The Aotrs fighters, still at the limit of their range, accelerated from their near-stop and sharply pulled up with a significant amount of swearing. Only three Foulwings brushed close enough in the fractions-of-a-second they began to change direction to be taken out; the others, having accelerated at maximum, didn't come into the range of their own guns, let alone the Azura's. Now not even remotely close to dogfighting speed, in less than five seconds, the remaining fighters screamed out, opening the distance to nearly 300 000 kilometers, leaving Tanshin 1 far behind.

In that time, the Aotrs internal systems compenstated for the sudden overwhelming spike, cutting through the noise. There was enough of it that it couldn't be completely eliminated, but the Aotrs advanced sensors cut the bulk of it down, giving the ships back about 80% of their usual capability. The systems also directly fed into the warheads and battle-management systems of the entire fleet, ensuring that the Aotrs wouldn't be caught as flat-footed a second time.

"Shit," Venom 1 muttered to himself. "Venom, Vile, Bloodghost and Krallast, maintain speed. Vector towards the fleet, but don't re-form. Let's make them think they permanently blinded us with that little stunt and we'll see if we can surprise them back." 

He looked at the enemy formation, but no obvious command units presented themselves - the Azura ships seemed to mass into something of a disorganised blob as they re-orientated. Dogfighting was a bad idea, since of the Aotrs fighters, only the Apparitions were much good at it - at least given the maneouvreability of the enemy - so they'd have to play this like they were the big boys and make fast slash attacks, pick away at the edges of the formation. But to do that...

He explained the plan.

"I don't like it much, boys and ghouls, but with their defences, we're going to have to get up close and personal. And when we do, let everything fly like they're Strayvian Incinerators. Whatever those curse-things are, they can't hit [i]everything[/i] at once, and from closer range, they'll have less time to try."

The Azura ships had pulled around into a semblence of order to pursue. Now they would see whether the enemy would follow the bait and start a stern chase - and they'd see how fast the things could run...