"Bam!" said the lady! [Closed]

[Jiang Winters]

Spoiler: Firehawk Specs

SSF90 ‘Firehawk’
Space Superiority Fighter, Model 90, ‘Firehawk’ ​

The Firehawk is the Kushari’s current fleet fighter. A high-speed, high-agility fighter bristling with missiles and a powerful mass driver cannon, the tiny and nimble Firehawk can weave through enemy fire with ease and hammer away at shields and armor alike with its devastating combination of guided missiles and armor-defeating cannon rounds.

It uses a comprehensive sensor suit to immerse the pilot in a holographic ‘bubble’ that wraps around the cockpit, allowing him a completely unhindered field of view. The fighter’s targeting system highlights targets, points out objectives, and clearly marks friendly contacts and waypoints, while a host of targeting aids ease the task of targeting enemy craft in high-speed space combat.

The fighter is also highly aerodynamic, unlike other Kushari spacecraft, and is very much so capable of fighting in-atmosphere. It’s long, low profile makes it difficult to spot visually and can confuse relatively primitive sensors at long range, with the craft’s outline being extraordinarily difficult for LADAR to accurately detect. It’s main drives utilize independently tilting ducts, allowing the craft to ‘flip’ end over end at a moment’s notice, to corkscrew instantly, and to perform any number of extremely high-speed, high-agility manuvers that no other Kushari fighter can match.

The Firehawk is rightly considered to be the best conventional starfighter available to the Kushari Federation, and will be deployed as such for many years to come. Predicted to be capable of holding its own against any alien starfighters the Federation Navy may come across, there is no doubt that the SSF90 will be the first line of defense against any hostile incursion into Federation space.

Length: 18M
Crew: 1
Consumables: 3 days food/air

Stats:
Speed: 9
Agility: 10
Shields: N/A
Armor: 4

Armament:

1x M389/LW 35MM 6-Barrel Gatling Hypervelocity Gauss Cannon, ROF = 3,500RPM. Ammo = 5,000 rounds linkless feed, feed is 5 rounds AP to 1 round API-T

2x Over-Wing Mounted Heavy Missile Pods, 15x Missiles per Pod. Typical load is 5x Heavy Anti-Ship Missiles and 10x High-Speed High-Maneuverability Self-Guided Anti-Fighter Missiles per pod.

4x AN80 Chaff/Flare Dispensers, effectively confuses most standard guided anti-fighter missiles and military targeting systems. 80 Chaff/Flare rounds, fires in 10-round salvos. All flare dispensers fire in sync when activated, giving the fighter no more than 8 salvos with which to evade enemy missiles.

Equipment:

1x Long-Range Sensor Package
1x Targeting Sensor Package
1x Advanced Fire Control Computer
1x Subspace Comms Array
1x LADAR System

[Muuuuusiiiic. Start at the 5 Minute mark.]

The Varyr asteroid fields were always quiet, always deadly. The occasional pocket of radioactive ore and dust could foul sensors and the haphazard movements of the asteroids could crush fighters and capital ships alike. To make matters worse, the asteroid field was almost always a thousand kilometers thick and a thousand tall, making it immensely dangerous to navigate.

While a handful of lanes had been blasted through with the ion beam cannons and heavy torpedoes of capital ships and bombers, the field itself was still incredibly dangerous and held many secrets. As such, it was a common hiding place for pirates, enemy warships, smugglers, and other such undesirables. Heavy patrols did little to deter such folks from taking refuge in the field, but it did give the field's denizens something to shoot at every now and then, such as Romeo Zero Seven Four; the hapless Firehawk interceptor assigned to patrol one of the lanes through the asteroid field.

"This is Romeo, I'm halfway through my patrol. Approaching checkpoint fifteen. Any updates?"

She paused - no response from control. She checked her comms system and was not surprised to find that the asteroid field was interfering with her communications and her sensors. The pilot rolled her eyes and patted her Firehawk's primary display. "Looks like it's just you and me out here, girl. Let's get outta here fast, huh?" she muttered - little did she know that she was not alone in the field! There was another starfighter there that day, but it was not on her side...

Spoiler: STATUS

Armor: Max
All Systems Normal
Ammunition:
-5,000 35MM Rounds
-6x Anti-Fighter Missiles
-40x Chaff/Flare Shots

 

[Lavi]

A lone TIE Interceptor was navigating that same asteroid. Marked with the red stripes of the 181st Imperial Fighter Wing, as well as thinner red stripes on each wing panel marking its pilot as an ace, it nonchalantly slipped around the dangerous asteroids in the system on its own patrol.

"This is Acklay Lead, approaching checkpoint Besh-Oh-Four. No activity, over?" the pilot reported. No response: probably interference.

He looked around the asteroid, and noticed a blimp of light reflecting off of the light from the nearby star. He brought his fighter around on an interception course. The twin-ion engines roared to life as he closed in on the unknown vessel.

"This is Acklay Lead. Detected an unidentified fighter," he continued. He peered into his viewport. "Looks like a Firehawk. Over."

Still no response. Damn interference.

Since he was the only Imperial in the area, this vessel clearly was not an ally. Through standard procedures, unidentified ships were to be captured and those who resist be destroyed.

He didn't bother with communicating with this fighter: it was a military vessel. It had to be here on purpose.

 

[Jiang Winters]

"Hel-lo, what have we here?"

Romeo eased back on the Firehawk's throttle and tapped on the braking thrusters. The interceptor slowed e'er so slightly, allowing her to more easily track the movement of an object she had spotted in her peripheral vision. It came weaving out of the asteroids and was moving to intercept her fighter, but it was still at range. She reached into the hologram surrounding her seat and 'touched' the object, prompting the computer to zoom in on it. It was a TIE fighter; an Ace, judging by its markings.

She swallowed nervously. She was no rookie herself - her Firehawk had fought in a dozen battles, and she'd chalked up thirty-three confirmed kills against 'Thrush' heavy interceptors and a handful of 'Eagle' bombers. A TIE was a completely different game though; a TIE Interceptor was fast, sleek, and packed a vicious punch, not unlike her trusty Firehawk.

"This is Romeo to all Federation forces in the vicinity of Varyr Belt Passage Yankee Nine, I've got eyes on hostile spacecraft. Count one TIE Interceptor, repeat, one TIE Interceptor. I'm moving to engage."

The Kushari punched the throttle. The Firehawk's engines roared to life and the craft shot forward in a gentle spinning loop, which righted the craft at the end of the maneuver and sent it hurtling right towards the TIE.

She primed her gauss cannon and armed her complement of missiles; she'd been taught that missiles tended to miss targets when fired straight-on, but she was going to try it anyways. Maybe she'd rattle his cage enough to get him to flee.

The starboard missile bay's doors folded down into the ship, revealing three glistening white missiles. She tapped the trigger once, and a single three meter long missile streaked out of the bay on a column of fire and smoke. It rocketed towards the TIE, proximity warhead armed and ready to deliver a kill.

It'd miss - there was no doubt about that. All he had to do was dart behind an asteroid, or simply jink out of the way or deploy countermeasures. What was important was that it'd give her Firehawk a chance to get into gun range, where all the fancy countermeasures in the world wouldn't save the TIE from the raw firepower of her gauss cannon.

 

[Lavi]

((33 confirmed kills? lol, that's like sextuple ace against my ace))

The other fighter came about and fired a missile, causing his lock-on alarm to go off. Quite an odd tactic: it would easily miss him at that angle of attack. He fired off several shots to dissuade the other from continuing on its straight course and pulled back on the yolk, causing the enemy missile to cleanly miss him. He then continued turning to his right, bringing the interceptor around.

 

[Jiang Winters]

[Thrush's aren't exactly hard to kill if you're in something like a Firehawk or a TIE. They're all armor and guns, not much for mobility or speed. Just get behind them and they're toast. >_>]

He pulled up and to the right - perfect! Applying a bit of yaw carried the Firehawk out of the way of the TIE's cannon fire, which whipped past the Kushari Fighter's stubby left wing without causing any damage. Romeo wasn't dissuaded in the least by the display of force and pulled up on the stick e'er so slightly. The Firehawk's bow rose to track the TIE Interceptor, and targeting data began to stack up to the right of the TIE as a blood red triangle snapped into place around the fighter.

"LADAR lock achieved," chimed the computer. Romeo grinned from ear to ear and flicked up the safety cover protecting the gun's thumb trigger. She lined up her sights and depressed the trigger. The entire fighter's frame shook and a deafening roar filled the cockpit. For scarcely half a second, a short stream of brilliant red-gold tracers shot out from the Firehawk's cannon and went hurtling along on an intercept course for the Interceptor.

It was a snap shot; a tiny burst of maybe twenty-five or thirty rounds. The angle of attack was pretty decent, but the Interceptor presented a tiny target and the Firehawk was still a good distance away. The likelihood of scoring a hit was low, but she wanted to force him onto the defensive and make him play the game her way.

Spoiler: Status

Armor: Max
All Systems Normal
Ammunition:
-4,970 35MM rounds
-5 Missiles
-40 Flare/Chaff

 

[Lavi]

The Firehawk took chase against the maneuver, which was textbook. A quick half roll quickly brought the TIE off of its predictable course as the Firehawk opened fire and a short application of brakes brought the Interceptor facing the other fighter again. He throttled and began barrel rolling, firing his cannons rapidly on the course at which he predicted the other fighter to move towards. Due to the TIE's design, the maneuver created a tunnel of green blaster fire, providing greater coverage to at least score a hit on the other fighter.

 

[Jiang Winters]

"Gorramit."

Romeo swore under her breath as she overshot the TIE, the smaller fighter using a half-roll combined with brakes to evade her fire and draw a bead on her Firehawk. She instinctively maxed out the throttle and pushed the stick forward, sending her craft plummeting towards the not-too-distant bottom of the passage through the asteroid belt.

More than a few laser bolts went hurtling past her canopy, and one bolt struck the craft's right 'wing' near the tip. A blast rocked the fighter as the destructive energy punched a hole through the wing. Smoke belched out of the hole for a moment, then died out in the vacuum of space. The impact prompted her to jink to her right, carrying the Interceptor out of the TIE's line of fire for the precious few seconds she needed.

The Firehawk ducked into the asteroid field. The rocks here were big, with plenty of space between them - not too hazardous, but it'd make it harder for the Interceptor to stick on her tail if it chased. She dove a little deeper in, then flipped the Firehawk around and began scanning the area with her craft's LADAR. If the Imperial had followed, she'd see him - and there was no doubt he would see her as well, for his craft almost certainly had more advanced sensors that could track her movements.

Spoiler: STATUS

Armor: Insignificant Structural Damage
Systems:
-All Primary Systems Functional
-1/2 Primary Oxygen Tanks Destroyed; 45% ship air remaining, 100% air remaining in pilot's flight suit. Flight time remaining: 30 Hours.
-Long Range Sensor Array Destroyed
-Long-Range Comms Destroyed

Ammunition:
-4,970 35MM rounds
-5 Missiles
-40 Flare/Chaff

 

[Lavi]

The Firehawk veered off, overshooting and breaking engagement. The TIE pilot didn't notice the smoke that rose from his hit on the other before the sign of damage faded in the vacuum. The other survived, which obviously meant that his attack run wasn't lethal.

Making a tight turn, he gave chase, though the other had some distance from both trottling and him having to turn before accelerating. Instead of making a beeline for the direction that the Firehawk fled to, he brought his TIE Interceptor along the bulk of the large asteroid and stayed close to the object.

 

[Jiang Winters]

After running a quick check on her Firehawk's systems, Romeo decided that she had a choice to make. Either hide in the asteroid belt and force the Imperial to come to her, or make a dash for it and try to re-engage him before he came looking for her.

She decided to dash and re-engage.

The Firehawk spun on its axis and shot upwards, racing straight up through the asteroid field for several long seconds before peeling out, darting back into the lane at an angle. If her guess was correct, her angle of entry would carry her lengthwise into the lane running through the field, rather than width-wise, allowing her to 'drift' for a long time without worrying about running into random asteroids.

She jammed back on the stick and overrode the control surfaces's limiters, allowing the Firehawk to pull a flawless 180 without altering its course greatly. After flipping it around, she cut the engines and tapped the reverse thrusters once, allowing it to continue flying in reverse for a moment without significant loss in momentum.

Romeo began scanning the area with LADAR once more. "Come out come out wherever you are..." she muttered. If he was tracking her, and had been moving into the belt near her old position, then he'd have to come straight into her guns and her missiles, giving her a few precious seconds to try to score a hit before she'd have to flip over and either dash to safety or engage in a high-speed dogfight.

 

[Lavi]

The Firehawk wasn't where he expected it to be. The TIE pilot avoided going into the open altogether, using the asteroid he was hugging to block angles of attack as he figured out where the bandit was. Leaving oneself open like that was a surefire way to die early: many TIE pilots learned that the hard way. He accelerated to moderate speed and began following a trail of asteroids, unknowingly turning the opposite direction that the Firehawk veered off to.

"Lost contact with bandit," he reported, though futilely.

He checked his sensors, but they were not reporting significant heat from sources other than the system's sun. The other was surely planning an ambush, so the pilot readied himself to begin jinking at the first opportunity, setting his sensors to sound when it detects something.

 

[Jiang Winters]

"AAaaaaand... I got eyes on a whole lotta nothing. Where'd that TIE go?"

Romeo sighed and shook her head. She had nothing on LADAR, nothing on thermal sensors, and her long-range sensors had been destroyed, along with her ability to track the TIE's exhaust trails. For a moment's time she wondered if he had disengaged, but quickly dismissed the notion as foolish and hopeful. He was still here - there was no doubt in her mind about that.

She decelerated her craft, then began heading back towards the asteroid field. He was in there somewhere - there was no doubt about that. She flipped on her comms array and set it to broadcast on an open frequency. "Hey TIE! Where'd you run off to, buddy?"

She didn't repeat the message, and quickly veered off onto a different approach to prevent him from back-tracking the comms broadcast to find her position. She wanted him to know she was coming, and she wanted to get him to come towards her old position - she didn't want him to know exactly where she was, however.

After dropping down nearly two thousand meters to put herself well away from her broadcast point, she punched it and went on ahead into the asteroid field. The dust clouds and radiation pockets ahead would foul normal sensors - she'd soon be reduced to her LADAR and thermal sensors, as would the TIE. It'd become a purely visual gunfight, which was just the way she liked it.

 

[Lavi]

His open comm frequency pinged, though he was listening to the secure channel. Although he missed the entire message, the pilot knew that it had to be the Firehawk trying to bait him. As far as he knew, there was only one pilot in the area. Could there be a second coming to back up the fighter he detected? He turned around, heading towards the source of the transmission, though on a somewhat indirect course.

Maintaining his attack speed, the pilot guided his Interceptor through the mess of asteroids, making a very large circle around the center of the transmission he received. He continued to avoid getting caught in the open, giving short bursts of speed when he had to zip between somewhat distant asteroids and decelerating when he neared the object of interest.

 

[Jiang Winters]

There was nothing in front of the broadcast point; Romeo had probed a good five kilometers into the field, and her LADAR had still picked up nothing. If her friend was still out there, he was completely obscured. The feline cursed and doubled back, once again skirting the broadcast point by passing over it, with a good kilometer of altitude between her and the broadcast point.

She kept her eyes peeled the entire flight, but saw nothing. Like the TIE, she was being cautious; darting from asteroid to asteroid, only hitting the thrusters when necessary, so on and so forth. Her erratic flight pattern helped reduce her visibility, but it also decreased her chances of spotting a hostile target. It was a win-lose situation, one that was encouraging her to head back towards open space in the hopes of re-engaging her target.

 

[Lavi]

Minutes passed, without result. Since the Firehawk has been out of sight for so long, it could be anywhere, including in hyperspace. If it was still here, the TIE pilot knew that it was probably watching. There was only one alternative to this weaving through asteroids.

The pilot paused for a few seconds, steeling himself for doing what he loathed to do. He immediately did a half-roll and nose-dived at somewhat distant asteroid, accelerating to the point that his engines roared. He intended to make the Firehawk think that he incorrectly saw the enemy and was making a move on the phantom target.

 

[Jiang Winters]

And out came the TIE, hurtling across space towards a far-flung asteroid! Romeo's brow furrowed. "What's this guy doing?" she wondered aloud. The Kushari pilot uncaged her missiles and eased into the shadow of a particularly large asteroid, watching as the distance between herself and the TIE increased. She had acquired a lock on him, but there was so much range between them that she didn't feel like she'd score a hit if she used a missile.

Instead of firing, she sat and watched, ready to hit the thrusters at a moment's notice. If he continued to head away, she'd plot an intercept course and move to cut him off.

 

[Lavi]

The long dash across the open resulted in nothing, at least for a few seconds. And then his lock-warning chimed. The Firehawk had him in its sights. A decent start, though the Firehawk pilot seemed overly cautious about engaging. No point in changing course now: the TIE pilot continued speeding off, keeping an ear tuned for the lock-on warning, in case it changed from just a lock-on to a missile warning.

The Firehawk clearly had more firepower, but he felt that his TIE had greater maneuverability. He wanted the Firehawk to close the distance and engage.

 

[Jiang Winters]

He was leaving. No point being subtle now - Romeo had to either re-engage or declare a draw and back off, and she wasn't about to lose the chance to add a TIE Interceptor to her list of kills.

The Kushari uncaged her missiles and slammed the throttle; the Firehawk, built for incredible speed and agility at the cost of armor, went rocketing forward in a bid to catch up with the TIE. She still had a lock and so fired, unleashing a single missile. He would be forced to take evasive maneuvers; at range, he'd stand a better chance of evading the high-maneuver missile than he did in close, as the extreme heat of the missile's engine would damage the missile's thruster gimbals over time, reducing in a constant loss of maneuverability.

In close, however, was where the game would change. She uncaged a second missile but did not fire it yet, at the same time spinning up her gun; this would end here and now. No more running, no more hiding.

 

[Lavi]

Good, the Firehawk was engaging. His warning system chimed, indicating a released missile: which wasn't surprising, considering the distance between each other. He pulled his TIE up along the asteroid he approached, using the reflection of the system's star off of the asteroid's surface to confuse the missile's guidance system. He veered to his left as his lock-on system returned to normal.

He flipped on his rear-view camera for a moment to make sure the missile lost its original target, which it did. Returning to normal view, the TIE pilot began maneuvering around the asteroids, winding in and out of the clusters of asteroids to toy with the Firehawk's targeting systems and force its pilot to come in closer.

 

[Jiang Winters]

Against all odds, the Missile's targeting systems lost the TIE. The high-velocity ordinance spiraled out of control for a moment, then self-destructed after losing its target - a safety feature engineered into the weapon to ensure it didn't try to re-acquire a target, causing it to erroneously engage a 'friendly' craft.

Romeo hitched her shoulders nonchalantly and eased off the throttle as she coursed through the field, watching that happy little TIE dodge and weave its way through the asteroid belts. He was toying with her; trying to lure her in closer. He had a gun-heavy craft, and lacked the long range punch of her Firehawk or the raw forward firepower of her main gun. The ball was in her court, if she could force him into an engagement on her terms, not in the asteroids where the nimble TIE would have an advantage.

The Kushari cut the engines and turned the craft, 'strafing' sideways at low velocity and tracking the TIE's movement. It was out of effective gun range, meaning that scoring a hit was almost impossible against such a small, high-speed target. The asteroids surrounding it were a different story.

She loosed off several short bursts. The barrage of gauss cannon rounds ate through asteroids in front of the TIE's flight path, shoving a dangerous cloud of microasteroids and space dust in his general direction. It would confuse his sensors and work as a smokefield in space, while the bits of asteroid would prove almost as deadly as flak to such a lightly armored, unshielded craft should he fly straight through it.

After making her gun run, she turned the craft around and tapped on the thrusters, weaving her way through the asteroids on a course more or less parallel to the TIE's prior path, while her craft's sensors watched and waited for anything to burst out of the cloud of debris.

 

[Lavi]

((goddammit, my post didn't make it before my internet went down yesterday...))

He had to compliment the unconventional use of the environment to block his movements: the micro-asteroids would be too dangerous to chance with his TIE. Instead of continuing his flight path, he performed a moderately slow barrel roll, using the time while upside down to dip beneath the asteroids and then coming back up facing the general direction the Firehawk was presumed to be. He was slightly off (though lucky the Firehawk didn't try to perform a maneuver while he was within the asteroids), but quickly adjusted to bring the fighter in his view.

Despite the distance being too great for his weapons to be effective, he squeezed his weapon triggers, firing all six of his cannons at the Firehawk, giving some lead to force the other to commit to a maneuver. He pushed forward on the throttle to close the distance, though he held the throttle conservatively. The ace pilot fired another round of lasers with his cannons for good measure.