Pirates... Always Pirates

[Jess]

The Saint was heading through council space currently en route for Earth. The problem arose that many wouldn't expect. In council protected space a fleet of pirate ships broke through hyper space just sectors away from her and had her on lock while she was preparing her hyperspace route. There was a warning shot that Regina happened to look up and see the shell explode just a meter away from her. She opened her com link across space broadcasting to any around her, "Bog pomoch' vam," she said first before following it up.

"By order of the council and citadel law you will stand down or be put down."

There was no reply, the ships entered the sector through the asteroid field, twelve total, largest one must of been their leader at about 800 meters, all ships had corpses on the outside of their ships strung up like decorations. Most were skeletons from how long they've been outside, there would be several fresh ones from a recent heist. The smaller frigates fired on her ship, the moment she saw their weapons heating up she was already reaching her hands out summoning the power of the data mage to control her ship which instantly increased its speed beyond the shots and maneuvered around.

The Saint charged up its plasma cannon, the weapon was normally an attachment for destroyer class ships which could tear through shields of smaller ships in seconds, the problem with it being attached to a fighter was that she had to summon the power herself and fuel each shot, if she didn't she'd have complete weapons failure and all systems would revert power equally across the board decreasing mobility and systems by half.

The weapon fired ripping into the side of a frigate tearing its shields apart, the swordfish II fighter spun avoiding several turret emplacements as it flew past the ship, typically if she was in atmosphere she'd of engaged the draft break to maneuver around quickly, but she was in space making this a lot more tricky considering the other ships firing on her. She powered down her engine for a split second and reverted the thrust down and engaged full power flipping her ship completely backwards in a matter of a millisecond.

Thankfully she was still on the offensive being a target too small and too fast to hit, several ports opened on the Saint launching guided missiles on the frigate that she had shot, each missile came within several meters before launching clusters of missiles on target shredding the side of the hull as if it was cheese. The frigate continued to move forward however.

"Broadcasting to any Citadel personnel or combat ready ships, this is an emergency, my sector coordinates are -3, 10, 3. Zhè shì yīgè jǐnjí!"

The larger ship began launching what appeared to be fighter drones, yet more targets to shoot at and get in her way. As a guardian she had no choice but to fight in order to keep this area of space toll free and protected for travelers.

[Asura]

The Orion, along with two Nirvana-class ships, were patrolling near the sector of the Saint. They had been graciously allowed to join the Citadel faction and the Shinkoku nation were quite glad that they would be able to land and have a place to call home, Asura's daughter and brother-in-law could not be gladder and currently they were in their new home dealing with the issues that would rise from suddenly having a home. However in return for that they would need to render service to the Citadel, military services, and that the Shinkoku had in spades. The one thing to their advantage was that they had centuries of military services against the Ghomas and they were all hardened soldiers.

When the Saint gave their distress signal the Kagebosh immediately went to Asura and reported what happened, "Pirates huh? Nothing that we cannot handle, tell all ships to go to the coordinates and let us see what these pirates are about," Asura said as the Kagebosh nodded and reported to all three ships to turn and go to the coordinates.

The ships phased into space, another advantage of their technological advances, and within minutes they were in the same space as the combat situation. "This is the Shinkoku nation, the Orion and two Nirvana-class ships are in your location. Commencing counter-attack," the Kagebosh reported to the Saint. Immediately the three ships activated their weapon systems as the missile pods were armed and locked onto the enemy ships. 

"Fire all missiles, scramble the Vinaya jets and have them destroy the enemy jets, protect the Saint at all cost," Asura ordered. The Vinaya jets were then scrambled from the Orion as they went towards the pirates and began harassing them, meanwhile the missiles were launched from all three ships as they flew towards their targets while the Orion and Nirvana laser banks fired on the jets to aid their own jets.

[Jess]

She had created several diversions with her Data Mage powers causing her ship to disappear on radar or reappear in several locations stopping lock on missiles from targeting her. The distractions on radar didn't help free targeting systems and the drone fighters that were fast on her tail, but she had something for them. It took a matter of seconds to prepare with several choice words and the power behind the person itself. Her ship locked down and banked hard changing thrust in a matter of seconds and heading toward the drones firing rapid blaster cannons into the crowd dispersing it to fly through, everything was going perfect on that end. She just needed to disable a couple of the larger ships, it was going to require more power... Or someone to answer her call.

Each missile fired from the Shinkoku ships would tear through shields doing moderate to heavy damage to smaller ships, the larger ones muscled through sacrificing their firing power for additional shielding the moment they saw the larger ships enter the area. The largest of the pirate ships got away easy with its laser targeting systems that allowed it to rapidly target incoming missiles and rid of them enroute. That was her opening the moment the explosions blocked her from view she banked the Saint propelling it at rapid speeds that would make her appear as if she was jumping into Phase-space, instead the lightning fast ship zipped by the larger pirate ship unleashing a massive shot from its under mounted plasma cannon ripping through several laser guided systems on the hull and disabling the top most shield generators.

Her attack would give the Shinkoku ships an opening to fire on the large pirate ship and down it. Meanwhile she focused her ship back to the underside of the large ship where the frigates were the next plasma shot fired at one of the vessels heavily damaged by the missiles and cut it straight in half causing the two parts to explode as she flew straight between the two.

"Good to see you holding your end of the bargain," she radio'd over to the Orion, the same Russian accent Asura would recognize from his escort on the citadel.

[Asura]

Asura knew that it wouldn't be an easy, quick battle. No battle was ever easy or quick. It was always long, hard and usually brutual. He knew that from his 12,000+ years as a general in the Shinkoku nation, he saw that the missiles severely crippled the smaller ships though the larger ones managed to simply slough through it, "Keep firing, I want those ships sent into Naraka," Asura ordered as the missiles were reloaded and then re-fired back to the ships before the Saint ripped through the bigger ship. "An opportunity, re-route all attack to that ship and down it immediately!" he said as the ships turned towards the crippled ship and unloaded their arsenal on it. He then heard a familiar voice as he laughed, it was the woman that met him at the Citadel when he first arrived, "Quite a surprise to see you again, I had high hopes to see you in combat Guardian," Asura commented.

[Jess]

"This is just a little stroll in the park," she replied over he com before rerouting her ship straight up unleashing a volly of cluster missiles at oncoming drone fighters, the same missiles that crippled the frigate shields decimated the small drones leaving behind fine dust where once flew brilliant metal. The larger ships hanger doors opened where it would normally launch fighters instead two platforms extended out and two rather large auto turrets came to life firing on the Orion and its two escort ships. Likewise it continued to endure the shots being directed straight at it with its hardened hull and intense shield arrays.

Several of the pirate frigates that weren't damaged too heavily broke off attempting to flank the enemy and spread out more to increase the maximum directions of firepower. The Saint broke through their lines launching several missile clusters on crippled ships destroying entire sections of hull and taking down command decks on at least four of the ships. It was no surprise that several other pirate ships jumped to the location all frigates, she expected at least one other command ship to follow.

"Poyekhali!"

She banked her ship avoiding the fire from the newly arrived frigates that were behind the enemy line and burst abruptly back in the direction of the two large ships firing on one another, her plasma cannon powered back up as she pumped raw power into it and fired directly under the large pirate ship ripping straight through its underside shields and melted a line straight down the bottom side of the ship before breaking away directly toward the Orion's bottom side and turned around the stern of the ship and positioned herself directly above it before moving forward powering up the plasma cannon again to attempt to pinpoint one of the shield generators and take it out.

[Asura]

Despite the fact that they were outnumbered the one thing they had that the pirates didn't...determination and for the Shinkoku fleet, technological advances that were suitable for space combat. Despite what the pirates may or may not think they would not be able to defeat them because Asura would be able to go out into space and decimate the ships with his mantra, it was times like these that he was glad that he was chosen as the Demi God of Wrath because it was very useful in combat. The Orion focused on the larger ships as they continued to assault and whittle down their shields as their laser banks fired on the smaller jets and taking them down, the Shinkoku jets were similarily harassing the frigates and larger ships of the pirates.

"General several enemy ships are attempting to flank us," the Kagebosh reported as Asura turned to see it.

"Order the Nirvana ships to attack them, the Orion will handle the larger ships," he ordered as the Nirvana turned to face the flanking frigates and fired their laser banks and missiles at the frigates.

Meanwhile the Orion continued to pinpoint the weakness of the larger ships and focusing on that, even though battles were not quick or easy at least they would be able to damage them significantly to down them.

[Jess]

"Tian-Ling-Ling, Di-Ling-Ling," she said to herself as she forced the Saint to burst forward and rip the plasma cannons shot straight into the shield generator of the large pirate ship, from there it was a wrap, the Orions shots cut through the top portion of the pirate ship and then the bottom shields followed pummeling the entrails of the pirate ship with raw firepower. The Saint broke off from that fight knowing it was only a matter of seconds before the pirate ships nuclear core collapsed in on itself and sent out a shockwave. Her ship launched for the right flank where she began releasing the last of the cluster missiles on board her ship into the shielding of the much larger frigates.

The large pirate ship exploded, the crippled frigates around it and anything near it that couldn't withstand the blast were caught in it causing a ripple of cores to overheat and explode alongside the large vessel leaving on the frigates. The drones ceased movement the moment the large ship was crushed by the Orions firepower. The left flank began to pull back.

"Do not let them leave," she reported over broadcast as her ship cut through a frigates shields and cut its command deck down the side venting the cabins atmosphere into space and killing the pirates on the deck.

[Asura]

The battle was finally over as the larger ship exploded sending a shockwave that took out the smaller frigates surrounding it. He grimaced at the sight of it, he never did like people dying even as evil as pirates...perhaps there had been good people in those ships that were killed? But such was life and he could only hope that in the next life they would make better decisions as the Kagebosh began to relay reports back to the ships and Shinkoku nation. However suddenly there was a cry as the Guardian told them not to let them leave as she cut through the ships as Asura looked on in shock, those frigates were retreating! They were no threat to the area or the ships, there was no need to kill them! "Why did you kill them?" he asked the Saint commander, "They were retreating! They were no longer a threat!" he asked.

[Jess]

Her ship spun around before it leveled itself out and halted movement several of the frigates on the left side were moving out of the area, "Pirates who hang the corpses of the people they kill on their ships are always a threat. Just because you took out their main ship doesn't mean they wont regroup and continue to plunder a less guarded phase-route. The bodies chained to those ships are notion enough that they will not cease to be a threat." She wasn't about to make a debate about it if he wanted to see the repercussions of the remaining ships get away then he can have it his way and find out the hard way the next time he ran into pirates on the route again.

"Letting them get away is on your hands now, you will see the damage they can sow with your own eyes," a single orb released from her cockpit and began circling the ship she looked into another orb in her hand assessing the damage to the outside of her ship, "Mary, catalog that all damage is minor to scrapes shields held well against on coming fire."

[Asura]

Asura remained his best to remain calm, although it was true that the pirates could regroup and attack a less defended area it did not mean that they would do just that. Perhaps the pirates would see the errors of their way and turn to good? Nothing was set in stone and certainly people's personalities and attitudes were not set in stone...he had seen that people, humans, could change in his immortal life. However it seemed that she would not listen to him even if he tried, he would let this slide...he could not risk the relationship between the Shinkoku and the Citadel with this one action. But inside he did not trust her...a person who killed people simply because of who they are...it reminded him too much of former Eight Guardian Generals who betrayed their Emperor and corrupted the Shinkoku nation and Gaea into their own liking. She reminded him too much of their actions, justifying it in the name of 'peace and freedom' when it was nothing more than tyranny.

"What are your next orders General?" the Kagebosh asked as Asura took a deep breath and exhaled.

"We have done what we came here to do, however let us see if the Saint requires any further assistance," Asura said deciding to see if there was anything else they needed. Most likely not since they were upset with Asura letting the pirates get away, but he had to see and hear it.

[Jess]

"Id code 113-RCO-2352324, direct line to Council member Short, detail message Guardian 113. Phase-route A7 has pirate activity dispatch patrols, took out a pirate capital ship with the aid of the Orion and a couple of their ships, other ships got away."

She closed the line to the council, "Well gentlemen I have some work to get to on Earth, it was a pleasure to see you in action. Proshchayte." She turned the Saint away from the debris field and charged up the Phase-drive, with the Saint's above average drive it would only take a days time to arrive at Earth, it gave her plenty of time to file a report on the pirates and catch up on a couple episodes of her favorite show, Bounty n Bounties.

[Asura]

Asura sighed as the Saint left. Another battle was over and it seemed that all things were alright in the galaxy, perhaps it is time to go home, "Kagebosh let's go home to the main fleet," he said as the operator nodded as the other three ships left the area. However Asura wondered if the Citadel was always this harsh towards the pirates or was it just her...if all of them were like this, not a sense of true justice within them...he feared that he might have made a fatal mistake. However he had to stay positive, he had to trust the Citadel and see how it goes along.

[END]