Transformers: Alone and Unafraid

[frigidmagi]

The fleets entered combat range and in the darkness of the void... And there was light. Pulses and beams of light and energy sliced and burned through space, colliding and hammering on the shields of their targets. Missiles tore through the nearly empty space, their electronics dueling with the counter measures and jamming of their larger and slower prey. Point defense batteries opened up. The once dark and peaceful void was now a hurricane of light, heat and excited particles. Through it the small attack craft of the League ships moved with deadly purpose mobbing the lighter capital ships of the Empire. The Decepticons had not expected to take fire so far out, while League ships had a parity of range with the Empire, FWA ships were outranged by 10s of thousands of kilometers and the Decepticons had used that among other advantages mercilessly and perhaps had grown careless. Their counterfire was ill coordinated and lighter then it should be.

The heaviest ships of the Decepticons had been in the front to use as a front of a sledge hammer to shatter what the enemy had believed to be the inferior ships of the FWA. As the rear and flanks of his formation began (already!) to bleed atmosphere and metal amist flickering shields and screams for succor he began to realize his mistake. It was to late to shift formations, so the enemy fleet picked up speed attempting to run past the League fleet, to run the gauntlet of their fire.

Deathstrike led the boarding shuttles and assault boats. Onboard Deathstrike, Shimmer worked feverously to pin down which comm signals came from which ships. She could narrow the chatter to 4 different large ships, slightly behind the front of the formation. One was dead center behind the vanguard, with two on the wings and the last one was near the center of the formation, almost acting as a lynchpin.

[LadyTevar]

"Shimmer, find me an enemy ship with lots of communications traffic."

"Narrowed it down to four vessels," Shimmer replied, sending Deathstrike a visual via TacNet. "Further analysis of 'Con tactics suggest either the one here," The ship directly behind the vanguard glowed. "Or the one here, the lynchpin." It also lit up, showing its position as the critical point of the GDE's formation, a good placement for the Command Ship.

"My analysis shows the two on the wings are less likely to be the one we want," Shimmer added. "It is far more likely they are secondary command over portions of the fleet." Still valuable targets, as their destruction would cripple those forces, but Shimmer knew Deathstrike wanted a beheading strike.

"Were I to place Energon on it, I would bet the Lynchpin." Shimmer concluded. Based on the evidence, it was the most likely choice. However she was not the Force Commander, nor did she have the mindset of a 'Con. That was why she merely advised, and let Deathstrike make the call.

[Dark Silver]

Grindstone rose from his seat within Deathstrike, and moved to the door. His massive frame took up nearly the entire doorframe, and his chest cannon was steady, he was merely waiting for orders to deploy, little else for him to do here but wait.

[General Havoc]

This was not exactly Cavalier's preferred method of entering into combat. But it was a working method, and it would therefore do for now. Generally speaking, Cavalier only entered Decepticons on the rare occasions when it was necessary to kill one from the inside. This was not a general circumstance.

Then again, what was anymore?

"Whatever ship we go in on, I need to know the crew comp before we engage. I don't want to put a one-twenty through the outer hull of a ship crewed by organic slaves. If decompression and friendly targets is a factor, we're all going in blades hot."

That didn't sound like a polite suggestion, but Cavalier had been around the block enough times to know how Decepticons worked, whether on attack or defense.

[Dark Silver]

"The presence of slaves upon the GDE ships is expected, Cavalier, and undoubtedly they will be thrown against us in combat. We must not hesitate to complete the objective of disabling the command ship and cutting their communications systems. Rest assured, the Decepticon soldiers will not be concerned with firing their own weapons into you."

Grindstone was practical, not blood thirsty. It was a battle, in deep space, on board a enemy ship. "But we will take care not to breach the outer hull and expose the interior to vacumm - we do not want to risk harm to our own troops."

[Cynical Cat]

"Good work," said Deathstrike. The Decepticon flyer swooped towards a destroyer on the edge of the formation and fired his cannons, strafing the warship and then sliding past into the heart of the formation. An aggressive commander might position his command ship behind the vanguard, but that was not the leader of this fleet. The one at the heart of the enemy fleet was the more likely vessel.

"This is going to get rough," he said as he began evasive maneuvers. "Prepare for boarding." He didn't bother to add "if we survive."

[SirNitram]

Shunt, meanwhile, had given up the Empty ruse and was raking ships with rotary fire from his guns. Notably, he dove in close when no other flies were nearby, recklessly close to the defenses, and yet, managing to avoid the fire by being so close. It was a dangerous game, but one the Decepticon flyer loved.

[Lys]

Still linked to the assault transport's tactical net, Blastcap noted the enemy's apparent surprise with interest. Despite her and Deathstrike's concerns, it seemed that to whatever degree the FPA was infiltrated, it was not enough that they were aware of the Expeditionary Force's arrival. This was far better than she expected. If this was the first that the GDE knew of them, then they were already three weeks ahead of the enemy, and thus likely inside their decision loop. Alternatively, the GDE did know, and this was a giant trap. Either way, it was best to end the fight quickly and overwhelmingly.

She then saw that Deathstrike himself was making a decapitation strike. Of course he was. It was a greater risk but Deathstrike was a bold commander, and more importantly he had resources aplenty to cover it. With Cutter, Shunt, and Farshot to give him cover, and the main strength of the League fleet to provide artillery support, he could dive down the enemy's throat and expect to survive to reach its beating heart. That on top of the 2-1 numerical advantage. No doubt Deathstrike also carried one or two of the Expeditionary Force's heavy hitters in his hold, for if there were any Cybertronians in the enemy fleet, they would most likely be found on the enemy's flag.

For her part, Blastcap continued on her plan to assault the command ship on one of the enemy's wings. If she could disrupt their flank enough, the entire wing would collapse and be rolled up by her own units. Together with Deathstrike's attack at the head, it would leave only the enemy's opposite flank in any semblance of order. Then the Expeditionary Fleet would be free to wheel about and crush them.

After a series of rapid inquiries ensuring that the Pioneers were ready for action, and the supporting warships in position, Blastcap gave the go order. Blast doors snapped open through out the assault transport, and a number of sleek drop pods ejected outward with great force. Dozens of high burn thrusters lit up among the expanding swarm, and they accelerated away toward the designated target. Ahead and behind them hundreds of gunships streamed and swarmed in protective formation, shooting at down anything that tried to attack the armoured pods.

[rhoenix]

The initial engagement had begun - and as if to herald it, a brilliant sphere of light briefly shone in the depths of space where one of Farshot's shells had exploded, leaving nothing but scraps of light assault craft in its wake.

Having thrown off his ruse of being just an empty assault craft, Farshot used his superior speed to outpace pursuers, and herd them into groups small enough to be taken out with another shell - which he did not have to be facing at his targets to do.

Between the rapid bluish-white bolts flying from his cannons that caused violent explosions to rock the surface of whatever they hit, and semi-frequent launches of his large 105mm shells, Farshot was systematically erasing all enemy light assault craft in the area.

Seeing Deathstrike in his guncutter flying out into the depths of space, Farshot had an idea of what his commander was up to. Over a properly-encrypted channel, he sent a quick comm to Deathstrike. "Commander, do you require an escort?"

(EDIT: Helped first paragraph make more sense)

[frigidmagi]

Deathstrike plunged through the formation, point defense fire sheered through the void around him but in all honesty? The fire was lighter then it should have been. Being pounded on by twice your number in ships will do that. In the Vanguard, Decepticon Dreadnoughts staggered and began drifting out of formation as League firepower crippled and maimed the ships. As per Deathstrike's order dozens of boarding missions had commenced and raging firefights burned up and down the lengths of the boarded vessels. Meanwhile most of the ships were using their PDs to fire on incoming missiles or attempt desperate interdictions of energy fire. In such an environment harried fire command crews simply downgraded a ship that wasn't trying to kill them down the lists, instructing their A.I. fire controls to concentrating on revenging them on the ships trying to tear them apart. Deathstrike found himself near his target, only 200 kilometers away.

Farshot found few if any light attack craft with the Decepitcon fleet, as he should have expected if he paid attention. The vast majority of the Decepticon attack craft were maraudering across the sole inhabited world of this system. He found plenty of capital ships willing make his life more exciting. In this case in the form of a trio of missiles that locked onto him and came screaming at him at speeds that would tear them apart in an atmosphere.

Shunt meanwhile found himself in a bit of trouble, his own raking attack runs had made him the primary consideration for the PD crews of a nearby medium capital ship. The very void around him seemed to be replaced by coherent light and excited particles and his metal skin began to heat up from near misses. Shunt's life was being lit up.

[Cynical Cat]

Deathstrike streaked toward the Dreadnought. "Shimmer, find me its command section," he asked over his internal coms. "We're going to board."

"Farshot, they appear not to have a substantial reserve of small craft. Shunt's taking a large amount of heat. Use that cannon of yours to put large holes in whatever ships that are giving him the most trouble. The rest of you, stand by for ejection and boarding. I'm going in."

[rhoenix]

Farshot found few if any light attack craft with the Decepitcon fleet, as he should have expected if he paid attention. The vast majority of the Decepticon attack craft were maraudering across the sole inhabited world of this system. He found plenty of capital ships willing make his life more exciting. In this case in the form of a trio of missiles that locked onto him and came screaming at him at speeds that would tear them apart in an atmosphere.

Were Farshot in his robot form, his eyebrows would've narrowed in concentration. He banked directly toward the nearest enemy capital ship, maintaining his present speed, even as he rapidly calculated the angles and parabola of a very difficult shot.

Once his angle had evened out, and he had confirmed that the missiles had changed course to track, the Nova Cannon beneath his spaceframe fired, seemingly directly at the capital ship looming ahead of him. He banked so that he would pass the capital ship on the port side at about one hundred meters away at the closest point, and lit his engines to full power. As he did, the large shell he'd fired gracefully turned 180 degrees in an arc, aiming for a very specific set of coordinates in space that the missiles would fly through, aiming to catch all three of them within the blast radius of a high-explosive shell, set to maximum radius.

"Farshot, they appear not to have a substantial reserve of small craft. Shunt's taking a large amount of heat. Use that cannon of yours to put large holes in whatever ships that are giving him the most trouble. The rest of you, stand by for ejection and boarding. I'm going in."

"Acknowledged," Farshot replied, as his assault craft form shot past the capital ship. Only a minor course correction was necessary to fly toward Shunt's current location.

[Dark Silver]

Grindstone remained in where he was by the port side exit hatch. He needed only to be told, and he would be out in the midst of combat, showing these foes what a true Decepticon looked and fought like.

[LadyTevar]

Up til now, the Greater Decepticon Empire had an advantage over the Free Worlds in both technology and intel. The GDE had not expected the arrival of Deathstrike's forces, and now was going to pay the price.

Shimmer may not have been in charge of Intel under Breakout, but she did have all the information they had on the GDE's forces and equipment. "Standard Dreadnaught design," Shimmer reported in clipped tones. "Bridge Command is located here..." she added as she sent an overlay map to the Tacnet. Like most Cybertron technology, no bulge or tower marked the position of command, yet it was on the dorsal section, just back from the nose of the ship.

Then, Shimmer walked over to stand beside Grindstone. He'd have point, she was backup. "If we can capture one of their AI intact, we can break the new code they're using."

[Dark Silver]

Grindstone remained waiting....the moment Deathstrike blew the hatch, the warrior would activate his own anti-gravs which allowed his robot mode flight abilities (like most Decepticons) and would make his bee line for the closest portion of the GDE Dreadnaught. Then Shimmer was next to him.

As far as he was aware, Shimmer - like most Autobots - did not have flight capabilities in robot mode, and her alt-mode was a ground based vehicle....

"Grab on," he said in his rumbling voice, the hand on his left arm sliding back into the wrist, to be replaced by a energon projector - the same occured on his right arm, only to be replaced by a physical metal double-headed axe shaft and blade. "Once inside the Dreadnaught, stay behind me. My armor will better withstand their weaponry than yours."

[LadyTevar]

"I was hoping you'd offer," Shimmer replied with a grin. "The Command vessel should have a minimum of two enemy Cons aboard. They don't let their minions go out by themselves."

[General Havoc]

"I knew I came out here for a reason..."

Cavalier had his sword out, though it was not yet burning. HIs shield was unfurled from around his left forearm, thick metal plate painted in olive green like the rest of his armored frame. Like Shimmer, Cavalier had no antigrav unit. But he had other means of getting into the fight if need be, and did not require Grindstone's protection to do it. Point was a relative term here, and he had no intention of allowing Grindstone to roam about unsupervised, particularly given that Grindstone had already mocked the very notion of not slaughtering everyone in the ship in the name of "efficiency".

"I have a feeling the cons on that ship are about to get a surprise."

[LadyTevar]

"If we can keep them from informing their base our fleet is here, the surprise will last longer," Shimmer replied, grabbing Grindstone's left arm for the trip across. "Try not to blast their computers this time Cavalier?" she added sweetly

[General Havoc]

Cavalier rolled his optics theatrically. "Hey," he said, "that computer looked at me funny. You all saw it!"

The grin on Cavalier's faceplate belied any feigned anger. He was about to do exactly what he liked doing.

"No promises," he said. "But I'll try not to throw any cons through one."

[LadyTevar]

"I'll hold you to that," Shimmer teased dryly. Nerves? What nerves. Multi-Vorn aged, battle-hardened Cybertronians didn't get nerves before a drop.

"When Deathstrike hits, emergency blast doors will seal the bridge off from the rest of the ship to prevent decompression," Shimmer added, speaking more to herself than anyone else. Data, Information, anything that would take her mind off what was going to happen next. "If we wish to salvage the Dreadnaught for our new allies, we will have to work quick."

[Dark Silver]

When Shimmer grabbed onto Grindstone's left arm, the larger Cybertronian barely noticed. The Energon protector that extended from his left wrist now wouldn't be hampered, and the rest of his weapons would be fully usable as long as she stayed behind him.

The Energon Protector was a item found on many larger Combat Model Cybertronians, and one added during Grindstone's "upgrade" from when he was rebuilt by the Decepticons - tapping his own internal Energon stores, the projector could then form the Energon into shaped "hard energy" weapons - a mace, sword blades, and Grindstone's personal favorite, a double headed battle axe.

"Remember, when on the ship, if you are attacked, they are a target. Our goal is the bridge and the slime who call themselves Decepticons."

Grindstone then looked down to Shimmer, "It is combat, I will not say everything will be alright - but stay close by, and I will do my best to cover you."

With that, Grindstone looked back and called out, "We are ready Commander, blow the hatch when in position"

[Lys]

Elsewhere in the battlespace, Blastcap and 273rd Pioneers hurtled in armoured drop pods toward the wing command dreadnought selected as their target. Already the supporting elements of the League Fleet had battered aside its shields and destroyed or maimed a number of of its escorts, while missiles, gunboats, and strike craft distracted the enemy's point-defence grid. A wing of bombers had taken position ahead of the drop pods, to herald their arrival in grand style.

Over the comms, Blastcap briefed her unit, "Alright, boys and girls I'll only say this once, so listen up. This is a capture mission, but the target is the ship, not the crew. Anyone not trying to surrender is expendable. We're blasting our way in and advancing by fire. You are weapons free on heavy ordnance. If you encounter Cybertronians, call for back up and use any means available to keep them suppressed until I arrive. Our primary target is the command section, secondary targets are the power plants. Command is heavily armoured, so we're breaching the hull just outside it. We'll be outnumbered, but they'll be spread out through the dreadnought, do try to land on target. First we hit the bridge, then the operations room. Once command is secured we'll take the main reactor and have control of the ship. The the rest is up to Fleet."

Out in front, the bombers released their ordnance and broke off.

[SirNitram]

Shunt, meanwhile, was keeping low and fast, even as his hull began to heat up. "Farshot. I'm gonna show these guys one of my many talents. I say we both knock out this thing's sensors." It'd make no sense unless someone knew Shunt's talents. With a distinct transwarp signature, the fighter was gone from the firestorm of point-defense fire. It reappeared moments later, dropping bombs onto the heaviest cluster of sensors before lifting up and away from the ship. Sensors, by definition, could never be heavily armored. That would cause some nice damage.

[rhoenix]

Shunt, meanwhile, was keeping low and fast, even as his hull began to heat up. "Farshot. I'm gonna show these guys one of my many talents. I say we both knock out this thing's sensors." It'd make no sense unless someone knew Shunt's talents. With a distinct transwarp signature, the fighter was gone from the firestorm of point-defense fire. It reappeared moments later, dropping bombs onto the heaviest cluster of sensors before lifting up and away from the ship. Sensors, by definition, could never be heavily armored. That would cause some nice damage.

"Acknowledged, Shunt," Farshot replied, his three engines glowing blue as he rapidly closed in on Shunt's location in the theater of battle. "Incoming shell," he said once he was within range as his Nova Cannon fired.

The shell it fired was not the high-explosive type he'd favored during this battle so far. It was his special armor-destroying type, created to make a hole in armor, and then blast fusion-temperature helium plasma through the hole.

Unlike before with the assault craft, Farshot did not have to take special precautions with the shell. The large shell screamed at full speed directly toward the capital ship's sensor array, aiming with its curving flight path to blast through the sensor systems and into the ship itself.

[frigidmagi]

Deathstrike streaked toward the Dreadnought. "Shimmer, find me its command section," he asked over his internal coms. "We're going to board."

"Farshot, they appear not to have a substantial reserve of small craft. Shunt's taking a large amount of heat. Use that cannon of yours to put large holes in whatever ships that are giving him the most trouble. The rest of you, stand by for ejection and boarding. I'm going in."

Deathstrike lined up his run in a textbook manner... If Cybertronians used textbooks anyways. He managed to slide into the Dreadnought's hanger bay (Not even Deathstrike was going to ram through the armor of a Dreadnought). The Cybertronians inside were ejected into a vast metal cavern. Unlike Free World ships and bases, everything in the GDE was build to accommodate Cybertronian sizes. The hanger was mostly empty, the ship having launched it small craft in the opening hours of the assault. There were various support crews, slaves for the vast majority who took one look at the Cybertronians and decided there were other places that needed their attention more. It would take minutes most likely for one of them to actually bother to report it to their masters and risk punishment or reward.

Shimmer checked her data, the command bridge (also called command pit by Decepticon forces) was buried inside the ship, forward of it's center of mass. There was a rather straight path to it from the hanger.

Were Farshot in his robot form, his eyebrows would've narrowed in concentration. He banked directly toward the nearest enemy capital ship, maintaining his present speed, even as he rapidly calculated the angles and parabola of a very difficult shot.

Once his angle had evened out, and he had confirmed that the missiles had changed course to track, the Nova Cannon beneath his spaceframe fired, seemingly directly at the capital ship looming ahead of him. He banked so that he would pass the capital ship on the port side at about one hundred meters away at the closest point, and lit his engines to full power. As he did, the large shell he'd fired gracefully turned 180 degrees in an arc, aiming for a very specific set of coordinates in space that the missiles would fly through, aiming to catch all three of them within the blast radius of a high-explosive shell, set to maximum radius.

Farshot fired and the shell flew doggedly through the void exploding at it's pre-set coordinates. Two of the missiles were taken down but the third had been approaching on a different vector and missed the explosion entirely. It continued on it's course racing after Farshot.

Shunt, meanwhile, was keeping low and fast, even as his hull began to heat up. "Farshot. I'm gonna show these guys one of my many talents. I say we both knock out this thing's sensors." It'd make no sense unless someone knew Shunt's talents. With a distinct transwarp signature, the fighter was gone from the firestorm of point-defense fire. It reappeared moments later, dropping bombs onto the heaviest cluster of sensors before lifting up and away from the ship. Sensors, by definition, could never be heavily armored. That would cause some nice damage.

Shunt disappeared and reappeared, shaking off all the sensor locks he had accumulated. His bomb slammed into the heavy ship ripping through the sensor plates and starting a small fire on the hull of the ship. The ship seem to stagger under the blow.

The shell it fired was not the high-explosive type he'd favored during this battle so far. It was his special armor-destroying type, created to make a hole in armor, and then blast fusion-temperature helium plasma through the hole.

Unlike before with the assault craft, Farshot did not have to take special precautions with the shell. The large shell screamed at full speed directly toward the capital ship's sensor array, aiming with its curving flight path to blast through the sensor systems and into the ship itself.

The shell slammed into the partially blinded ship and exploded. Causing additional fires to break out fed by atmosphere breaches from the ship. The last surviving missile sped closer to Farshot, it's zombie like cyberbrain tracking down the seconds of fuel it had against the rapidly dropping range. Not lone now, not long at all. If it had emotion it would be filled with satification.