45. Crossfire: Astral VS Jinko

[Enemies detected. Total of 27 Tsubame Class and 3 Unknown fighter corvettes have entered the battlefield. Chance of victory, minimal. Advise evacuation of the battlefield.] Abby sent a notification to Abyssal.

‘You don’t have to tell me that! I’m already flooring it!’ Abyssal internally screamed at Abby as she viewed the battle between Astral and the Dawning Star battlecruiser. She was currently moving at her top speed of 415Km/s away from the battlefield while keeping an eye on the large battlecruiser that came out of nowhere. A certain fighter corvette attempting to engage with the battlecruiser caught her eye as she did so.

It was the Crimson Red Fighter.

‘Is she planning to fight all of that?? Why isn’t she running away? That’s like a whole air force of fighters man!’ Thought Abyssal as she witnessed Astral diving right into the middle of the hostile fleet.

As Abyssal steadily fled the battlefield, she witnessed the lone Astral going up against what can be called a small fleet on its own— a large battlecruiser with an escort of tens of fighters. Each one of the fighters was just swarming around the proximity, each one of them launching missiles towards the dodging Astral. Tens, if not hundreds of missiles, were launched to Astral in a surround. If Abyssal was the target, there were no doubts that she would be obliterated in no time. There was no escape from such a situation.

For Abyssal, at least.

Astral, however, seemed to have a trick up her sleeves in the form of a very powerful point defence system. Just like her fight with Abyssal, small lasers came out of the slits of her phoenix-like looking ship which destroyed most of the missiles coming at her. The rest of the missiles she just dodged with that weird corkscrew pattern she did before as she steadily aimed at one or two of the Tsubame class fighters. She shot several large red laser beams at them which promptly disable two of the fighters, making the total fighter count the Dawning Star ship has to 28.

“Is that all you got, little girl? Still a little bit too weak, aren't you?” Astral’s mocking voice came out of the communicator as soon as she did that.

“‘I shall not be called by the name ‘little girl’’. You shall know me by the name Jinko. Plus, the match has only begun, you will find yourself being the one who is outdone,” the captain of the Dawning Star battlecruiser, Jinko, said as she finally fired her nine large main guns towards Astral; three at a time, with a one-second interval between shots.

“Whatever you say, little girl,” Astral said as she promptly dodged every single one of the big guns. Like a fly, she flew in such a random pattern that it was hard to get a lock on her.

After she dodged the big guns, her ship glowed slightly and Abyssal could see that now four of her twelve fins were now shooting out bright red particles. She then charged up another laser beam— this time larger than any other beams that she had ever seen and shot it at one of the three main gun mounts of the battlecruiser. Unfortunately for Astral, the shot was blocked by a translucent membrane that surrounded the main guns— probably the shields of the battlecruiser. The shields were different from the shields in Astral's ship— different in that it was not a bubble but rather, like a second skin.

“Tsk,” Astral clicked her tongue before changing the direction of her ship. With that, the laser beam followed and promptly disabled a few more Tsubame class ships. Astral than orbit around the battlecruiser, trying to find a weak spot on the battleship that she could exploit. She did small poking shots to test the power of Jinko's shields.

Jinko, in response to this, activated all of her point defence turrets on the battlecruiser. The skies, or rather, space around the battlecruiser lit up with shots and explosions as the system tried to swat down the fly that is named Astral.

“Uwah… she’s actually going toe to toe with that monster of a ship. That ship really is a cheat, huh…” Abyssal muttered as she witnessed the grand battle that was taking place in front of her eyes. She was a little bit shocked that Astral hasn't been blown up by now, what less actually fighting the ship.

Shrugging the feeling of astonishment, Abyssal went to ask if Meica was fine amidst the whole situation. Though Abyssal’s eyes never moved away from the battlefield. “Meica, are you doing alright?”

However, there was no immediate response from her. Curious, Abyssal looked around her to check on Meica's condition. What entered Abyssal's sight was a nekomi staring at the displays with her mouth slacked, her eyes never moving away from the screen.

"So cool…" she muttered. Her focus was on the crimson red fighter that was weaving through the dozens of fighters, taking them out one by one.

‘Isn’t she too excited? Jeez, a moment ago she was so scared…” Abyssal let out a sigh.

“Can’t be helped, I guess. The battle is like watching a battle scene from a sci-fi movie. I would be excited myself if I wasn’t in the middle of all of this and risked getting shot by the two,’ Abyssal thought to herself as she kept on moving away from the battlefield. Hopefully, she would be able to get away from the both of them and rendezvous with Kuon at the hideout.

Abyssal looked behind her one more time, just to make sure that no one or thing was chasing after her. Abyssal would not catch a break that day as unfortunately, she saw three Tsubame class ships and one unknown corvette trailing right behind her. They were facing Astral and were shooting missiles at her, but they were undeniably chasing after Abyssal— she could tell by their movement patterns.

Moments right after, the images of all four ships rose up in Abyssal's mind. Abby soon sent out a notification.

[Pursuers detected. Advise cautionary measures.]

'Ya, I know… what's their speed? Are they gaining on us?' Abyssal asked. Last she checked the Tsubame class has the same top speed as her, they would not be able to catch up to Abyssal as long as she kept flying at her top speed. However, she didn’t know about the other ship, the unidentified corvette chasing after her.

[Tsubame class ships currently travelling at the same speed as the Fierca Mk.2. However, the unknown fighter corvette is gaining on us. Estimate duration before intercept range: 3 minutes.]

'Godammit arghhh! Why is she after me? What did I ever do to that Living Core?!' Abyssal thought to herself as she prepared her missile tubes to launch some missiles at the chasing ships.

*Tap *Tap *Tap

"Abyssal! Abyssal! Laser incoming, laser incoming nyaa!" Meica's panicked voice interrupted Abyssal. She tapped Abyssal with one of her hands in a rapid motion, while the other hand pointed to the screen.

"What… is… it…" Abyssal replied as she tried to see what was going on.

Her vision went to the screen and what she saw was the crimson red fighter shooting out a continuous stream of laser. The beam went all over the place as Astral turned and manoeuvred across the battlefield. Jinko, her battlecruiser and her fighters all moved in such a way to dodge this attack. Though it proved to be futile as Jinko's fighters, despite being agile, were not able to dodge Astral's superior turn rate and accuracy.

"Wait…" Abyssal mumbled softly.

The beam that Astral shot pierced through the ships and fighter and travelled quite the distance before dissipating. As Astral turned, so did the beam. This meant that Abyssal was within the collateral range of this weapon. If Astral were to turn in such a way that Abyssal was to be in her line of sight, the Abyssal would be obliterated out of existence.

And that's exactly what was happening. Astral turned around and the beam of light swung in such a way that Abyssal was in its path.

"Wait wait wait!" Abyssal screamed as a certain line of impending doom streaks moved across the battlefield. Abyssal tried to dodge it by activating her directional thrusters, but that turned out to be unnecessary as the laser zoomed past Abyssal, missing her.

Well, it wasn't that it missed Abyssal or that it wasn't close to hitting her, but rather, it was Astral who turned her ship in such a way that it will not hit Abyssal. Instead, the beam then arced and turned before hitting one of the three Tsubame class ships that were chasing after Abyssal, disabling it. The total count of functional Tsubame class ships on the battlefield was now eighteen.

Abyssal could feel her imaginary heart beating very hard after that shot. It was a given, of course, seeing that she just narrowly avoided death.

"Oi! Watch where you are aiming that thing! That almost hit me!" Abyssal yelled into the communicator, speaking into the open channel.

"Shut up! I didn't hit you didn't I?" Astral screamed back.

"You better not, a small score must I settle between the pilot of that ship and her civilian escort," Jinko said as well.

'Eh?’ Abyssal let out a small gasp.

"I don't give a damn what you want! I ain't letting you off easy for that sneak attack on me!" Roared Astral as she spun around and took out more Tsubame classes. Explosions after explosions could be seen as Astral decimated entire squadrons worth of ships with little to no difficulty.

"..." An empty response came from Jinko.

'Uwaahhh, things are heating up over there, huh?'

"Abyssal! Abyssal! Missile! Missile!" Meica yelled again, tapping Abyssal's drone-like a maniac while pointing at the screen.

'What is it this time?!' Abyssal yelled internally before looking at her displays. One of the unknown ship class has launched some sort of missile towards Abyssal. It was a big one that seemed to be flying straight towards her. As it came closer, the missile broke apart and from the scraps of the destroyed missile came smaller even faster missiles speeding towards Abyssal.

'Great.'

Abyssal immediately went over to deploy her chaffs before bracing herself for impact just in case any missiles were to get past her missile defences. However, just right before she was about to do that, Astral came out of nowhere and destroyed every single missile, before also shooting down the unidentified ship with a large beam of light, splitting the ship into two pieces.

Through the communicator, one could hear Jinko's annoyed grunt. Abyssal felt relieved at having the missiles intercepted. Though she was rather surprised by the fact that Astral came in to assist her in the first place. Astral has no real reason to help her, after all. That’s not to mention that she was already engaged against Jinko.

'Is she… helping me out? Why?' Abyssal asked herself.

No answer could be found before Jinko sent out another voice-com. "Quarrel with you I have none, little red chicken. I only want that ship. Give her to me and we let bygones be bygones."

"Hoooh. What's so important about the blue swallow? Why do you want her so much?" Astral asked.

"..."

"No answer? She really must be important, huh. That's surprising. Rumours of the relics are spreading around and the largest ship on the sector is more interested in a small fry. Interesting. Mind filling me in?"

"...that's none of your business."

"I see. Well then, you can F right out of here, cause you ain't getting her," Astral replied before shooting out, for the first time, missiles out of her ship— swarms of them.

The missiles were different from the missiles that Jinko uses. They were much much faster and left behind a red trail of light behind them. The missiles tracked the fighters in the area and homed in on them. The fighters would try to avoid it by either dodging or deploying chaffs but nothing seemed to deter the missile from hitting their targets. Like fireworks, the battlefield lit up with explosions and the tens of fighters that Jinko deployed were blown to bits. Most of the fighters were destroyed, including the ones chasing after Abyssal.

The few remaining that survived were the ones near Jinko's main ship, the battlecruiser, protected under a blanket of anti-missile defences.

[Evacuation of combat zone in T-minus 7 seconds.]

Abby sent out a notification amidst all the explosions. True enough, Abyssal saw that Jinko and her small fleet were almost out of radar range. In a short few seconds, Abyssal would probably escape from her and the battlefield in general. Astral too, turned around to engage the battleship, leaving Abyssal alone.

"You owe me two now, kid. Get the hell out of here. I don't want to see you around here again, you hear me. The next time we do, you aren’t getting out with just a few scratches," said Astral.

"Ah, yes ma'am!" Abyssal replied.

"..." Jinko kept quiet at the exchange.

"Why so quiet, huh? Not so tough now without all your escort fighters, eh? Or are you salty that you can’t get to your goal? Didn’t think you’d be beaten by a small ship now, did you?" Astral taunted Jinko, feeling great about herself who just took on a battlecruiser and tens of escorts.

"... Let me ask one more time. Will you not let me pass?" Jinko asked. One would not miss the annoyance in her voice.

"Nope. You're going to have to go through me to get to her."

"Very well. Release limiters."

Just as Jinko said that, her ship glowed eerie pink and her thrusters flared bright yellow. It was so bright that Abyssal likened it to a small star. The battlecruiser then moved forward and sped up. All of a sudden, it was now gaining on Abyssal and was getting even faster by the second. From the battlecruiser, came out tens of more fighter ships. This time all of them were classes unknown to Abyssal. They looked much nastier with modern-looking guns and ‘stingers’ and were somehow messing up Abyssal's radar. They appeared to be blinking in and out of the scanner. Even the ships themselves were hard to view with her camera system, seemingly blending in with the background like some sort of chameleon.

Luckily for Abyssal, Jinko wasn't aiming for her. Instead, Jinko aimed for the crimson red fighter, probably wanting to permanently get rid of her. The battlecruiser's cannon changed form and each barrel split itself into three smaller barrels. It then charged up and like a semi-automatic rifle, started to rapidly shell Astral's small frame— at a rate of about 27 shells per second.

‘Woah woah woah! What kind of guns are those? What the hell?!’ Abyssal thought to herself, shivering at the thought of having to dodge those if the battlecruiser was aiming at her.

Although, unlike Abyssal, Astral didn't seem one little bit distraught. She dodged the shells with all too familiar corkscrew patterns of hers and began engaging the fleets, disabling the new fighters that were launched from Jinko's battlecruiser. Abyssal could notice that now, six of the fins, instead of four, on Astral's ship let out bright red particles and that she was now much faster than before.

They fought and fought and soon enough, Abyssal was outside the combat zone. She managed to successfully escape the two monsters and made it out alive. From her perspective, all she could see now were the sight of explosions and tiny ships the size of ants swarming around each other.

She let out an imaginary sigh of relief before making her way to the hideout. She needed to get Kuon and warp the hell out of there. Something tells her that she was not out of danger just yet.