"Count me in as well. I'll come from the other side and go for a flank." Scott's ship rocketed off quickly at a slight angle away from where the source of the incoming fire.

I pulled a 900!
 

John caught a glint of light in his eye from Gabe's ship as he fired his thrusters up to full and let loose with his laser cannons. He zoomed over John's ship at Mach 5 as his scattered blasts hit three ships, damaging and momentarily distracting them. "Our initial attack is done. Let's retreat and give the other guys some backup. We can't take them all at once." Gabe's body jerked as he made a tight u-turn back to the group, with laser fire still streaking across his hull.

John made a U-turn and started heading towards the others. John then saw an enemy fighter following him. "I've got one on my tail. Need some help here!" John was trying to get the fighter of his tail, but the pilot was too good.

"I'm on it!" Inyri said, and was right on the enemy fighter's tail. Unlike the other pilots, she fired like she only had a limited amount of ammo. As soon as she got a good laser lock she fired, the singly-fired laser bolts collapsed it's shields and just as soon as it broke off, it's wing was sheared off from her attack and the fighter spun out of control.

Gabe did a somersault and flew back into the action. He made a quick maneuver to dodge the sheered-off wing then righted himself. In the distance he saw a fighter was engaging the freighter, which was already partially on fire. He switched to missles, watched his HUD, and waited for a lock. The lock came, but he didn't know if it was too soon. Both friendly and enemy ships were in his field of vision, not to mention a big-ass freighter. "That thing doesn't look like it's gonna last much longer anyway." He reluctantly fired a missle from the left port and watched it's smoke trail streak away from him. He prayed it would hit the right thing.

"Thanks for that." John said as the fighter following him blew up. John now saw the missile heading towards the freighter and the enemy fighter near it. "Who ever fired that one youd better hope it hits the enemy...or else it's you hwo buy us the drinks tonight cause it's minus points for friendly fire." John then engaged an anemy fighter trying to flank him. John made a quiq U-turn and headed towards the fighter. John then launched his missiles before the enemyfighter could re-act. "Take that you peace of shit."

"Speaking of points..." By this time, Scott's fighter had made it to the other side of the small fleet of raider ships. He let loose a barrage of laser fire, catching some of the raider ships unawares and easily eliminating them. As the explosions cleared, he noticed a few ships flying out of the path of a missile that was... why the hell is that missile aimed at the freighter?

In less than the time required for an expletive to escape Scott's mouth, he began to fly towards the missile. The previous eplosions caught the attention of a few raiders and Scott's ship took a few blasts of enemy fire, but no critical damage...yet. I better make this quick, or this ship wont be able to carry on after this abuse.

He fired, missing the first few shots but eventually connected. The missile exploded, taking one unlucky raider with it. "Whoever did that, dont do it again."

"That was my kill." Gabe said under his breath as he grimaced. "John, you're making some nice shots tonight. Let me give it a try." At that, he zipped towards a raider using it's blind spot as cover. He began tailing it for about a minute when his HUD lit up and beeped eratically. An indicator lit up red.

Master Alarm

Incoming

"Oh damn." Gabe slammed the airbrakes and did another somersault as the missle streaked under him and connected with the fighter he was pursuing. A brilliant yellow-red flash lit up the sky in front of his ship.

Truce had been the last one to launch, so to catch up he accelerated to full speed. Within moments he had reached the battle, and started firing like cray. However, despite his velocity and despite the fact that his tactic seemed to involve shooting every raider in his sight he wasn't rushing through this.

He preferred to group his weapons together; one clean shot was always better (and quicker) than several messy ones ever were. With almost unerring aim he quickly shot down three raider fighters one by one.

In the seconds after the third kill he realized something. Why does this seem so easy? Sudden turbulence and a computer screen telling him he had one of his right laser cannons gave him his answer. Shit!

What remained of the enemy fighters had started grouping together; the standard tactic for raider ships. With their speed and combination of laser cannons the enemy fighters could make a sweep that would be hard for most ships to avoid. One such sweep was being prepared behind him.

Well...they finally seem to get that they need to take us out. Worse still, I haven't even seen an enemy carrier yet; these things can't just be all out here alone. Though he had so much going through his head, he knew he had to do something about the bogeys on his tail first.

Deciding that they were too fast to avoid now he waited until they made their sweep. Just as they were bout to hit him he cut hit the brakes; the sudden change of speed was just too quick for the enemy pilots and they passed him. Though he didn't escape several of the shots he wasn't too badly damaged (relatively speaking; he had lost his other right cannon plus some armor plating), and now they were in front of him.

There were three fighters he could see that were still in formation after his manuever, and he wasted no time in targetting the center one. After achieving missile lock he let loose both of his missiles.

Grinning to himself as he saw two ships get destroyed and the third loosing its canopy as it tried a second too late to manuever out of the way, he then looked at the damage report. "Leader, I've taken some hits. Permission to head back for repairs now, or do you guys think you can't handle it without me?"

Through rough static, Gabe's voice crackled through the radio. "It got turbulent quick out here." Explosions and laser blasts could be heard on the other end. "If you leave, *urgh!*, it'll be a power play in their favor. *Bring it bitch!* Right now, we could all use some relief spray if you wouldn't mind. My shields can still take it. *Gyah! Hrrrrgh!* Give me some cover damnit, before...*sssshhhhhpppzzzzzzzz*" The link went suddenly dead.