Encroaching hallowed ground

[Corsair]

[Incoming video log]


"Right. Form up on me, pilots." Kaira Rin said to his group. It consisted of three Nepethys fighters, one Hathor gunboat, and two "Stinger" civilian ships. Rin flew the gunboat, and the Stingers were flown by Freelancers. The fighters flocked around him as they began cruising to the Omicron Iota jump hole. The group was pursuing a Nomad that had rampaged through Omicron Minor, as well as collecting research samples.

We entered the jump hole one by one, me first. As soon as I emerged in Iota, I found myself in a cloud of Nomad assassins. I sent a warning to my allies behind me about this. I immediately began my maneuvering, but my gunboat wasn't fast enough to dodge everything. I began opening up with missiles and turrets. My allies arrived in quick succession and soon we secured the jump hole. We took a brief moment to rest before we had to retreat from the Weapons Platform. My group mates formed back on me and we headed towards the system's Gas Giant.

En route, we encountered a Nomad cruiser. I took most of it's fire, and it was a grueling ten minutes of combat, but nobody took hull damage in the end. By now I had pulled in 7 Nomad samples. The Order scientists back home would like to look at these. We found a small outpost outside the Gas Giant, and quickly destroyed it. Nobody had taken more than 5% hull damage.

We made "camp" outside the system's giant, where my allies and I prepared fortifications for the attack we knew was coming. We had tractored in all of the debris that we could find, and were now arranging them to act as abatises for the coming attack. We called in some backup, and were relieved to hear that another gunboat and a wing of bombers were coming.

We saw the Nomad fleet coming. Two battleships, three cruisers, four gunboats, five wings of assassins, six wings of bombers. It was terrifying precision. They hadn't expected the debris, and made a disorganized scatter as they nearly crashed. We launched into their broken formation. Guns and missiles screaming in every direction, we destroyed the fighters and bombers easily. The battleships ended up destroying one of their cruisers and two gunboats. We were down both of our Freelancers. Our reinforcements arrived in blazing glory. The last cruisers and gunboats were crippled by the concentrated salvos from our bombers and gunboat.

The two battleships fought with inhuman determination. Their shots destroyed our other gunboat. They began to focus on me, but I soon gave up attacking and tried to stay alive. It was tough going to avoid their shots, but I managed to keep them off of me long enough for our bombers to bring down one battleship. With less pressure on me, I took the chance of sneaking missiles in here and there. I fired a Pulse or Razor when I could, but the battleship still had me pinned.

When the Nomad capital ship finally cracked, I ordered a withdrawal. I now had over 20 samples. We had struck a hard blow against the Nomads, as well. We put full power to engines, and made it to the Delta hole without incident. Jumping through, there were sighs of relief. No Order pilots excepting the gunboat had died.

Back on Toledo, Rin enjoyed rest at the bar, as well as a heavier pocket. He wondered when his next expedition would be.

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