Robotech - Tales of the UEEF (Main)

Chen certainly enjoys socializing, both with her squad and with the Nova Cats. Making connections is useful, especially if they end up on a joint operation somewhere. And Lieutenant Bellamy is so very friendly!

As the squad spends the next several days together, Chen continues to establish herself as an enthusiastic and positive leader, always focused on the end result but constantly looking for opportunities to praise her team. The alert is no exception as she insists on exceptional response time and then publicly applauds the first squad member who makes it to their Veritech.

The ambiguous nature of what happened to the missing Garfish troopships puts her slightly on edge, and though she's poised and ready for action, it's plain that First Lieutenant Tseng isn't exactly the most patient officer in the UEEF. Knowing the MacArthur is deploying to search for the ships merits an appreciative response from Chen but then she reaches the point of actually drumming her fingers on her seat frame while waiting for a deploy order. ...and when it doesn't come, it's just as well no one can see the effort it takes to rein in her desire to get out into the fray and action. Taking a moment, she instructs her squad to demobilize and report to the briefing room with the other squads.

The prospect of recon work turns her frown around though. Chen's delighted at the prospect of front line investigative work, especially given the impressive sensor abilities (and experience) of select of her team. The CAG's caution is well received and she nods soberly at their instruction to watch carefully and stay in contact. Missile loads provide a bit more of a puzzle, given the unknowns with the assignment. Though the presence of significant numbers of asteroids at least makes missiles with homing capabilities a much more logical choice. And frankly, it probably means minimizing the use of missiles altogether.

After going over their instructions with the squad, Chen adds her own remarks. "This is a long patrol, people. We've been through endurance tests in training but twelve to fourteen hours is nothing to blink at. You'll find yourself tempted to try speeding up our patrol. Resist that temptation and stay in formation. Fatigue will be a factor and I don't want the Storm Dragons first mission to be marked by bumping against an asteroid."

"We can do this, Storm Dragons. We've trained for this, drilled for this, and after the last few days, we know a little bit more about what each of us are capable. After today, we'll be even better. Doublecheck your rations and caffeine pills, whatever will keep you sharp. Legally sharp. We have people to find."

Grumpy, as usual, grumbled. It seems that they were needed... A type of job that meant he and his co-pilot would have to perform well or get the slap on the wrist. Combat was fun, but wandering about in an asteroid field was not exactly a thing he would call fun... Though it occasionally made for good pictures. "Gottchyea boss, no lines for Grumpy today." the man joked(?) as he heard the squad leader's continuous encouragment/reminders to do their damn jobs. Not that he ever did, or would do cocaine.

The man was more or less his usual, every day, grumpy, even when something went right, he was there looking like his dog just died. Hell his state of happiness was barely possible to differentiate apart from this state of grump. He only ever laughed when he picked on Scorch, which was, admitably, often. Even then, it was just a smirk and a huff, if you could call it a laugh. But nontheless he was ready to go for this mission, no matter how he looked.

"Right, better take our protein pills and put our helmets on..."

With the briefing over, the various recon pilots head for the hangar bay to start deploying. Once you get there to check on your own Veritechs, you are able to confirm that the deck crews have prepped your fighters correctly. You now have just enough time to make sure your goodie bags are well stocked with plenty of energy drinks and caffeine pills before you have to launch into open space once more.

You are now six hours into your long flight when both Nathan and Alex detect a group of targets on their advanced radar, flying in formation at high speed; approximately Mach 15. Far too fast for any allied unit in the UEEF arsenal. After fiddling with reading the signals coming in, both men are confident that you are looking at a Cyclops Theater Scout and its escort of eight Fighter Pods. From the experiences facing these in the First Robotech War, you know that the Cyclops has a effective radar range of 650 miles, so the Zentraedi know you are there. They are on a course to intercept you, and with their speed, there is not much you can do about it.

At your combined speeds, the Zentraedi will be in medium range soon, and you can then begin to engage with your heavier missiles. With their speed, you will only have one action to attack before they are within short range for their own missiles.

"Looks like the enemy came to us, Storm Dragons!"

The Cyclops Theater Scout poses some difficulty, particularly given its own EW capabilities. "Alright, we should be able to go toe to toe with those Fighter Pods. See if you can break past them and take out that Scout! It could have half a dozen more Pods in its bay, we have no way of knowing, and if we can take it out before it deploys, we'll save ourselves a whole lot of headache. Now, pair up and protect our own EW!"

OOC: Launching a pair of missiles at the Cyclops. Unless launching more or less makes better tactical sense. I've never been awesome at gauging missiles...

Epiphany said:

OOC: Launching a pair of missiles at the Cyclops. Unless launching more or less makes better tactical sense. I've never been awesome at gauging missiles...

Click to expand...

The medium range missiles you are currently equipped with do 5d6x10 MDC each, and the Cyclops has a total of 1,600 MDC. Those two missiles, if they hit, will do some serious damage, but it won't destroy it. But, you are not the only one with those multi-warhead missiles. You can have other pilots fire on it, too.

"Roger, firing upon the cyclops, torpedos out, mind your positioning!" Arming his left wing's two proteon torpedos he drew his line, activating their SMART tech and unleashed the two tickets to paradise upon their farthest target. "Torpedos out, watch the fireworks. and mind the bees, they'll be buzzing around us soon enough."

As the two groups of fighters race in at each other, Grumpy lights up his targeting radar and lets loose with a pair of heavy missiles, followed closely by Lightning with a pair of missiles of her own. The deadly missiles track on the Zentraedi ship unerringly, but before they hit, it tries to knock them out of the air with its forward guns. One of the Proton Torpedoes are destroyed by counter fire, but the second manages to hit the target with a brilliant explosion, knocking the Cyclops enough to keep it off target when firing at the second set of missiles that hit it. The scout is now burning from the blast holes in its armor, but it is still functional, even though it is badly damaged.

You are now in short range with the fighters; the Cyclops is now hanging back, turning off to keep out of range.

Epiphany is up with her first attack of the round

Order of Battle
24 - Lightning <====
18 - Scorch
18 - Fighter Pods 1-3
17 - Grumpy
17 - Alex
16 - Cyclops - critical damage
15 - Fighter Pods 4-6
14 - Stinger
12 - Juryrig
11 - Fighter Pods 7-8

Scorch calls out, "Hell, yeah! Light that bastard up! Woohoo!"

"Nice shooting, Storm Dragons!"

Chen pushes her Valkyrie into the fray, heading after the Cyclops to finish it off. But since the fighters are between her and her prey, she's only too happy to open up with a burst of 55mm fire from her GU-11 on the nearest Fighter Pod.

Alex gives a report, "I am scrambling the systems of the Cyclops as best I can, but I am afraid that it probably sent out a signal to its launch point before we saw it on our radar. Be aware that we have a good chance of getting into a scrap with more Zentraedi targets out here!"

Lightning lines up a shot with her Gu-11 on Gnerl 1 and squeezes off a burst. The Zentraedi fighter tries to dodge, but your training is good enough to be able to track the enemy even with its maneuvering. You score a solid hit along its armor.

Psychie is up next

Order of Battle
24 - Lightning [1]
18 - Scorch <====
18 - Fighter Pod 1 damaged
18 - Fighter Pod 2-3
17 - Grumpy
17 - Alex
16 - Cyclops - critical damage
15 - Fighter Pods 4-6
14 - Stinger
12 - Juryrig
11 - Fighter Pods 7-8

Scorch works her controls as she maneuvers around to finish off the damaged Cyclops with another missile. "Lets finish that big boy off, then we can focus on these grunts."

Targeting at long range, Scorch fires one of her medium missiles at the Cyclops. Thanks to the heavy disruption of its sensors by Alex, the recon ship is very sluggish in its response to the attack, and the missile slams into it, disabling the big ship. There is enough left of the Cyclops that there is a good chance that the crew is still alive in its reinforced pilots compartment, but they can't do much to you right now.

The first three Gnerl pods split up, with number one firing six missiles at Lightning, and numbers two and three each firing three missiles at Scorch. Epiphany , you cannot dodge six missiles, but you have a few options available to keep from getting hit. You can fire off a Chaff/Flare pack to try and confuse the incoming volley, or hope that your anti-missile gun turret can engage and destroy them (or at least, enough of them to be able to dodge). Finally, you can use an action of your own to try some counter-fire. What do you want to do?

Psychie you can dodge the two volleys, or you can try to spoof/knock out the missiles. What do you want to do?

Orikanyo is up with Grumpy

Order of Battle
24 - Lightning [1]
18 - Scorch [1]
18 - Fighter Pod 1 damaged [1]
18 - Fighter Pod 2-3 [1]
17 - Grumpy <====
17 - Alex
15 - Fighter Pods 4-6
14 - Stinger
12 - Juryrig
11 - Fighter Pods 7-8

I will go ahead and just dodge, and let the head turret engage any missiles that will still hit.

"First down, more to go." suffice to say he imagined one of the torpedos would be hit, thats his luck, but thats why he tries to keep em paired. Speaking of, he drew another line with his gun pod upon the target already hit by his squad leader.

The six missiles launched at Scorch fly past your wing dangerously close, but you manage to evade them all.

Grumpy's aimed fire tears into the damaged fighter pod, causing it to explode. One more down.

Alex shifts his jamming effect to Gnerl number 2. It will be at some serious minuses for the rest of the fight.

Fighter Pods 4-6 decide that they don't like having their systems jammed by Grumpy's fighter, so they all target his mecha; two with their gun pods and the third with six missiles. You manage to dodge the gun pods, but the missiles will hit unless you do something about it.

WlfSamurai is up, and Orikanyo has to do some pilot stuff to evade the missiles

Order of Battle
24 - Lightning [1]
18 - Scorch [1]
18 - Fighter Pod 2 [1] jammed
18 - Fighter Pod 3 [1]
17 - Grumpy [1]
17 - Alex [1]
15 - Fighter Pods 4-6 [1]
14 - Stinger <====
12 - Juryrig
11 - Fighter Pods 7-8

Grumpy huffed and let loose some Chaff to disorient the missiles coming upon him.

Ty slams his fist into his palm. Hell yes! Combat. He grips his controls and pushes his machine forward on course for the battle. He breaks to the flank to get a shot on the already damaged Gnerl pod with a multi-warhead.

"Come get some!" he says, as if his enemy can hear.

The chaff let out by Grumpy is enough to confuse the Zentraedi missiles, and they detonate in space around him, doing no damage.

Stinger launches his missile, and it flies unerringly to slam into the jammed Gnerl and blots it out of the sky, leaving nothing but an expanding cloud of gasses and debris.

Kwops is up

Order of Battle
24 - Lightning [1]
18 - Scorch [1]
18 - Fighter Pod 3 [1]
17 - Grumpy [1]
17 - Alex [1]
15 - Fighter Pods 4-6 [1]
14 - Stinger [1]
12 - Juryrig <====
11 - Fighter Pods 7-8

Seeing the incoming swarm of missiles, Chen isn't terribly surprised at the reaction given her effort to engage the Cyclops. She smiled in satisfaction as she saw her squad cripple it, putting it out of the fight, and flipped her Veritech into an evasive roll while deploying chaff against the missiles seeking to do the same to her.

OOC: Definitely deploying Chaff. I'm up for using an action to help with that further if I can. Definitely don't want that much firepower hitting and I suspect I can afford it with their command unit out of action.

"Scratch one!" says Ty. "Woo!"

Luckily, the Chaff does its job and saves Chen's bacon from getting blasted. You are jostled by the shockwaves of the missiles exploding around you, but you take no damage.

Still holding on Kwops . Would you like some suggestions on your action from the group? We are here to help.

With a quick glance around him, Juryrig swings the Falcon around and launches 2 heavy H.E missiles at the isolated Fighter Pod 3 as soon as he's in range before peeling off.

Fighter Pod 3 tries to evade the missiles, but they slam into it and blot it out of the sky.

Gnerl Fighters 7 and 8 engage Juryrig with their cannons, but the skilled pilot is able to dodge out of the way of the two Zentraedi units with ease.

Epiphany is up

Order of Battle
24 - Lightning [1] <====
18 - Scorch [1]
17 - Grumpy [1]
17 - Alex [1]
15 - Fighter Pods 4-6 [1]
14 - Stinger [1]
12 - Juryrig [1]
11 - Fighter Pods 7-8 [1]

Having survived the missile volley, 'Lightning' lives up to her name by spinning her Valkyrie around and rocketing back into engagement with the remaining Fighter Pods. Grumpy's under pressure and his hosting their EW efforts make it even more key that he comes out of the fight unscathed.

Lightning comes in, thrusters burning and GU-11 Gun Pod blazing on anyone giving Grumpy a hard time.