GC Mission Files: Ayane Hayashi

[Karita]

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June 29th, 824 AS


Ayane sat in the decorated cargo hold section she used as her sleeping quarters and hit a small cardamine pipe as she thought about her trip. Her vacation to Bretonia had been in-part a real vacation - she needn't have gone all the way to Bretonia proper to accomplish her objectives, but her intelligence agent status gave her discretion in such matters. It was really an excuse to fly back to Kusari through the heavily contested Taus, in particular the Gallic-infested Orkney system. She planned on encountering a few Gallic Navy fighter patrols before she landed back in friendly territory. Most of the information the Sisterhood had on GRN capabilities was second-hand information gained from the Outcasts, and while the Outcasts had excellent intelligence, but the Sisterhood's intel branch wanted to increase its self-sufficiency.

As the familiar warmth of the cardamine hit spread through her body, Ayane felt simultaneously calm and energized: the particular sense of focus cardamine was famous for, if you didn't overdo it. Everything else was packed up and ready, and Ayane planned on launching to space as soon as she was ready for a possible fight.

* * *

Ayane encountered nothing of note as she traveled through Cambridge, New London, Dublin, and Edinburgh. After avoiding a few Gaian patrols in the Edinburgh system, Ayane braced herself for the jump to the hostile Orkney system. Chrysanthemum intelligence eventually wanted to come back and map Languedoc, but for now the only thing she knew about Orkney was that the only friendly base - an Outcast one - had been taken over by the Gaians.

Almost immediately upon arriving in Orkney, Ayane found herself dodging weapons fire from a Gallic installation. Registering as Fort Albi, Ayane suspected the installation was capable of launching enough pursuit fighters to quickly end her mission and she immediately engaged cruise drives to head deeper into the system.

"I need a smaller patrol, something I can jump, and hopefully capture a few pilots"

After several minutes, a Lynx- and Serval-class fighter entered scanner range in a rough formation. Outcast intelligence briefers had told Sisterhood pilots operating in the Taus that the Gallic fighter wings liked to mix Heavy Serval fighters with flights of the Very Heavy Lynx attack fighter. Outcast pilots had learned early on not to become distracted by the nimble Heavy Fighter, because a Lynx was usually waiting somewhere off your wing trying to get a shot of heavy weapons in. The teams were well-trained to work together and deadly as a result.

Ayane decided that even with her modified Blossom able to take much more weapons fire than a standard model, she needed to get the heavier ship out of commission first if she hoped to survive the engagement. Ayane turned to engage the two Gallic fighters, launching a cruise disruptor and dropping a couple mines to try to force them to break up their formation. Once they were seperated, Ayane evaded the Serval while sinking Pulse gun shots on the Lynx. As she engaged the two Gallic pilots, Ayane kept oral notes on her adversaries' performance.

"Shields are dropping to pulse cannons alright. Maneuverability, even on the Lynx, is excellent, and the profile from the back is razor thin: hard to hit, even at medium range."

Ayane swung around on the Lynx, and after dodging what looked like a heavy plasma weapon, got a few hits in with her Suncannons. Before she could do any real damage, the nimble Serval popped into her kill slot, dropped her shields by an alarming amount and forced her to break off. She dropped a mine to break off her pursuer. It missed its target, but forced the Gallic pilot to evade. By this time, the well-trained Lynx pilot had swung around and was filling the space around Ayane's ship with heavy plasma bolts. Determined to knock out the Lynx, Ayane evaded the heavy weapons fire and quickly sunk several photon bolts in the Lynx's armor. She hoped all that plasma cannon fire had drained the Lynx's weapons energy, and dropped two nuclear mines near the hostile fighter as it passed by. Ayane immediately turned around and detonated them, wrecking the Gallic Very Heavy Fighter.

She tractored in the escape pod, making sure she had the knockout gas turned on in the pod recovery bay: they'd be interrogated on Ainu later, and Ayane preferred if her prisoners remained unconscious.

"One more to go", she gritted to herself. The Serval had been taking pot shots with its pulse weapons during her entire exchange with the Lynx, so it was already behind her. She dropped a nuclear mine, hoping again to force the fighter to break off its pursuit, but the Gallic pilot immediately detonated it, clearing out what was left of Ayane's shields. The Serval didn't hesitate at all before beginning to tear into Ayane's hull with what looked like a rapid-fire laser weapon.

She evaded, but it was becoming very clear that the Serval was much more maneuverable than her own Blossom. She finally made a hard engine-kill turn, burned some nanobots, and charged the Serval in a last ditch effort to get the Gallic ship out of her kill slot. The Gallic pilot made Ayane pay dearly for her attempt, and she had to use another set of nanobots to repair a half-destroyed hull as she dropped another mine on the Gallic pilot in her reckless pass.

Detonating the mine as soon as she turned around, she dropped what was left of the Gallic shields with a few hits of her pulse guns and peppered the Serval with photon bolts from her Suncannons. They were much more effective than against the Lynx, and she managed to critically damage the Serval in her pass. The expert pilot turned around and managed to drop Ayane's shields again, but not before she followed up with another volley of photon bolts. She heard the man yelling in the open comms channel, but the pod went silent as it entered her holding bay.

"Two captives will be enough for now, and those ships were much more capable than I expected." As she flew back through Tau-23, then Kyushu to her base on Ainu, Ayane couldn't help but be genuinely curious about the foreigners passed out in her hold.