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With the battleship distracted by the frigates, Wren was able to analyse the ship properly. The Arrow, as a fast interceptor type fighter, didn't possess the heavier armour and shields it would need to take on a capital-ship, nor were its weapons designed to penetrate the shields and armour of such vessels, however there are certain areas of such large ships that have chinks in the defenses; certain sensor clusters unprotected by armour could be destroyed or the weakpoints and holes in the ship's rear shield caused by the intense radiation from the engine backwash might allow a small craft to damage the engines.

Hoping to maximise the damage she could do, Wren accelerated towards the battleship from behind, her fighter agilely jinking to and fro, twisting and rolling to avoid the incoming fire from the backward-facing pont-defense turrets. The timing was delicate; she'd have to open fire at exactly the right time so that she could use the engines' radiation to shield herself briefly from the sensors and targetting computers of the turrets; too early and she'd be wide open, too late and the radiation would overwhelm her shields and she'd get cooked.

Closer... closer... three... two... one...

Now!

The slugs shot from her nose-mounted coilgun, a few seconds later they impacted the main engine pod of the battleship, the radiation-weakened shields doing little to stop the small high-speed solid projectiles. The slugs were small, but the engines weren't armoured enough to absorb the kinetic energy; pipes, wires and chambers ruptured, crumpled and snapped.

A surge of radiation blasted backward from the damaged segment of engine, but Wren was already twisting away, her shields boosted to their maximum and sh only caught the edge of the cloud. An alarm rang through the cockpit and a light flashed red. The pilot barely spared a glance for the radiation alarm; the shields were drained, but they held. She altered her course so she kept out of the fighting for a few seconds to let her shields recharge as she prepared for another pass, this time towards a sensor cluster.

Cheering went up in the cockpit. Tyron just smiled.
"She'll be an asset sir.
"That she will," he replied.
"Main gun ready sir." Lara said.
"Understood. Jenkins pull squadrons 5 to 9 back and launch 10 to 14. Pull the frigates attacking the second ship and set them as support on the ship Wren is assaulting."
"Aye sir, pulling back the ships!"
Tyron looked at the dashboard before him and aimed the laser. "Status on those ships?"
"Extracted, sur. Firing path is clear." Jenkins grinned. "I love me some good fireworks!"
"Very well." Tyron put on speakers so everyone in the fleet could hear. Launching main gun. Stay clear of the second cruiser. In five... Four... Three... Two... One..." with a push of the button, the main cannon emitted a broad laser which crossed the space in between the two ships and seared right through the center of the pirate cruiser. There were several explosions which were quickly smothered by space's natural vacuüm before the ship cracked in two pieces and just floated aroun uselessly.

Wren smiled as her sensors detected the destruction of the cruiser; one ship less to worry about. Her attention switched back to the vessel she was attacking. The engines were still leaking radiation into space, but the damage wasn't too severe; would be slower, but it could still move, but Wren wasn't concerned about that, her next target was a ventral sensor cluster.

Wren knew that if they destroyed enough of the sensor arrays the ship would be helpless; no telemery for weapons, no navigation data, no data for any smart defence sysems they had emplaced. Still, they were relatively small targets and most would be protected by shields and point-defence turrets.

Wren's fighter had flown away from the pirate ship on a curving course that would keep out of the line of fire from its turrets, she soon turned back towards the cruiser, again pushing her ship to its limits to avoid the incoming fire from it, soon one of the forward ventral sensor clusters came within range and she opened fire, two point-defence turrets were turned to wreckage, she fired again before her fighter sped over the cluster. The rounds struck the delicate equipment, destroying it.

Tyron saw what she was doing. "All fighter squads, engage enemy fighters. Frigate's focus on the turrets and shield generators. We need to take them down!"
"Confirmed, sir."
"Confirmed."
Tyron put the comms system back down and watched the hologram for any developments. Everything went smoothly so far. Almost too smoothly. People on the bridge were allready starting to celebrate, but Tyron wasn't like that. They still hadn't won.

Wren had continued her attacks on the ship, managing to destroy two more sensor clusters before the ship's crews and automated turret systems caught on to how dangerous she was, on her third pass against the ship one of the point-defence turrets had clipped her wing and forced her to break off.

"Damn it." She hissed as her ship lit up with warning lights. The damage wasn't severe, but it was clear that if she tried another attack run she might get shot out of the sky, still, Wren wasn't one for giving up and she quickly set her sensors to detect the nearest remaining pirate fighter group. She'd thin the rest of the herd whilst the frigates took down the shields and turrets of the cruiser.

Her ship shot towards the closest group of fighters, already engaged by fighters from Tyron's fleet and she dived in, guns blazing.

At that point, something in the wreckage of the first cruiser lit up. Tyron looked closely at the hologram. "Lara, analize."
"Allready done sir. It's the power core. Our main weapon must've scratched the edge, otherwise this would've happened sooner."
Tyron immediately grabbed his comms unit. "Priority message to all fighters and frigates, return to the Confidence! Do not board. I repeat, return but do not board!" He put the system down again with a sigh. If that core went off too soon, half the frigates and all of the fighters would be vaporized.

On hearing Tyron's urgent orders over her inter-ship comm, Wren glanced at her sensor display and uttered a profanity under her breath. The power core of the destroyed pirate cruiser was exposed... one stray bullet and they'd be vapour. Wren finished off the pirate fighter she'd been engaging and quickly turned her ship towards the Confidence and gunned the throttle. If worst came to worst she'd use the cruiser to shield herself from the blast. She wasn't sure how far the blast radius would extend, but she'd much rather have the heavily shielded and armoured battlecruiser between her and it.

Tyron waited until all of the ships were back at the cruisers.
"Urgent message to the shield. Recommending all shields to be boosted to 100%"
"Shield confirms. All shields at 100%." the reply came.
The shields were now boosted to such a level that a regular fighter would barely make it through without his ship exploding. If this didn't stop the blast - if it reached them - they'd have to activate the jump gate and go to the next system. Tyron could order this now, but this would mean the shield had no more power to get them back in the dager zone of the blast, leaving them more vulnerable to any possible remaining fighters should they regroup. This wasn't very likely, the few active ships included the pirate mothership were turning to flee the scene themselves.

The ship blew. A huge blast spread throughout the area, banging onto the shields deployed by Tyron's second ship. A shockwave managed to make it through the shields, but that was mostly it. When the smoke and rubble cleared and they could see once more, Tyron peered through the window to make out any adversaries. The holo didn't work anymore, there was too much interference to pick up anything outside the shields. WHen they had visual again, there were no more fighters to be seen, and the second ship was just floating around with a large gap in the middle.
It took a while for the crew to realize, but a cheer went up not much later. They'd won. For the first time, they'd blown up a ship's core and with that defeated another ship while still surviving to tell the tale. Tyron sighed in relief and picked up the mic again. "This is your captain speaking. All fighters and frigates return to your respective hangars. Squad captains report to the command deck." he remained silent for a while. "Good work, everyone. Mission accomplished." He put the comms unit down again. "Jenkins, you're on command duty. Get us out of here."
"Yes, sir." Jenkins replied. Tyron retreated into his cabin.

Wren flew her fighter into the Confidence's hangar bay as soon as she had clearance, settling her ship in a free berth with the rest of her squadron. She released a long sigh and an odd tension seemed to leave her body and she relaxed against her seat. Another battle won, another brush with death - exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

Wren got out of the cockpit of her fighter and clambered down onto the metal floor of the flight deck, she rested a hand against her fighter and smiled slightly before turning away from it. An idle thought flashed into her head, I wonder if that squadron leader will be angry at me for breaking formation during the fight. She shrugged to herself, I know I would be, at least. I've got to remember that I'm not flying alone any-more, that I'm part of a squadron with a chain of command and orders to follow. Until the battle had started, she hadn't realised how used she was to fly alone, fight on instinct, and not worry about orders or commanders or consequences other than death. Still, it surprised her that she'd entirely forgotten her training, the reaction drummed into navy pilots so that it was instinct; obey your squadron leader, support your wingmen, something she hadn't really done.

Wren sighed, Ah well, he can chew me out, maybe Tyron will too. I guess I'll just have to remind myself that I'm part of a squadron next time... if there is a next time. After all, she doubted insubordination would impress Tyron much, and he might decide she was too reckless to fly with his men, and then she'd probably get handed over to the Navy's tender mercies. A thrill of fear ran down Wren's spine, but she fought it off. No use worrying about it now. She scolded herself.

((Sorry about the extremely late reply; I've had a lot of university work to do!))