[h2]Baron Wilhelm[/h2]

[b]"Lance, Ironside. [i]-ngh-[/i] Enemies are converging due to Indomitus fire curtain [i]-heave-[/i] charge on the mark of Armatus missile fire... Mark!"[/b] The Baron said, his voice laborious under the strain of Gs and his own age. He continued his advance, aiming to soak as much fire as possible while his allies got into position. Finally, the enemy Cores were forced to land on the hull of the Venture where they knew the Indomitus would not shoot at them.

When finally Aria confirmed her lock on the enemy and they once again had to move to dodge the incoming missiles, Willy switched from defensive to offensive, stabilizing his particle rifle to blast at one of the enemy in the middle of its own evasive maneuver, testing its ability to multitask. It reacted promptly enough to dodge the first few shots of the Ironside, even letting out a counter volley that blasted through one of the Black Knight's shoulder pads, and then even narrowly managed to dodge the Armatus's missile! The Baron let out a whistle of admiration, right as he fired another shot straight into the Core's cockpit. This one, he didn't dodge.

[b]"Ah-ha! Kill confirmed! Keep up the pressure!"[/b] As he said this however the alarm of a new contact entering the field blared  and from the side of the Venture, another smaller space ship emerged. "New contact! Shrike-class frigate!" He quickly pushed the throttle to get out the way of incoming battery fire. [b]"Hypo-7, I suggest you keep dancing with your partner so you don't catch the eye of the fat lady."[/b]

[h2]Captain Mika Ganishka[/h2]

The battle proceeded steadily, the pirates inside the Venture had no chance and the Cores outside were being moved into a kill box, everything was going well... then why did Mika have this nagging feeling that something was amiss.

[b]"Launch window for Hartwig's departure T-30 seconds."[/b]

The captain nodded as her eyes instead fixed the Phantom on the tactical map.

[b]"Phantom completed her sweep, detecting two bogeys... one is a third freighter, the Mantua, second... cruiser, eagle-class!"[/b]

Ah, there it was. The sense of something being amiss suddenly became familiarity and Mika smiled. 

[b]"Haha, do not let this fool you gentlemen, this is no cargo ship! You can enter the name 'Torch' for that cruiser, while the Mantua is what passes for a pirate carrier around this sector! Full sensor sweeps on vectors that might have been launched by the Mantua, there are strike crafts on low impulse sneaking up on us, find them! Excellent work Phantom, beers on me tonight!"[/b]

Mika had a smug smile as she mentally patted herself on the back for having the intuition to find these little rats before they snuck up on her, but this only lasted for a moment before all of a sudden everything was flipped on its head.

[b]"Hartwig departing, designating his shuttle as 'Savior-1'... Incoming frigate behind us! Shrike class, it was hiding behind the Venture!"

"Sensors confirm strike crafts within fire range, they picked up on our sweep and are accelerating!"

"Shrike is firing a volley of torpedoes on a long ark toward starboard, they aim to overwhelm us in conjunction with the strike crafts, they are also firing railguns and lasers at us!"[/b]

The ship shook under the hit of light caliber weapons from the Shrike but it was barely noticeable, the Indomitus was a behemoth compared to the tiny frigate.

[b]"Return fire at the Shrike but do not fall for its provocation, keep course to block their line of sight from Hartwig's shuttle. Fire everything at the strike crafts, throw the kitchen sink at them if you have to but don't let them get close, focus all PD weapons on them before the torpedoes of the Shrike!"[/b]

The XO piped up again in confusion. [b]"But captain the torpedoes-"[/b] Mika already knew what he was going to say, torpedoes had to be the greater danger, strike crafts usually only were a menace to capital ships in much greater number and carried lower yield weapons, at least this is what doctrine said. [b]"-XO, I don't know how it is in quaint civilized space, but here in the frontier we strap R7's with nuclear mining blasting charges and pirates play chicken with battleships on the regular, sometimes they even win."[/b]

Mika sat at the edge of her seat. There wasn't any reason to panic yet and statistically no missile should go through with the warning time that Phantom gave them, but there was always the odd chance to have 10 misses in a row even with a 70% accuracy.

[b]"Onyx-9, does this rust bucket have anything that can shoot at the Cores dancing on its hull? Ironside, Hypo and Armatus, try and keep the frigate distracted if you can. Phantom, we have incoming strike crafts with nuclear mining charges strapped to their missiles, try and take out as many as you can before they can fire."[/b]