As Section Six usually operates out of the Rheinland corridor to the Omicrons in both Munich and Sigma-15, the Abschnitt’s business usually revolves around the Freeports nearby, namely Freeports 8 and 9. Occasionally, a patrol will go out, delving deep into the Edge to identify hotspots of Nomad activity, and additionally piece together routes that can be used to assault the Fatherland.
One such patrol would leave Freeport 8 and the Section’s home system of Sigma-15 to patrol through Omicron Rho and Delta, circling through Minor and Sigma. This patrol, lead by the Abschnitt’s Kommodore Sofia Ulrich, and flanked on either side by her trusted Kampfwächter, pushed through the dense fog of the Edge Nebula, finding the route from Minor to Sigma after a long trek through the gas. Nomadic sightings were frequent in this area of the Edge, especially with the hidden hive in Sigma guarding the passage the patrol would take. Time would only tell when they would be attacked, not if.
“Anomaly cleared, Kommodore. No sign of pursuing vessels,” her starboard flankman reported. The Wraith trio proceeded forward without delay, cruise engines charging and flaring towards the west.
“Sehr gut.” Ulrich’s Wraith flared out it’s cruise engines in sync with her escorts, the flight proceeding towards the central locale of the system. Trained well by the hands of both the Nachrichtendienst and the Military, all three were potent fighters in their warbirds. While nowhere near invincible, they were some of the best the Abschnitt had to offer, cementing Rheinland’s integrity to their fall.
Upon leaving the cloud, the trio were greeted by two patrols of Order strike craft from Cairo, underequipped and merely doing routine routes through the Protectorate. “Six, Kommodore,” stated the left flankman, dropping his cruise with the others. “Weapons primed, am prepared to follow your lead, Frau.”
With lighting haste, the three engaged the terrorist fighters, no real chance for the mere recruits to respond to. As soon as the fight had begun, it’d ended, and the three prepared to resume their patrol.
In the shadows, cloaked, two lone figures watched over them. A small one, outfitted to observe and inform, and capture if given the opportunity, and a fast one, a Phantom, equipped to engage and subdue. For now, the two would merely eye them, seemingly with a sense of curiosity as the patrol continued through the system, dropping through the anomaly to Sigma-59, the dark, gorgeous system standing before them as they exited the cloud housing the gravitational disturbance.
“Hold it!” blared a voice. The comms lit up with the sound of Kusarian jabber, a rather stark contrast from the silence of the nebula. Gas Miners. Four squadrons of them, tracking them from even the moment they entered the system. “Three of them, here to attack Niigata!” one exclaimed. Another powered up his weapons, his shield flaring out as he activated his combat routines. “You Rheinlanders never learn!” “Frau, I read sixteen on intercept. Weapons power is through the roof,” the left wingman stated, his own defenses livening up. “Kopy. Feuer für Wirkung! Engage the enemy!” The three zoomed into the wall of Kusari corporate gunfire. Unlike the terrorists from before, these pilot seemed able and willing, their attitudes far more experienced than those of a mere terrorist organization. These ones were competent, and easily proved a challenge.
The starboard wingmate, his callsign ‘Aufflackern Zwei’, zoomed out from the engagement, getting a bead on a wing of Gas Miners surrounding Ulrich. His Wraith’s afterburner lit off, thrusting him back into the fight, his Stealthblades tearing the corporate fighter wing to shreds. In his dive, his wings would catch heavy fire from a covering wing, the brave Nachrichtendienst pilot’s ship shearing off into a spin, badly wounded.
The port side wingman’s Wraith was hit hard in the initial charge, his fighter taking hit after hit, pummelling the engine cowling and the storage tank in the rear. Heavy photon fire tore his starboard wing off, the fighter breaking into a death spin before his craft crashed into a suicidal Miner pilot, both ships blasting each other to shrapnel. With one Wraith out of the fight, and only two left to take on over ten evidently experienced pilots, Ulrich called over to her remaining wingman. “Rückzug! Break and move! Gain distance and retreat!”
The lone wingman acknowledged his squadron lead with a series of hard, rather sudden jerks to shake the Gas Miners from his tail. Ulrich followed in suit, taking shots at each GMG ship that passed in front of her guns. Aufflackern Zwei, in bold truth, had no idea which direction he’d taken, the bright white sun of the system shining directly into his cockpit. All he could make out in front of him was an anomaly, a glowing disturbance not unlike the one they’d used to enter ‘59 in the first place. “Frau! Anomaly ahead!” he called out to her, continually jerking the ship to evade gunfire. “I’m taking it!”
“Kopy! I’m- urgh, to your aft. Pursuing!” She let out a grunt as her ship was hit, the shot tearing a large hole in her rear tank. While not major, integrity was compromised, and as such, another shot of the same caliber would likely not be survivable. The two Rheinland fighters, pursued by half of the remaining ten fighters, passed through the jump hole, the bright nebula of the Sigma-21 system, as well as her twin stars, appearing before them.
The two made a quick rush away from the anomaly, knowing the same force would jump through after them. As a small surprise, only five of the GMG fighters tore through the hole, but as the force burst through, the opening burst of one fighter knicked the rear tank of Ulrich’s fighter, the shot tearing through the unusually tender inside of her ship and blasting her escape pod from the cockpit.
“Kommodore!” her wingman shouted, zooming back into the mini-furball, his beam tractoring in the fallen flight lead. His move would eventually prove fatal, however, as driven by duty to protect his superior, his flank was left exposed on all sides. The hardened GMG pilots tore into the lone Wraith, sheering the wing off and blasting countless holes into the hull.
From the sidelines, the same cloaked duo watched the fight with growing curiosity. Accompanied by the lone, inexperienced pilot that had followed the morph from its origin in the Omegas, both cloaked and watching, the two eyed their prey. With Aufflackern Zwei’s ship barely holding together, the two pounced. The Omegan pilot revealed themselves first, taking the Miners off guard. While inexperienced, their instant assault upon a straying Benzaiten, crippling the fighter, startled them enough to break and gain distance. The Morph soon followed, adding to the confusion and suspense.
Not one, but two, unknown vessels had appeared, one clearly not of human construction and the other seemingly deadly from it’s ruthless assault upon uncloaking. The heavily wounded Wraith limped along, at the mercy, or lack thereof, of the two mysterious individuals that had revealed themselves.
“It’s wounded. Moving in for the final blow,” the pilot stated, priming their weapons and putting their lone Phantom into a dive on the crippled fighter. The pilot hadn’t even the time to react before being submitted to his escape pod’s own ejection, the tractor beam of the Rheinland heavy fighter bringing both himself and his flight lead in. “Hostile neutralized. Preparing to enga-”
The pilot stopped in their tracks, the voice ceasing before merely acknowledging something, and pulling a sharp turn to fly away.
Confused and enraged, the Miners turned to pursue, but were baffled as the two targets disappeared behind a veil of purple fog and cloak, their opponents gone as quick as they’d arrived.
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