To a brighter future?

[Wolfs Ghost]

"Millions of our enemies will fall."
Lilith LaCroix, 819 AS.

Orkney - 819 AS
Actual Events have been depicted in the GRN/BAF/KNF Event.

"Blue Squad, sound off."
"Blue Two here."
"Blue Tree, ready and waiting for instructions."
"Blue Four, Ready Goodman."
"Blue Five, Systems are a go."

"Admiral, Blue squad is a go. We're reading multiple Kusari hostiles inbound to the fleet. My wing is moving into position to intercept all incoming hostile fighters."
"Copy that Austin. All wings, prepare to combat, break their advance!"
"Blue Squad, weapons free, follow my lead."

He pushed the throttle forwards and the Templar roared to life, quickly pushing forwards the thruster as well. The scene was chaotic from the beginning. Multiple Kusari capital ships, and fighters had began pouring out of a nearby asteroid field, it was an ambush. The Bretonian Fleet was thinned out from the beginning, and had managed to get away from the slaughter within the Tau's for a brief second. Apparently a spy was caught, or rather a Bretonian turncoat, on board the Regina, and attempted to assassinate the commanding officer, Percy Nelles, the assassination attempt failed, from what he had heard, but not without it's causalities.

Now, it seemed the two fleets were facing off in open space. A crippled Bretonian Fleet, and a fresh Kusari Fleet, and the Kusarians weren't going to give an inch to the wounded Bretonians. It wasn't in their code of honor, everyone knew this. The chances of survival were slim to none. He had only seconds to glance around, to his right he spotted Commander John Clay's wing, Red Squadron. They were former wing mates back when Austin served and wore the uniform, probably the only other friend he had now. Aleski had disappeared, and Rockwell, well, Rockwell was assumed to be dead again. He guessed he could call Blair a friend, but the two never really seemed to get a long, or it was the nearly drunken mans way of being a friend, he wouldn't know. He didn't particularly care at this point in time.

Slowly looking left, he spotted the other two wings. Green Squadron, and Orange Squadron, both lead by capable pilots, both who also flew with Austin. Snapping back to reality, he looked across his HUD, attempting to find a quick kill, which wouldn't be as possible considering this was probably the Shogun's fleet, highly trained, extremely deadly warriors and pilots. He'd heard rumor that Hajime Hiroto might be on the field, but he alone wouldn't be an easy kill. He smirked at the thought of finding the man and having a dog fight. Two ace pilots attempting to take each other down in the middle of a fur ball. Problem was, all these ships looked the same, "Blue Squad, sending targeting information. Let's get him boys." He said lightly as he manually selected a stray Kusari vessel attempting to flank the incoming formation. Acknowledgements came across the communication channels, along with the other Squadron's targets.

Within minutes, the two sides collided, fighters clashing against each other, and the Bretonian fleet beginning long range bombardments on the Kusari capital ships, which kept pushing forwards. Like a snowball rolling down a large hill, the fur ball got bigger and bigger as fighter wings joined the fray, it was only a couple of minutes before the first Bretonian fighter was down, static came over the communications, and it sounded as if the kid attempted to scream for help. He didn't know, it was another faceless soldier who died in a futile attempt to protect the Queen. The lad probably joined the Armed Forces for the adventure, as Austin had two years ago, before that adventure took him to unknown territory, now a Templar laid scattered and torn to bits, across the field. It was a thought that struck every pilot, but no one faltered. A war was to be won, if not here, than in the future.

He glanced over in the midst of the chaos, catching barely the glint of something flying towards the starboard side of his own vessel, taking an estimated guess, whatever was out there was moving in towards the fray, and it wasn't alone. It had disappeared behind a massive Dunkirk that had seemed to stray towards the fighter swarm. His eyes widened as the Dunkirk began exploding. He caught a familiar ship drifting towards the exploding Dunkirk, who was probably unaware of what was about to happen. "Ensign, you're drifting too long. Theres a damn Dunkirk about to explode..get out of there." Static was fed back to him as his own HUD went dark.

Multiple ships across the board seemed to have the same problem, including the Ensign's ship, which slammed into the exploding Dunkirk, getting caught in the secondary explosion, which probably killed the poor man. Austin scrambled his hands across the cockpit attempting to bring the systems online, or at least some control. A loud clank resonated through the hull of his ship. Something had slammed into him, which knocked his own ship out of it's original trajectory. "Damn it." He cursed out loud, "Come on...damn systems. Come on!"

Looking back up he could see a spark from one of the nearby ships, and it's own cockpit lighting up. Sadly it was a friendly, though it gave him a little bit of hope, just as his own internal sensors began to function. Quickly he brought his targeting HUD back up, scrambling to get his ship back to working conditions, "Blue Squad, if you get this transmission reform on me. ASAP."

Chaos began to consume the comm channels, and the Admiral was trying his hardest to get the pilots back in order. To his starboard side, again, he caught multiple more glints. Another Kusari fleet? He thought, though his thought process was quickly interrupted when his ship's computer screamed at him.

"Shield Failure!"

He swung his ship into a hard roll to the left and dived down, a Bretonian destroyer was making an artillery pass at this point and he yanked the stick all the way back pulling up hard. The Kusari pursuer copied the exact maneuver that he just pulled, "I'm being tailed, someone shake it off me."

"Copy that, Sir. Going in." A voice cracked over. For what seemed like an hour, was only a couple of minutes as the Kusari ship broke off from the dog fight, seeking another target. Austin took in a quick breath and slammed the throttle forwards once more, pulling the stick to the right and back. Targeting data streamed across the HUD, and he took aim. Unleashing a burst of Tachyon into the target, which exploded. He smiled thinking he downed the ship, but as his own vessel began passing through the debris, his smile quickly disappeared as he sharply pulled the stick to a hard right, avoiding a near collision with another Templar. "Oi! Who the hell was that!" A familiar voice came over the radio. Austin laughed lightly, "Seems that makes you an ace today, Clay. Nearly took me out as well. Let's avoid doing that again."

"Ah, Austin, blasted bugger. Get your own damn target!" The man replied, laughing as well, but his laugh was cut short and he called out another target for his Squadron.

The channels roared to life again, "Frak. Uhm...Admiral we have unknown vessels on scanners. Port side!"

Austin hesitated a glance, found nothing, then looked out towards Starboard. The vessels were closing in, slowly now but more noticeably. "The hell?" He mumbled, everything seemed to stop in that short, short moment. A massive fleet, he had to estimate of at least eighteen capital ships, and dozens of smaller crafts of an unknown make flying in a perfect military formation, heading straight towards both the Kusari and Bretonian fleets.

He swung his ship towards the unknown ships as one of the ships began transmitting. "Enemies of his majesty, hear me. You have come here to die."

Without thinking, Austin shouted over the communication, "Blue Squad! Reform! New targets inbound. Disregard the Kusarians! Charge!" He slammed the throttle forwards again. Flying towards the unknown fleet. Orders were barked between the Admirals and Captains of the Bretonian capital ships, who started to move their ships back into formation. The last remaining Kusari capital ships seemed to fall in as well. "Red Squad! Charge!" Clay had shouted, following shortly after Austin's own call.

"For his majesty, King Charles XI, who is our Sovereign! Engage and destroy all enemy ships!"

The chaos ensued once more, with a mightier fleet on the field. Enemy fighters began to over-whelm the weary Kusarian and Bretonian pilots, mighty capital ships began to drive a splinter formation into the holding line of Dunkirks and Kusari battleships, driving a wedge between the two. Heavy fighting became a bloodbath within a few minutes as this new enemy slaughtered and drove through the outclassed Dunkirks.

Austin only caught a glimpse of a Dunkirk being torn in half, it was the Regina. That small glimpse, took him completely off guard as the Regina began to have secondary explosions. His jaw slowly dropped, realizing what had just happened. The Flagship, with Admiral Percy Nelles, was just destroyed. A surge of anger and fear washed over him, orders to pull back to Tau-23 were being given. His squad seemed to be the last one that was making its way to the jumphole, without him.

"Warning, hull breech eminent." His computer screeched. He snapped back into reality seeing red flashes from his console lighting up across the board, there was a loud pop as something was torn off, one of his thrusters. "Damn it...damn it!" he shouted, his hand reached for the ejection lever. Pulling it back hard, he was slammed into the back of his seat as part of the cockpit was ejected into space.

The last image he saw before passing out was of his own Templar exploding. The force of the explosion, and the acceleration of the cockpit speeding out of the ship itself, caused a massive amount of pressure that pushed against him. As quickly as it all had happened, he began to fade out.

"Alone, I saw the death of the world."
Lieutenant Edwin Goddard, Lone survivor of the HMS Regina.

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