She didn't take a moments delay in getting to her own Phoenix fighter after getting the confirmation to sortie from Gabriel. Not evening waiting for the ladder to descend from the cockpit, Rita only vaulted incredible agility into the open cockpit and after making a perfect landing, she fastened herself in as she closed the canopy with her free hand. Starting the thrusters, she was quickly directed to an open catapult right after a Sentinel fighter had taken off. The shoe attached to the gear and Rita excitedly let her fingers dance on the throttle as the barrier came up behind the craft. Noting the objectives and parameters in her head as the crewman listed them. After finishing, her own leader spoke. [i]"Affirmative, CIC. Received and understood. Break. Ahlstrom, Suzuki - form up on me. We're joining the Sentinels lead on this op, the objective is to intercept the battle-crabs before they reach home-plate, and draw them off so they can bring the big guns into play. Over".[/i]

Rita sighed, but the irregular sound of it showed her innervation. "Ah, shame. Was a lot more fun when I didn't have furballs to babysit. Even worse when they start ordering us around. Whatever. I'll follow your orders, leader, but don't expect me to call you sir." She ended the phrase with a chuckle to show that she wasn't serious and awaited the light to hit the throttle. When said light came on, she punched the lever forward, causing it to make a rather loud thump when it hit the end of its track. The catapult engaged and the plane rocket forward. Once it had let go of the gear, she pulled up and joined Gabriel's formation. In her head, she complimented herself on the take-off. Catapult take-offs were relatively simple, but there was always a possibility of failure in any activity, even one as trivial as this and thus she decided that she deserved a compliment, if only from herself. They eventually reached the correct position, headed straight towards the enemy vessels. Her cockpit systems began beeping to indicate a lock on the large targets with the long-range missiles and she awaited the order to fire with a bored expression. Flicking the cover to the missile button up and down, Rita tapped her foot on the floor of the cockpit. A bit of chatter indicated the allied ships would be firing and Rita watched the fireworks erupt from the Macross and the Sentinel, with a select few making their mark on the Invid ships. Adjusting herself in the seat, she prepared to fire the missile, leaving the door open and she got into a position that was better for dogfighting. The Invid mecha came towards them out of the ships' bays and Rita could already sense that now would be the time to fire.

Finally, the order came. [i]"All ships, [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYdApzEvPAM]fire![/url]"[/i] Before the first word had ended, Rita had already fired her long range missiles and was following a mecha that was particularly fast and would most likely evade the missiles. Pulling dangerously close to a Sentinel fighter, she chased the enemy. Rita opened fire with her thirty-five millimeter on the mecha's tail, destroying it in moments, however the celebration of the the victory would be short lived. Watching her mirror, she saw a mecha chasing her. A lock warning was heard, causing her rapidly beating heart to jump somewhat. Evaluating her options, Rita decided that a most tactical and good-looking option would be best. Smiling, she let the enemy get close. The warning suddenly turned to a high pitch as the mecha fired a homing projectile. Within the moment's time she had to invade, Rita finalized her next move.

Her fingers danced on the levers, causing her Phoenix to change from fighter to GERWALK mode to battroid mode in nary a second. Using the thrusters on the feet of the now humanoid shaped machine, she made a cartwheel-esque movement to her right, evading the mecha and its missile. Mid cartwheel, she fired the machine gun on the mecha target, ripping apart the crimson colored hull and destroying it. Finishing her evasion, she used her back thruster to gain forward momentum and turned back into fighter mode after verifying the absence of close enemies. Pulling around to search for more enemies, she spoke in a terrifyingly amused tone. "That's two in the bag. You [i]better[/i] be counting these, control." She made a malicious expression at the screen on the dashboard before returning to the fight.