(Snow)

"Aaaaagh!" A shrike pilot's voice is cut short as his fighter is sliced by a UEC energy lance and explodes. Snowman banks his Avenger hard to port, letting a swarm of UEC missiles slam into one of the Cruisers he is strafing.

"Pull up, pull up!" Razgriz Two tells Razgriz Three as she is clipped by AA fire from the surface of the cruiser.

"Something's wroAAAAGH!" In a violent explosion the fighter slams into the hull of the UEC cruiser. All around the cruiser, every remaining fighter in the landing force is swarming around the two cruisers like wasps trying to kill two bears.

"Fighters inbound at point three five." Wardog leader reports.

"Two-two you've got one on your tail." Snow says calmly banking his fighter to get onto his wingman's six o' clock.

"I can't shake'em." Blaze barks into the channel while spewing chaff and flares and jinking her fighter in every direction to try and shake the Pegasus fighter.

"Break break engage!" Viper lead orders referring to the fighters now engaging the shrikes.

"Razgriz Two is down." Snow reports as two missiles strike home in the thrusters of Blazes Avenger. In retaliation and almost as a sick joke his computer reports a good lock and his targeting reticle blinks green. He pulls the trigger on the stick and he sends a burst of grenades into the pegasus's fuselage blowing it to scrap.

"Snowman Fox two. Splash four."

===========================================================

(Fallon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSGva04yOic

Ninth platoon is pinned down by a warehouse and my squad is firing from a pile of rubble by me feet we are exchanging fire with a Dragon and its squad of conventional infantry. Up ahead, black smoke billows from the open entrance vestibule of what serves as Admin building for shield generator. From inside I can hear the base alarm blaring, inside the entrance vestibule things are a mess.

The HEAT warhead from Banshee two fives mars launchers have blown apart the doors and wrecked the hallway beyond. Burning debris is littering the floor fifty meters into the building. I need to get my squad inside, but that Dragon is keeping us from moving up. I can't use my 120mm because of the relative close range so I might shwak my own squad. Then I get an idea as the Dragon disappears behind the wall of the warehouse it is using as cover.

"SD, what's the thickness of this warehouse?" I ask

"Zero point two three meters, Pilot." My Atlas says.

Taking this info I see a flash on my tight beam and see Snafu has highlighted the Scaly bastard. Flashing my thanks to the Hell Diver I take a step back and level my Rifle loading a Buckshot round into the 120.

"Squad cover." I say and Miiora, Forbes, Trombley, and Garza lie prone in the rubble behind large pieces of concrete.

With that, I fire the canister shell into the corner of the warehouse while SD fires on the UEC squad with the Autocannon. There is a geyser of blood and a raur as the Dragon comes around the corner clutching at a massive hole in its sternum. It rears its head back to breath fire when a white and black ATLAS slams into its side. Orca brings his Icarus mount around as a massive blade unfolds from the arm and slits the Dragon’s throat. He then throws it to the ground before bringing his atlas's ped down on the dragon's head.

"Fick, secure this building." He orders before running off.

"Fallon stay here and secure the entrance. Everyone else let’s move!" Fick yells over the din of the.

"Got it, sir." I reply calmly. I see Miiora glance up at my Atlas for a second before following the rest of the platoon inside.

"Be careful in there Miiora. ok." I send to her on a private channel

"You as well Avery Fallon." she replied before disappearing.

=======================================================================

(Charlotte)

"Ice queen four coming up on your right." An NAC fighter pilot tells Charlotte forcing her to break off her escort.

"Merde, I see them. Reine de glace a commander, demander la permission de alt?" she ask as she rolls her Gungnir to go along the hull the UAF fighter frigate she is escorting.

"Ice queen, autorisation accordee." The flight officer responds.

In response she pulls a complete one hundred and eighty-degree flip while simultaneously pulling a lever halfway. The blonds fighter's dual engines unclamp and swing forward to allow her to keep accelerating. Multiple targeting reticle turn green and she presses the firing stud on the flightstick with her thumb, and twelve missiles corkscrew from their launch racks.

The four UEC fighters instantly break off to try to avoid the missiles deploying flares but the missiles stay true destroying three of the four, while the fourth uses the bloom of a destroyed fighter and comes right at her. She tracks the fighter with her autocannon before blowing it to scrap with a shot to the cockpit.

"Nice shot Ice queen." the NAC pilot says.

"Je vous remercie." she responds before pushing the lever back into its original position while flipping her fighter back onto its original heading.

The African ship pulls a violent barrel roll to avoid a shot from an isolated UEC super destroyer. In response to having its main weapon dodged, it launches a wave of missiles. First nine then sixteen, then twenty-six red missile icons appear on the tactical plot. The UAF ship responds with opening its bays and the rotating rack stops on a two blue missiles EMR or Electro-Magnetic Resonance missiles.

When the missiles launch they burst ahead of the ship and after two seconds the first one detonates ahead of the incoming missiles and they all shutdown. The second missile strikes the super destroyers shields and something strange happens. The entire shield bubble around the ship seemingly starts to crackle with electricity before they flares and disappears. Acting on its advantage it launches two nukes which slam into the destroyer's hangar bays and destroy it.

"YEAH THAT GOT'EM!" Her temporary NAC wingman says.

==============================================================

(Miiora)

As I cross the threshold of the entrance vestibule gunfire erupts in the hallway ahead.

"Contact left." Sergeant Humphrey sends from the front of the group. Instantly everyone's TAClink screens update with red icons that show the locations of the spotted hostiles. Through Humphrys camera feed, I see the outlines of UEC troopers down the hallway firing at second squad with shotguns and PK assault rifles. First squad returns fire and the volume from our guns is considerably higher than that from the defenders. The hallway up ahead reverberates with the reports from a dozen weapons on automatic fire.

"We’re in." Forbes sends to LT Fick.

"Making our way to the control center."

"Second platoon is in position" LT Wolf sends

"Do not take your time in there we're gonna have those destroyers above our heads before you know it."

"First squad left hallway!" Gunny Parkins shouts.

"Second squad right hallway, third and fourth follow me upstairs." Then Fick turns on his suits PA system and barks out an announcement that echoes through the entire building.

"Commonwealth Defence Corps!" He bellows.

"Drop your weapons and raise your hands. All armed personnel will be shot on sight. There will not be another warning."

To my left there's movement in one of the rooms then a targeting laser streaks across my helmet visor and I drop and roll to my left just in time to avoid a burst of rifle fire. I aim my PDW at the doorway from my awkward position on the ground and fire a long burst into the room beyond. In front of me, Trombley comes back around the corner of the hallway and brings his own weapon to bear.

He sends three short bursts into the room, then thinks better of it and pulls a grenade off his harness. He activates it with his thumb then chucks it around the corner of the doorway with an almost casual motion. The grenade explodes with an earsplitting boom sending debris and dust out into the hallway toward us.

"You ok Miiora?" Trombley asks and I give him a "thumbs up" I think its called.. then I pick myself up off the ground and point my weapon at the doorway again.

"On three." he says.

"You take right I take left." He gives me a thumbs up of his own and takes up position on the right of the door.

"One, two three." We both enter the room simultaneously weapons raised and ready.

I turn to the right and cover that side of the room and Trombley moves to the right. The room is an office shelves of reference material, a desk, framed pictures, slave collars, and certificates askew on the walls or shattered on the floor. There's a weapons rack on the far wall and I know even before we see the dead bodies that this is a security office.

"Clear." Trombley says.

The three colonial Constables a minotaur, a zebra, and a human are lying in pools of blood in the corner of the room where they had taken up firing positions behind an overturned desk. The human has a rifle next to him an original M-66 the others are clutching a shotgun and a pistol. We take the guns, clear them, and throw them to the other side of the room. I look around the room before we leave it, at the personal and professional artifacts strewn all over the place by the explosion and the gunfire.

I have a brief flashback to my collaborator of a cousin's office on Marelok which was laid out almost exactly like this one. My claw bumps into something and I see it is Garza who had been caught in the crossfire from the room. I kneel down and do not feel a pulse, it is so strange and I don't know how to feel he has been with us since we landed.We in Avery Fallon’s group have grown to like him, but now everything he was and ever will be is gone in a split second.

“Garza’s down.” Trombley reports

First and second squads advance down the hallways on the ground floor of the admin key, clearing rooms one at a time. Upstares automatic weapons fire and grenade explosions punctuate the progress of third and fourth squads. They may have a garrison platoon in this building but they are dispersed and not prepared for the fight we brought right into their nest. The marines reinforced platoon pushes their advantage without mercy.

===============================================================

(UEC Element of Magic)

"Captain the main weapon is ready."

"Bring us about." Polar says grasping his rubber ball. As the Princesses, and elements are either standing or seated and strapped in behind him.

"In position sir."

"Fire."

The amplified magical bold fires from the ship's lens and streaks into space where it completely vaporizes an African ship before slamming into the Massive human ship with the plasma weapon doing negligible damage. He is very grateful for having three alicorns on the ship helping to amplify the ships already better than acreage shields as two shots from the massive ships glance off of the shields.

"This is Wonderbolt leader, requesting target." The new leader of the Wonderbolts Soarin says as his squadron launch from the hanger bay. Rainbow dash steps forward observing the fighter battle and singles out a particularly good pilot.

"Enemy ace here."

"Thanks Rainbow."

"Dame Rarity, the final preparations are complete for phase two."

"Excellent. Captain execute phase two. Come along girls." Rarity says, the elements step out of the room. And in space the four closest super destroyers close to overlap shields with the Element of Magic.

=======================================================

(Charlotte)

Charlotte banks her fighter around a piece of debris destroying another UEC fighter when a flicker of light catches her eye. She jinks her fighter around a piece of hull plating the size of a small building and half pulling the alt switch as she watches a squadron of six blue and gold UEC fighters sail passed silently, before they bank around and come at her firing missiles and cannons.

"Merde." she says and is pushed back into the seat as she pushes the lever back up and flips around before goosing the engines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2MqGAXeUf4

The blond glances at the rear camera and sees the UEC fighters follow her and the missile lock alert begins to blare. She gooses the engines kicking the afterburner and flies into a chunk of a hulk. The UEC squadron follow her into the remnants of the UEC destroyer. The leader and its two wingmen fire their guns at Charlotte who jinks her fighter around swerving between support beams or something. She turns a knob on the control panel and a missile pod swivels on its mount as her blue eyes flicker over the targeting screen for a half second as green boxes and red diamonds overlap.

Depressing the knob six missiles leap from the pod and corkscrew towards the targets. The lead three fighters instantly deploy flares and chaff making the missiles tracking them go dumb and slam into the walls. However, the three other fighters were too slow and the trident missiles explode mere meters from their cockpits sending three tungsten penetrators each into their cockpits and fuselage destroying them. She sees light and pulls off to burst from the chunk of ship, into the inky black and back into the battle.

"Blocage de missiles, Blocage de missiles, Blocage de missiles..." her computer says. Jinking into a port side drift quickly pulls the alt lever all the way down while deploying chaff and flares before pulling the accelerator down.

====================================================

(Wonderbolts)

To the three remaining wonderbolts they watch as the human ace's fighter morphs. What look like arms ending in clawed fingers unfold from the fighter's forward weapons racks. The thrusters fold out into legs. All in all, it has morphed into an odd mixture of a fighter and one of those armored giants the humans are using on the planet. The fighter then does a kind of cartwheel before pointing its right arm trailing missiles before unleashing bursts of cannon fire destroying them.

The Wonderbolts attempt to pull off however a small swarm of missiles follow them. Fleetfoot is the first to be caught and destroyed followed by Mist Fly closely their after. The Wonderbolts who hadn't followed the fighter stream around and are met with another swarm of missiles from above by a squadron of NAC fighters. Soarin attempts to disengage when the ice blue fighter fires its cannon into his cockpit killing him and destroying his fighter.

==================================================

(Charlotte)

With the battle going well Charlotte lifts the alt level and goes back to fighter configuration from Valkyrie mode. A flash of light gained her attention as she reforms with the African fighter frigate who has just launched half of its stockpile of EMR's at the planetary shield. The flight of NAC shrikes flying with her form up with the UAF ship before with a blinding flash and microseconds before the missiles strike the shield, three blinding flashes of light appear on its surface. The impacts from Siegebreaker cannons are so bright the system has three new stars temporarily, when the EMR missiles slammed into it. With this, the four remaining UAF frigates that are heading towards the planet goose their engines and make for the planet at full burn.

A flurry of color appears in space and she watches as what appears to be a rainbow burst from the lens of the lead UEC ship. The shot streaks through space destroying anything in its way before it slams into the Invincible amidships. There's a blinding flash of multicolored light like a rainbow star and when the light dies down it reveals that the two-mile long ship has been blown in half. Arcs of lightning arc between the two halves of the ship before the two halves explode. What were once the Invincibles escorts break formation to avoid any debris. This is the last thing she sees before facing backward more determined than ever to rescue her friend.

========================================================

“Begin preparations for the fourth phase.”