Aksa notes the telemetry link is up and that all her systems are primed and ready to go.

"All elements hold position and interrogate hostile forces with what systems you have. Pass Bogey Dope to me ASAP." She calls out to her planes in a calm yet hard tone.

She notes a slight quaver in her wingmans voice. "Work the problem Two." She says in an even manner. "Just don't get fixated." She adds, offering some advice; especially with an unknown (but probably very large) amount of enemy hardware heading their way.

She then turns her attention towards the flashes of light in the distance. Jotting notes down on her leg board.

Perc 21 (NAT 20)

---

OOC: That would make this the 2nd time Eagle Eye Aksa has rolled a NAT 20 for a perc roll. O_o

Cate slapped the side of the control and gave up realising it couldn't do what she needed.

Looking up her she tried to distinguish between the flashes up ahead but her visor was fogged from her rapid breathing and perspiration. She heard the advice from Aksa, stay calm don't get stuck on one thing. She wiped the condensation from her visor. She was anxious she could feel her blood pumping, she paused and took a breath, she lowered the cabin heat, hopefully cooling herself and clearing her head.


(Occ:
09:19, Today: Cate Robbie rolled 4 using 1d20+1 with rolls of 3.  Perception.)

Lameck watches closely even with the objects so far off as all the data rolls in. He adjusts for any new data and attempts to fix his macro to provide all the data in a neat little packages for him and his pilot when the time came to take action.

Robbie is still experiencing some sort of fogging issue and doesn’t see the incoming enemy fire. What saves her is the squadron commander yelling over the radio.

Phiri is too busy looking at the instruments to see the incoming. But he certainly does feel the gut-wrenching maneuver the Major puts the veritech into.

---

The space around both veritechs is filled with large green cylinders of light. Some of it come close enough to be blinding...

[Private to Cate Robbie: Please make a dodge roll. As long as you don’t roll a natural 1 you’ll be fine.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:05, Tue 02 Apr 2019.

Having turned her attention back towards the incoming enemy and those flashes of lights she notes something odd. She tries to place it then blinks, memory flashing back to the moments she was first shot at back on South Ataria Island, the tiny pinprick of light at the tip of the enemy war-machines barrels slowly growing then, exponentially so, as they had reached out for her. Only now it seemed as if that phenomenon of light was playing out in a slow motion, almost macro scale... Her eyes opened wide, realizing what it was she was seeing.

"PERKELE!" She snapped as she jerked back on her stick pointing her VF's nose straight 'up', then, pushed her throttle from 25% into full burner, slamming her and her EWO into their seats.

"ALL CRAFT! JINK! NOW!" She bellows into the Tac-Net. "INCOMING!"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:42, Wed 03 Apr 2019.

Cate hearing the warning slams her gear stick back trying to stick with her team leader, feeling the force thrust her back into her cockpit as she slams on the afterburner. "Holy Moly" She gasps as she feels the wind pushed out of her lungs adjusting to the velocity.  She spun her craft to put a little distance between her and the Major, "Location of boggy Vixen?" she asked getting the last of the condensation off her visor.


09:50, Today: Cate Robbie rolled 24 using 1d20+11 with rolls of 13.  Dodge.

After a few seconds of going evasive the large green cylinders of light stop passing by.

Reindeer 17 and Oggy 12 form back up. Off in the distance there are still pinpricks of light which appear to be forming up into groups...

[Private to Aksa Tikkanen:
A quick check of your MFD shows that Akula 16 is not on your status board.]

Aksa brings her VF back into 'level' flight and notes the enemy winks of light forming up. And there are a lot of them...

She looks at her MFD and feels a knot in her stomach as she learns she is one plane and two air crew short. The call on the radio only confirms it.

"Copy 7, Join up on closest element to you." She replies, managing to keep her voice calm.

[Private to Lameck Phiri: There is a fleeting pause and Phiri can hear from Aksa a scream of rage and loss, muffled by her helmet.]

Aksa reorients her IRST towards the enemy to get an idea of what they are doing. She checks the telemetry link to see if the Cat's Eye's and or Rabbit's longer range radars have begun to pick up the enemy.

Also on her radar and telemetry link, she checks to see how far out Meved is, and if they lost anyone. Further back she see's how that second intercept line is shaping up.

Tactics: Roll of 8 vs 73: PASS
Theater Warfare: Aerospace: Roll of 56 vs 68: PASS

---

OOC I'm going to use my previously rolled RSI roll here unless they are still to far off. Was a 15 v 58: PASS

[Private to Darkside Trooper: (I'd like her to have her folks do a BVR launch, with Meved, then circle back to join up half way between current position and 2nd Interception line and fire an other salvo, then bound back and link up with the 2nd Interception line before the furball envelopes them. Let me know if that's workable, or, based on her tactics and warfare rolls if something else better is preferable.)  ]

Lameck can't crap his pants as it's all being pinned instead him during the hard maneuver pulled off by his pilot, he can only eke out an expletive, "Shit!" When they "settled" back down he felt the fool for being so buried in his MFD.

He felt the sadness of the loss, and knew Aska was just as frustrated. But he put those feelings aside and did his best to prepare for a fight.

OOC:
1: RSI, PASS
2: WS, PASS
3: ECM, PASS

Perception 8 ... How do you figure bonus for perception again?

Cate formed up on the wing of Aksa, bringing her bird slightly closer. "Ok, Cate keep it tight" She said to herself. She checked on her sensors for the other ships in the wing. She pulled the spacing between her and them to the required distance. Leveling out pointing the noes of her bird towards the forming up lights. She cursed as she was still unable to lock on. "Vixen have you got a lock" She asked,

Occ:
RSI: Cate 76.  RSI vs 45%.Fail
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:00, Tue 09 Apr 2019.

Neither the Rabbit or Cat’s Eye’s radar data feed is picking up anything, indicating that the enemy is still too far out to be picked up on radar.

What does provide information is the Cat’s Eye’s LIDAR, which indicates the velocity and distance of some of the pinpricks of light. The distance is still way too far out to launch a missile with any hope of actually hitting something. The velocity is not that of a missile, indicating that the pinpricks of light are alien mecha or some sort.

Visually, it seems like the pinpricks of light are forming up into six groups....]

[Private to Aksa Tikkanen; Lameck Phiri:
The command data feed being fed to the FRS.1DS/I from the Cat’s Eye does provide information indicating that one of the SuP-52 Val’kiriya’s (Meved 3) seems to have suffered the same fate as Akula 16. The rest of Meved is about to form up with Reindeer in a few seconds.

The alert fighters have been launched but are still a ways out.]

[Private to Lameck Phiri:
Perception is often just a straight up 1d20 roll. OCC or MOS might provide a bonus]

[Private to Aksa Tikkanen:
Tactics roll: It looks like the enemy formations are forming up ‘stacking’ along the Z axis and not along the X/Y axis.

Theater warfare roll: The enemy is attacking from one point on the compass/axis, and not from several points of the compass/axis, indicating that this is probabaly some sort of probing attack to measure defenses and capabilities.]

---

Meved and Reindeer teams form up, the 14 veritechs (it seems like Meved lost a veritech as well) are arranged in four groups of two, and two groups of three.

Eyeball One and Eyeball Three (the ES-11C Cats Eye’s) drop back, as do Gopher Ten, and Gopher Twelve (the RC-4C Rabbit’s).

Gunsight begins to give instructions out over the radio.

Eyeball One and Eyeball Three then begin to feed what data they have to the veritechs based on the return from their LIDAR (Light Imaging, Detection, And Ranging).

OOC: Game Map for Group R (the radio thread) has what each enemy formation looks like.

If/when you launch an Angel of Death, make two strike rolls (due to the built in AI). Strike bonus will be +8. They will technically be launched using Optical Guidance, then switch to Active Radar Homing once within radar range.

"Copy Gunsight." She replies to the commands from the rear. She checks her scopes, monitoring Meved's link up and then turns her head to her leg-board and does some quick math.

On her MFD she swiftly designates, as separate 'contacts'; 'Formation 1 thru 6', the knots of enemy strike craft; then 'Track 7 thru 11' for the enemy cap ships. She then transmits that to the others. (The largest enemy ship is Track 9 with Track's 7 - 8 to it's left, and 10 - 11 to it's right)

She makes a transmission to Meved Actual to declare her intent.

"Reindeer Flight, Reindeer Actual. Orders as follows..." In clear, concise, and compact language she details the attack they will carry out. The plan is simple:

• 1: Accelerate to 3kps
• 2: Fire RMS-1 Angel of Death 'Mad Dog' at assigned 'Formation/Track'
  
  1. Formation 1: Espada 05 and Vermillion 7
  2. Formation 2: Reindeer 17 and Reindeer 09
  3. Formation 3: Oggy 12 and Espada 10
  4. Track 9: Reindeer 04
• 3: Initiate Reverse Thrust; 6 second burn at full burner
• 4: Launch RRG-1 Firebird's 'Mad Dog' at previously assigned 'Formations'
• 5: Fall back to 2nd Interception Line at best speed

"...Reindeer 04, once you've fired your Angel, launch your Firebirds at either Formations 1, 2, or 3. All craft, on your retrograde to Intercept Line Two, see about guiding your Angel onto the larger craft at the center of your targeted formation."
"All craft, how copy?" She asks. Aksa wants to be sure everyone knows what's expected of them before giving the command to execute.

"Vinyl, keep an eye out for incoming fire during our run." She says, just to check the box.

---

[Private to GM: UNAT 22 (14+8) for AOD At Formation 2
EDIT: Using Phiri's WP/RSI to launch a volley in one attack:
NAT 20 (UNAT 28) Pair of Firebirds at Formation 2]
This message was last edited by the player at 21:37, Thu 11 Apr 2019.

Cate smoothed out her flight plan keeping on her leaders wing. Gripping her flight stick tightly she paused and soothed her breath. This was it, contact, and combat, and they were going nuclear. She had tried not to think about the nuke on her hard point but kept it steady.

"Copy that Vixen" She reported over comms.

Lameck nods at Vixen's command, even though he was already doing it, adding, "Aye Ma'am."

He also preps and provides a firing solution for their own AOD, feeding that the Vixen's MFD for an as needed option.  As she fires he takes over control of the AOD guiding to their intended target.

OOC:
Optics (75%): PASS
AOD Strike: 23
Will Dodge any incoming for at the AOD: 18, 11 (Nat 1...), 19, 30 (Nat 20)
Do we get the +3 from optics for the Dodge rolls too?

Could've used that Nat 20 on the attack roll...
This message was last edited by the player at 00:33, Sun 14 Apr 2019.

This is considered as in character info: You guys got the firing solution for the AOD’s and Firebirds from the Cat’s Eye so there is no need to make a weapons system roll. If you want to switch to optical guidance you would still keep the best roll of your two 1d20’s I asked you to roll, but use the strike bonus associated with that guidance type. You can also have the AOD dodge anti-missile fire when using optical guidance. The downside is that you cannot take any actions (dodge, shooting etc) while guiding the missile in. For a single seat VT you’d have to put your bird on auto pilot. For a dual seat VT the back seater can guide the missile in while the pilot does whatever.

Aksa waits for her element and her flight to reply. When the distance to the enemy is correct for the maneuver, and more-over, providing an optimal chance they will avoid any return fire as they retro-grade to Interception Line Two, she orders the attack.

"Reindeer flight, Reindeer actual, All units advance." She says calmly as she accelerates her FRS.1-DS/I up to 3kps. She counts down the last few seconds before weapons release in order to have the initial volley as coordinated as possible, well, at least on her end, the Russ...whatever.

"Weapons release in 3, 2, 1." She calls down. "Tulta Munille!" She adds, announcing the command to fire openly. "Reindeer One-Seven, Fox Three." Comes the follow up once her AoD has left the rail. She then puts Kiroileva Siili into reverse burner for 6 seconds, then lets fly her Firebirds. "Fox 3." She calls out again as a pair of RRG-1's leave their rails.

Flipping her plane onto it's back to shorten the transformation time (or at the least to make the transition more elegant and less stressful on the airframe) she heads back towards Interception Line Two, rolling Siili 'upright' a few seconds later.

---

OOC: I'm posting this here so Cate can post her attack rolls post. Cate please hold off on posting any radio dialogue in radio chat for the time being. I will be holding off as well until the late poster gets his attack and radio post done. Once that's taken care I'll post Aksa's stuff, then it's off the the races.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:20, Sat 13 Apr 2019.

Cate moved up following her leader, she hit the throttle bringing her bird up. Leveling up and taking aim. "Fox Three" Cate reported launching her missiles.

OCC: I wasn't sure if you needed me to make my dodge roll

With the weight of the missile off her bird, she copied her leader throttling back to flip noes to tail and hit full after burn to get out of the way.

Cate Robbie rolled 23 using 1d20+6 with rolls of 17. strike roll.
Cate Robbie rolled 17 using 1d20+6 with rolls of 11.  2nd strike roll.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:46, Wed 17 Apr 2019.

After launching their missiles and ‘flipping over’ the pilots of Reindeer 17, and Oggy 12 engage their autopilot. Needing to go in a straight direction required nothing more than the three veritechs to get into formation and each individual pilot to flip a few switches in the cockpit.

With the autopilot engaged the pilots could focus on guiding their respective Angel of Death nuclear missile to target. The biggest target in each respective alien formation is of an unknown type. With a cross section of 30 by 60 meters the vessel has a  single big sensor eye with dual laser mounts on either side, and a large dorsal mounted radome.  The big ‘target’ is surrounded by ten of the alien Tri-Thruster Aerospace fighters. The Tri-Thrusters in each formation begin to scatter as the AoD’s reach their respective target.

---

In Oggy 12, Lt Robbie launches her Angel of Death, and begins to guide it toward the third enemy formation and the biggest target within. The large alien vessel apparently attempts some sort of jamming as the video feed gets fuzzy, and even tries to shoot down Cate’s AoD, then tries to evade. But none of this is successful as Cate guide her AoD into the side of the large alien vessel.

Espada 10 guides his Angel of Death towards an alien Tri-Thruster Fighter.

Oggy 12’s AoD takes out the alien AWACS/EWAR warfare platform.

Espada 10’s AoD takes out four of the accompanying Tri-Thruster fighters.

The firebirds launched from Espada 10 are evaded and apparently in the heat of the moment Oggy 12 forgot to launch her own Firebirds. The alien formation designated #3 to sixTri-Thruster fighters.

---

In Reindeer 17, Major Tikkanen launches her Angel of Death, and Lieutenant Pheri takes over manual control. Seeing that Reindeer 9’s AoD is going to beat him to the large unknown vessel within the enemy formation Lameck guides the missile toward a group of six Tri-Thrusters, that despite scattering from the larger vessel remained in a tight formation.

The large alien AWACS/EWAR warfare platform is taken out by Reindeer 9’s AoD.

The other AoD launched at this formation by Reindeer 17 takes out five of the accompanying Tri-Thruster fighters.

The Firebird launched by Reindeer 9 fails to lock onto anything. But the two Firebirds launched by Reindeer 17 manage to lock on and each takes out a Tri-Thruster fighter.

The second enemy formation is reduced to only three of the Tri-Thruster fighters.

---

OOC: Please post when you can. Your still heading towards the Alert fighters. There are no enemy missiles following you. The radio thread will have a status on the enemy formations.

The Alien AWAC/EWAR craft
http://mechajournal.com/wp-con...Aerospacecraft-2.jpg

Aksa maintained control over her craft allowing her back-seater to 'earn his keep'; occasionally looking down at the display to 'see' what the AoD was looking at.

"Well, aren't you a big boi." She muses to herself upon seeing the alien AWAC craft.

She notes with approval Phiri's quick thinking as he pulls their AoD off of their primary when it was clear Reindeer 9 had it dead to rights.

Checking the RWR display she breaths a little easier noting no retaliatory fire is pursuing them. That won't last long.

"Gunsight, Vixen, good hits on Reindeer's primary's. Splash three of three. Primary's were some type of AWAC or EWAR craft. Estimate between 35 and 40 of their escorts splashed in total. Estimate 20 to 25 remain. I see no sign of pursuit or return fire. (insert number of) AoD still in play, ToT (insert time). Enroute to Alert flight." She reports, and, to avoid stealing anyone thunders, she'll let Meved Actual report his flights results on his primary's.

To her flight. "Nicely done Reindeer Flight. Torero, Vixen, joining up in (insert time here)." She says.

She holds her hand up and gives Phiri a thumbs up. Then she waits anxiously for the outcome of Pak's (and any from Meved) AoD(s).

Lameck would have liked to have taken out the big ship himself, but he knew better than to waste a nuke. Shifting to targets of opportunity only showed the tactical and mature mind of a seasoned vet. Satisfied with the strike results he allowed himself a quiet, and reserved single fist pump of triumph.

He returned the thumbs up from his pilot with one of his own before turning his attention back to looking for the next retaliatory strike or target.

As the veritech continue vector away from the inbound there is really nothing for the pilots to do but watch the video feeds of the last few Angel of Death missiles targeting the capital ships. The missiles are soon out of range of the veritech’s own optics….

The command veritech in each squadron then pull the video data from the veritech that fired the respective missile then broadcasts it to the other veritechs. Without really saying anything or coordinating the two squadron commanders share data as well. This gives everyone four missiles to ‘observe’.

All four missile show the same thing, but from different angels. The missiles pass several formations of alien aerospace craft on a intercept towards the UES Macross.

As the alien vessels appears in the video feed the pilots can see that there are a total of five vessels. Four small ones (if 500 meters long could be called small), and one big one, that it is over two kilometers long. The small ones seem to not be launching any mecha, but the big one is still in the process of launching hundreds of alien mecha.

As the missiles get closer to the vessels a massive barrage of flack type weaponry is fired from each vessel.

Those watching Reindeer 4 missile watch it ‘dive’ towards its target. Pak manages to evade a few layers of the flack barrage being put up, but the amount of anti-missile fire is just too much and the video feed turns to static.

The same thing pretty much occurs with the other missile as well….

---

The late Firebird launched by Reindeer 4 hits an alien Tri-thruster and takes it out.

The fourteen surviving veritechs belonging to the CAP (there was 16) soon rendezvous with the 26 alert veritechs (16 from Meved squadron, and 10 from Reindeer squadron) that launched as soon as the alien vessels had been detected.

As soon as the CAP is out of the line of fire, each of the alert veritechs launch a single Firebird missile to intercept the remaining 22 incoming Tri-Thrusters. As the 26 Firebirds vector towards their targets, a second volley of 26 Firebirds is launched.

Before the missiles make their intercept the CAP veritechs form up with the alert veritechs. The forty veritechs (23 Meved, and 17 Reindeer) form an intercept line with 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) between each wing pair, a line 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) long.

Of the 26 Firebirds launched in the first volley, ten (six launched by Meved, and 4 launched by Reindeer) manage to intercept an alien Tri-Thruster fighter.

Of the 26 Firebirds launched in the second volley, ten (7 launched by Meved, and 5 launched by Reindeer) manage to intercept an alien Tri-Thruster fighter.

---

The small victory of the CAP and alert veritech being able to take out 6 alien bombers (for lack of a name for them yet) and 60 Tri-Thrusters is short lived.

The data feeds show an overwhelming force on approach to the UES Macross.

An additional 309 Tri-Thrusters, and another 41 Command Pods fitted with space boosters are on an intercept for the UES Macross. Behind those craft is an additional 192 unidentified mecha. Behind them is another 700 mecha….

The veritechs, space fighters and drones from the UES Macross Battle Group are outnumbered roughly 3 to 1.

OOC: Ok you can all post shitting your pants. All the PC’s should no longer have any Firebird missiles, as I believe you each were only carrying one firebird and one nuke.

Aksa forms her birds up and looks at her stores.
[Private to Darkside Trooper: She has two Firebirds left of the four she had, The load out was 4 fire birds on a pair of twin racks. 1 AOD, and a triple rack of Arrowheads.]

"Robbie, move to Delgado's wing. O'Neil, on mine." She calls out, re-jiggering the formation.

She looks over her displays to get some more information; distance to enemy, how fast are they closing, when will they arrive...it is then she see's the sheer amount of enemy forces arrayed against them.

She blinks back her shock as her stomach tightens. 'Paska...' she mutters. 'Grandpa...now I know how you felt on the Mannerheim Line.' She adds, forcing herself to breath.

With the sickening amount of enemy ahead, Aksa turns back to her display to get the distance to the Macross, distance to the rest of the Macross' air wing, their estimated time of arrival, and their distance to the Macross' 'Flak Barrier'.

"Vixen, Gunsight, massive enemy formation inbound. Estimate over 1200 strong. We stand ready to pull back under the cover of your Flak Barrier and link up with the rest of the Air Wing." She says, not at all liking the 30:1 odds the combined CAP flight faced, and not at all ready to Die In Place.

Lameck watches as his screen fills up with bogey blips making his eyes widen in disbelief. "Oo iai", he says to himself in Nyanja.  Oddly enough his pilot's voice on comms calms him down a bit, despite the craptacular situation they are all about to be in.  He literally felt his anus pucker up as they awaited an answer from Gunsight that would hopefully be to pull the f' back.

OOC: Please post here: link to a message in this game