on, and with a final press against the seals the suit was complete. Sleek, a dark orange suit with barely visible hexagons emblazened on the surface. The call went out, and Otassu went to work. He approached his Blink fighter, a lone stark comparison to the Federation fighters in the bay. Sleek, slim, and built to impress rather than just impose. He ran his hand along the hull of his fighter, and the cockpit hissed to life lifting up before pulling back over the fuselage. Already, the slight hum of the engines warming up and the power coming to life started to come from the craft as, for all intents and purposes, it was waking up. Koh climbed into the cockpit, took a breath of the air within, and started his preflight checklist.

Six. "Heads up display, check." Koh said, going through the motions and activating each system in turn. Five. "Pulse weapons, priming." Four. "IFF, standing by." Three. "Missile stock, check." Two. "All systems. Check." and the craft began to come to life, as it maneuvered to launch position. One final thing was left on the checklist.

One. Koh took a breath, and brought the cockpit canopy to a closed and sealed position.

T'Krya was already in her flight suit checking her own Grypon, Black Sheep 2, callsign 'No Mercy', when the call for the Scramble CAP went out. She saw 'Hammerhead' come out of the dressing room and head for his own Gryphon Black Sheep 1, callsign, 'Bad News'. This scramble was for real and there was not telling who or what they were going up against but she was ready regardless. Mounting her Gryphon, she waited for her gunner. "Commander, waiting for my assigned gunner. Black Sheep 2, callsign 'No Mercy', 'Hunter', ready for start up", she said into her combadge.

"Hunter, your gunner is Calamity. Take Black Sheep 6, 7 and 8, hold position on starboard side of Wellington. Black Sheep 3, 4 and 5, on me. Otassu, you're with my group. You need a callsign, too. Until we find you a better one, your callsign is 'Ears'." Jack spoke, matter-of-factly. "We're holding Port side of Wellington. Shields up, weapons hot, but hold fire until fired upon! Shoot to disable before you shoot to kill. Mission priority is to keep Wellington safe!" Carver called out as he got into his fighter.

"This is Ears. Confirm." Koh called over the comms. "Port side, I'm your ghost. Weapons primed, return fire only."

"Confirmed 'Hammerhead'. Starbordside green for go. Will defend, weapons hot, wait for orders to fire unless fired upon. Priority...defend Wellington", she answered. "Hunter out", she said, as she waited for Calamity to settle in behind her and lower the canopy.

The sound of eight Starfleet fighters and a Ts'usugi one powering up and taking off, making their way through the force field keeping the air inside the ship. Eight sleek and powerful vessels splitting into two groups of two, each on their respective leaders, led by Bad News and No Mercy, moving into position on the flanks of the Wellington.

===========
Enemy Ship
===========

The call had come from the Command Deck to prepare the fighters. He had expected to be fighting Jalarans, not whoever these strange people were. But orders were orders.

"We are ready, Foreman!" one of the junior officers called out.

"Disembark!" the well dressed officer commanded. "And remember... Either they return to their vessel dead.. Or you do. Find a way to latch on to them and board them!" he added, still unaware of the difficulty of an antique space fighter being able to do much of anything with a modern starship from afar.

===========
Wellington Space
===========

"New contacts, small ships. Weapons signatures, shields, reading weak power sources." Jack said over comms to the other seven fighters, open comms so Wellington could hear too. "Black Sheep, move forward, position yourself between the new contacts and Wellington. Hold fire until fired upon." he added.

A quick series of microphone clicks from Black Sheep 3, 4 and 5 - no sense taking up comm time by acknowledging vocally when a simple click of the mic would suffice. Jack's four fighters moved forward, making a lazy banking turn to position themselves between the new contacts and the Wellington.

Koh banked with the group as he held position, a black craft from an alien world mingling among the Federation craft. The soft blue glow from the back of the craft where its impulse drives were active, rather than the simple red of the others. Similar thoughts, taken in entirely different directions. He glanced up through the canopy for a brief moment, attempting to locate the new contacts on visual. Oh, how he missed swarm logic right now. The contacts appeared on his instruments, and were marked as hostiles by the system. Firing solutions for his compliment of hunter seekers was already in the works, but the command to fire would not be given. Return fire only, was the order.

Swinging around to the starbord side, she watched Black Sheep 6, 7, and 8 move with her in unison. Smiling at there flying skills, she taped her com, "Hunter and squad on station, Black Sheep 2 out", she said quickly, and then spoke to her group. "Black Sheep 6,7, and 8, space yourselves evenly but within sight of each other along the Wellington. Stay alert for anything, no sleeping out here. This is the real deal!", she said, and the the mikes came back with three clicks.

"We are deployed!" The Reh'nari officer said as the shuttles left the giant hulking mass of a ship. "All units, analyze the enemy ship and try to find points of entry." he said, looking at it. It was like nothing he'd ever seen in his life... Was it some new Koldaran ship? There had to be a weakness somewhere."

"So far nothing, sir." the next pilot said. "I don't think we can board them." he added as he observed the ship firing and seemingly disabling their primary ship in one shot. "Impossible...."

Ok, so this was now a shooting engagement. Jack 'Hammerhead' Carver cursed under his breath. This complicated matters, he'd hoped the powers that be could've resolved this diplomatically, but that seemed not to be the case. "Black Sheep, hold your fire. Ears, on my 4, stay near. We're gonna do a fly by, present ourselves as targets. Let's see if they want to play. Remaining Black Sheep, hold position, do not engage unless we are fired upon. Ears, if we are, you blink and engage them from behind."

With that Bad news moved forward, pulling into a lazy bank between Wellington and the Black Sheep behind him and the enemy fighters in front of him. He intended to see if the enemy fighters would open fire, trying to force a decision from their end by presenting a target. He counted on his shields being able to take a hit before collapsing.

Koh moved his fighter into the appropriate position on Bad News, and brought up the Blink controls as he moved. A few quick motions and clicks and he had the blink maneuver ready. No mortal could react fast enough to maneuver in Blink Time, so the fighter had several dozen maneuvers pre-programmed into the system. Select one, apply to current situation, engage. Though, he held back on the activation of the Blink drive for now. It seemed this would be most of his career in Starfleet: Holding Back.

It was nice, for a change. "Ears here. Blink drive standing by."

The Reh'nari pilots approached the Starfleet ones, attempting to signal to them to stand down. "They are not responding to our hails, Foreman." The flight commander said.
(OOC: Bear in mind that we aren't sure how they're trying to communicate with us as the Reh'nari shuttles are 483 years old.)

"Fire on them." he said.

"Engaging Attack Formation 4." the flight commander said... "Fire!" he barked as the laser blasts hit the Starfleet vessels.

Plinks of energy played off the shields of the Blink craft, dissipating into rings to ease the discharge like ripples in a pond. The conditions were met, and with that, Koh engaged the Blink drive. Capacitor banks flooded the fighter's primary drive system with heavy muon enriched feed, and the Blink drive came to life. For that singular moment in the universe, everything to him felt like it stopped, everything felt familiar. Everything felt right.

They say no two pilots experience the Blink the same. Some experience nothing. Others land, marry, have children, and watch the end of their own lives every time they hit that throttle. Some meet gods. Others meet devils. Though, to the outside observer, it's always the same: A brief yet spectacular display of high subluminal motion. The sleek alien craft lit up with a blue shine for just the fleetest of moments, almost too short of a time to even register that a color shift had occurred before a form of light vaguely in the shape of the Blink fighter darted forward, angled for a bank, came about, and then ceased to be as dazzling. Returning from Blink space, the fighter's systems already informed Koh that the system was preparing for the next Blink. Capacitors were charging, systems were cooling, all automated.

Koh's Blink fighter traversed one hundred and thirty six thousand kilometers in one-eighth the time it took to realize it moved.

Positioned behind the enemy fighters, Koh's targeting systems began to reacquire and recalculate solutions. Seeking to disable rather then defeat, the Ts'usugi limited his engagement to their propulsion systems and squeezed off a salvo of bright green bolts of pulse fire.

Several things happened almost simultaneously. Jack's computer warned him of incoming fire. Streaks of light ripped by his fighter, then slammed into his shields. Koh's blink fighter blue-shifted and vanished, re-appearing ahead, beyond the enemy fighters. And his computer informed him his shields had dropped by seven percent.

"Lasers?" he furrowed his brows. Firing lasers at bleeding edge Starfleet fighters was akin to using a bow and arrow against a tank. He pulled into an evasive turn, to rejoin his group of three Gryphons holding position, as he keyed his comms. "Black Sheep, engage! Split, divide and pincer! Pulse cannons free, shoot to disable!"

The weapons tore through the Reh'nari craft and destroyed at least one on impact. The flight leader messaged the others. "Maintain formation. They still aren't answering our hails. Do we have any weak spots yet that we can land on?"

"I don't know what this ship is!" one of the other pilots said. "It's almost impenetrable. These people could have destroyed us in seconds."

T'Kyra heard the orders, "All Black Sheep 6,7,and 8 form up on me. Pulse cannons only, shoot to disable only", she barked.

As 'No Mercy' came from under the battle bridge, a shot of laser fire hit her shields. "Damn it, Calamity, get that sucker", she said as she brought her gryphon into a cool position for a shot. Calamity took the shot and disabled it quickly. Watching the other fighters work, she flew her gryphon with precision and Calamity chalked up five more disabled fighters. 'T'Kyra, this is a blessed turkey shoot', she thought to herself.

Outnumbering their foes more than two to one at the start and flying craft hopelessly outclassing those of their opponents, Jack couldn't help but feel pity for them. One Reh'nari craft destroyed from a stray pulse phaser blast, another disabled by 'No Mercy', 'Bad News' led his three fighters into a flanking maneuver, starting to pour aimed flanking fire into the sides of the remaining two craft, being kept occupied by Hunter's fighters to the front and Ears' blink fighter behind.

Now they outnumbered their opponents more than four to one. And still they didn't give up, didn't retreat, even when Jack gave them an opening to. And in all that time, they hadn't tried to hail them, at least, not on any frequency that standard Federation protocol had them fighers monitor.

Several pulse phaser bursts made short work of the remaining two Reh'nari fighters, leaving them tumbling in space, sparking.

"Black Sheep 1, Bad News to Wellington. Four bogeys disabled. Reading two life signs remaining. Two enemy pilots killed. No damage to friendly fighters. Black sheep, return to CAP formation." he spoke into comms. "Confirm by click. Hammerhead, out."

Hearing the orders by Bad News she clicked her mike as her other three acknowledged in the same fashion. Taking her group, she ducked under the battle bridge and assumed her previous positions on the starboard side of the Wellington.

Koh brought his Blink Fighter back into the fold and formation, sliding through the gulf of space to bring up his position in the formation. To confirm the orders received he gave a single mic click over the comm. This engagement was interesting, but it gave him a chance to demonstrate the capacity of his Blink Fighter. It felt good to show off, at the least.

"Wellington to pilot team. Stand down and return to base." she instructed the pilots. "For now, they're not bothering us."

"Bad News to Wellington. Please confirm hostilities over, please confirm return order." Jack didn't like this one bit. It was obvious to him that some sort of diplomacy had happened between the ships, but that the fighters had not been kept up to date.

"Order confirmed." Michelle replied. "I don't think they fully understand what's going on."

"Bad News, orders confirmed. Standing down. Returning home." Jack replied matter of factly, even as he pulled his fighter in a lazy turn back to the rear of Wellington, where the fighter bay was. "Hammerhead to Black Sheep, stand down weapons and shields, return to Mother. Nice work out there. Good flying. I owe you all a drink."

"Black Sheep 6,7, and 8, form up, weapons cold, stand down, return to Mother. No Mercy has the lead", she said as she lazily banked left and joined up with Bad News.

"Ears confirms, RTC." and the Ts'usugi clicked off on each of his weapon systems, cycling them for a full power down. Powering them up again wouldn't be an issue, but against fighters of that level of insignificance he could probably do just as much damage opening the cockpit canopy and slapping them. There was sometimes an honor to be the underdog. To fight a thousand men alone, but this, there was no combat here, there was no serving with distinction. This was a blade of grass hoping to pierce the sole of a boot.

Still, though his musings he never lost sight of the moment before him, as the sleek black craft fell in line with the Federation craft around it, waiting for its slot in line to receive landing instructions and a pad to call home. Not much different from the Ts'usugi navy in that respect.

Once Bad News's group had landed, she landed No Mercy and watched Black Sheep 6 land, then 7, then 8. Motioning for her group to meet with her under the wing of her fighter, she gave them her usual well done and improvements if any. Once she finished, her and her group joined up with Carvers people. "Well boss how'd we do out there?", she asked.

The Blink Fighter was the last to land, slipping through the field that kept the atmosphere within the bay, and sliding through the air to its assigned bay. In the void of space the fighter was silent, but here in the bay the warble of its Blink engine and impulse vectoring was distinct. There'd be no mistaking a Gryphon with a Blink craft with an engine sound like that. It glided through to its bay and then descended vertically, the prospect of a vertical take off and landing system was, by this stage in advancement, almost standard. No craft worth its propulsion engines needed a runway to leave anymore. The cockpit canopy hissed open, and the rabbit pilot exited his craft and left his helmet on the chair. He'd attend to the post-sortie maintenance in a bit, it seemed everyone was lining up.

"Did good, all of you." Jack called out as the other group approached. Seventeen people to his group, eight Gryphon pilots, eight Gryphon gunners and one Blink pilot. "Formation flying was a bit loose, could be a bit tighter, target prioritization could use some work, but the combat maneuvers and gunnery were on point. Like I said, I owe you all a drink. Mostly though I'm just glad we all got through without a scratch."

Without wasting a beat he turned to Koh. "As for you, 'Ears', as is custom on Earth, pilots are given a call sign by their commanding officer, usually during training. Call signs serve to uniquely identify a pilot and avoid confusion. Every pilot hopes to get the coolest call sign they can. For example, 'Hunter' here has a very cool call sign. 'Tubs' over there - " Jack pointed to Black Sheep 4's gunner. " - not so much." Tubs rolled his eyes.

A smile then. "However, you're in luck. Due to your performance today, appearing behind the enemy, laying down fire, and then suddenly just being somewhere else, I'm going to assign to you the coolest call sign I've ever given any pilot. From now on, you are 'Ghost'. Get that painted underneath your canopy and feel free to name your fighter anything you want. Preferably something that sounds equally cool. Everyone, three cheers for Ghost!"

Slapping 'Ghost' on his back, "Well now you have your call sign! I got mine because my first mission out, I hunted the bastard down and nailed his flipping hide to an asteroid. He killed the CAG and I blew a gasket, defied orders and went after him. I loved our CAG. He was a great man who never gave up on us no matter what", she said while standing with him in the group.

The rest of Black Sheep Squadron cheered and slapped Koh on the back and / or shoulders, congratulating him.

Koh perked at the mention of his call sign. Maybe a few pointers about tightening up his formation game were about to drop, or maybe a mention about controlling burst fire. What he didn't expect was to earn his new callsign this quickly, and over something as standard... to him... as Blink Maneuvers. "Thank you sir." Koh started, looking back over his shoulder at the Blink fighter, "And, well, if I'm the Ghost, then she's the Specter."

"Right. Specter it is." Jack smiled. "Now, get to post sortie checks, double check fuel levels, ammunition stores, prep your ships for sortie in case we get sent back out again." He gave a nod. "We still have potential hostiles sitting off our port quarter. I need to go to the bridge to get debriefed."

---------

Lt Cmdr Jack 'Hammerhead' Carver
CAG
USS Wellington

&

Lt. T'Krya "Hunter" Madison
Flight Leader
USS Wellington

&

Warrant Officer Koh "Ghost" Otassu
Blink Pilot
USS Wellington