[center][h3][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ALGThcRq08]Engaging the Enemy[/url][/h3][/center]

So they'd been upgraded. She could tell even before Lumen-1 even delivered his warning, and for the same reason as Lumen-3; her shot had missed as well. A Rook should not have had the capacity to dodge such a shot in space, not without forewarning. It was a notoriously slow unit, and one that lacked in mobility within zero-g environments. Such a weakness was not in evidence, to her mild irritation, but refits could only do so much. The units were still fundamentally Rooks. Refits could mitigate the issues caused by their weight and age, but they were still  old HFVs. And they were still outmatched. No upgrades would ever make them as fast the G-Valkyrie, and that would be their downfall.

Project Paper Tiger was not [i]just[/i] for show, after all.

That’s not to say that things were going smoothly, not at all. The Type-X had charged ahead into the fray and before Rising Star’s very eyes it was punished for its recklessness. It was crippled too quickly for her to take action, but her flanking maneuver had brought her into a prime location; the Rooks were gathered to her right, moving to envelop the downed Yukine, and had taken no action against here. They were too fixated on their prize. Yatogami would not survive without aid; he could not defend himself, and the pirates weren’t likely to take prisoners. Not even if they took the Yukine for salvage. The G-Valkyrie was fast enough to close in, maybe even carry the downed HFV out of harm’s way, but it had no arms… It wouldn’t be able to cling to the Waverider. She’d have to carry him with the G-Valkyrie’s arms.

It’d almost double the G-Valk’s mass, and its humanoid configuration already had only half the thrust of its Waverider form. With this many enemies, it would make her far too slow. It’d get them both killed.

But she couldn’t leave him, it wasn’t her way. She needed to break up the Rooks, get them off of the Yukine so he could be rescued… Which meant she needed to give them a new target. A more imminent threat.

She could do that.

Her thumbs flipped the covers off two buttons near the tops of her joysticks, depressed both buttons and slammed the controls forward. She felt the increased resistance and the satisfying [i]clunk[/i] of the mechanism engaging, her console confirming [i]Cross Change[/i] in its bright red lettering. She felt rather than heard the motions of locks disengaging, parts rearranging and locking into new formations, but the process lasted only half a second. Even that brief span was not without action; in order for her maneuver to work, she needed to slow down and alter her orientation relative to the targets.

So even while the G-Valk transformed she was firing the appropriate thrusters, decelerating the mech rapidly and twisting it sharply to the right. The feedback was immediate. The forces Rising Star experienced spiked instantly, the conflict between her inertia and her intended alteration. Another pilot might have been taken off guard, found it harder to breathe or concentrate, but she expected it. She had trained for it. Whatever G-Valk dished out, she could take. She [i]would[/i] take. Her HFV was facing east by the time it finished transforming, the cluster of her enemies filling her viewscreen. Fifteen opponents, fourteen modified Rooks, one Bradley. She needed as much attention as possible.

Her Beam Shot Launcher came up, aimed at the center mass of a Rook with its back to her. A second shot followed less than a second later, aimed at an ally to its right. The G-Valk’s momentum was minimal, she was not concerned about its drift impacting her aim. These were mere strikes of opportunity, however, not the primary focus of her assault. The container on the G-Valk’s left shoulder sprang open, firing its full complement of eight missiles in between her shots. They didn’t have a specific target, in fact they weren’t intended to; the eight followed a broad spread, splitting midflight to become a cloud of twenty four incoming submunitions intended to blanket the cluster of her enemies. Only the handful of Rooks closest to her were in any real danger, any that passed them were too spread out to be much of a threat unless she was [i]very[/i] lucky, but it wouldn’t be wise for the pirates to just ignore them.

Standard Rooks did not possess vulcans, and she was wagering that these ones didn’t either. They’d be forced to evade or move to interpose their shields between them and the assault. Perfect for scattering their formation [i]and[/i] for getting their attention.

The flash of the G-Valkyrie’s visor, suspended motionless for the briefest of instants in plain view, seemed designed just to taunt them.

Then her thrusters flared, sending her rocketing ‘below’ their cameras, before she reoriented to fly north and continue her clockwise flanking maneuver. She moved quickly, keeping her evasive maneuvers erratic, but she didn’t use the XC|PT-01’s full speed; she didn’t [i]want[/i] to leave them in the dust. She wanted them to go after her. A next gen prototype was a valuable prize indeed, and she was willing to bet they’d take the bait.

She could deal with a few pursuers, and Paper Tiger could deal with the rest while they rescued the Yukine.

“Engaging the enemy. Drawing them away from Yukine.” Rising Star said into her comm, keeping her eyes on the sensors. Watching for pursuers. “Father, engage with railguns at your discretion. Yukine requires immediate extraction. We should capture the Bradleys if we can, the techs would love to get a look at them.” 

[@Plank Sinatra] [@Onarax] [@Silvan Haven] [@Letter Bee] [@Crimmy]