MEMORY RECORD - Fox 4. Fox 5 for Effect

Terran tech is pretty insane...

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The following record has been altered for mortal consumption.

BEGIN MEMORY EXCERPT

Cookie was it's callsign. It was always weird being a fighter, to have two minds melded. It was composed of Specialist Samantha Richards and M-Type III "Chippy".

In the netspace, the order rang out.

"Callsigns Cookie, Raptor, Lightning, Bluejay, and Doggy, rail launch in t-minus 5 seconds."

Samantha's body took a deep breath, and Chippy's systems double-checked diagnostics, and q-comms. Cookie prepared the EPIS. It rotated it's core and held the umbra at bay.

"Three. Two. One. Launch."

Samantha's body rocketed back, the statigel and control harness compensating for the inertial shock. Cookie accelerated from zero to 3000 kilometers per hour in 2.326 seconds.

The void. The final frontier. The Terran Republic was threatened. Cookie would take the Xol down a notch.

"Callsign Cookie, Incoming Assignment: approach highlighted waypoint, engage when ready."

Cookie blazed it's main thrusters. Oxygen and Anti-hydrogen touched, and exhilaration ran through it's mind as annihilation turned to pure speed. The statigel crystallized and harness locked, freezing Samantha in place. Brutal forces battered Cookie, and were turned away.

Heatsink. CLUNK.

A glowing composite puck was shot into space; the small radiators near the rear of it's boosters weren't able to keep up with the heat generation from an acceleration burn like that.

Cruising velocity. The target was a small outpost in the system's asteroid belt, approaching 300 kilometers away.

Cloak. All non-essential systems were slowed or turned off, and the radiators were retracted. Thrusters off.

Patience was a virtue.

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Contact in range. Permission to engage?

"Callsign Cookie, permission granted. Fire at will."

Cookie readied the twin Einsteins. The NAGS Hybrid Detection Missiles were armed.

The outpost was a strange shape: almost buglike, it's armor chitinous. Sensors sweeped the area, but glossed over Cookie. Mathematics and material science made most radar useless at vaccum distances. Fools.

Fox 4, Fox 4, Fox 4. Three missiles were spat out of the ordinance hatch.

The main annihilation thruster rotated around and clicked. For a quarter second, matter and antimatter blazed like a second star. Cookie's direction changed, it's ion thrusters blazing, making thousands of microadjustments in the seconds that passed. The three missiles finally woke up, and their annihilation thrusters shone.

The outpost spun it's directed energy ordinance where Cookie was... half a second ago. Decoy. Jamming. Heatsink. CLUNK. The two small orbs and white-hot puck of composite ceramic shot off in different directions, and the directed energy spun wildly, missing. One of them even targeted the heatsink. How stupid were these poor xenos?

Splash 1. One of the missiles struck what looked like some kind of turret arm, nuclear fire melting it to slag and stripping some kind of coating off the rest of the outpost. Hell yeah. Splash 2. The second missile struck the main hull. The surface liquefied, and the rest began to glow with ominous heat.

Contact, three bandits. Enemy drones or fighters. Contact, one escape vehicle. Firing tracking spike.

The three fighters approached Cookie as it's ordinance hatch opened, spitting out a small missile. It sped towards escape vessel. It would latch on and track it's location for more forces to capture it later. Tracker.

Directed energy glanced over Cookie, but it's umbra was strong. It's cowl simply ablated as the lasers tried to torch their target. Some of the heat got through, though. Heatsink. CLUNK.

Splash 3. The third missile struck the second of three turret arms on the outpost.

Rapier. Engaging melee maneuvers. For a split second, Cookie's main thrusters burned, sending it toward the nearest bandit. Samantha's body grinned, and a large sword of umbra shot out of Cookie's cowl formation. The enemy fighter split in two, before exploding. Splash 4.

Fox 5. The Einsteins rotated independently, pointing at the two remaining bandits.

SHWING. SHWING.

The bandits spun to avoid the NAGS guided shells, but failed. Splash 5. Splash 6.

Cookie turned their attention back towards the outpost. The massive heatsink arrays were bent and cracked, glowing orange.

The Einsteins rotated towards the crippled outpost.

The hangar was still intact. That would not do.

Fox 4. Fox 5 for effect.

SHWING-SHWING-SHWING-SHWING-

END MEMORY EXCERPT