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rest of the aerial craft were dealing with
targets in other planetary locations, covering for their allies while leaving
her with the job of supplementing the TF’s defenses.
    That hadn’t been the plan, but rather the only option
given the timing of the lizard attack. She’d been inside the TF when it had happened, leaving her too far away from the other locations
to do any good so she’d decided to make sure the TF remained where it was to
pick up the ground troops while the other pilots were off making the kills.
Only recently had these warships come into attack range giving her something to
do, but in truth she would have preferred they’d just stayed away for the
shields on the TF weren’t going to hold out forever.
    That said, the last of the troops were nearly onboard
and it wasn’t but a few more long minutes until the last of the mechs backed
their way into the exposed hangar, firing up at the few wisps stupid enough to
follow them into range of the TF’s anti-air, with the shield dropping down to
cover the hatch before the bay doors fully closed. When that occurred Riona got
a notification on the battlemap and broke off from her current attack run,
taking the other pilots and drones with her as they shot upward ahead of the
big dropship as it slowly began to rise up from the surface.
    The skeets from all areas coalesced at various
altitudes in bunches, with Riona taking the highest grouping. As the TF rose up
the aerial bays opened and the fighters flew inside during transit, making for
a dicey catch even as the enemy cruisers followed it up continuing to throw
plasma into the shields. The atmospheric friction cut down on the amount making
it to target, but they didn’t let it go, eventually moving in close and using
their primary plasma cannons in addition to the streamer to try and get through
the now very weak shields before it could hit orbit.
    But that also brought them into range of the maulers…or
rather their outside range. They weren’t nearly as effective, but what energy
they could deliver to the cruisers added up, stripping off their shields and
beginning to eat through their hulls while more and more fighters slipped
inside the dropship.
    Another dozen lizard warships broke away from the
orbital battle and dove into the atmosphere, flashing by Riona’s position and
heading into the melee below as the TF couldn’t climb very fast given it had to
pick up the fighters enroute…which was when Riona made a different call,
linking into the comm of all those below.
    “Change of plans. If anyone doesn’t have intact
atmospheric seals speak now because we’re going orbital. Rendezvous with the
donut ring and get there as best you can or head back down to the planet and
wait it out. The TF has to go, now, and we’re holding it up.”
    Riona changed frequencies and contacted the commander
of the big dropship, with the TF immediately gaining speed upwards and actually
bumping one of the cruisers out of the way. She cringed when she saw that, with
the dropship’s shields disappearing in the collision, but soon it didn’t matter
for rest of the Adamant had been
coming down towards the atmosphere to meet it and the armor on the dropship
would hold out for the rest of the trip up.
    Taking her own advice Riona launched her skeet up
above the atmosphere and flew directly towards the Melee -class warship, mentally crossing her fingers as the space
around it was filled with lizard warships. Their fighters weren’t built for space,
so she didn’t have to worry about them, but there were so many ships exchanging
fire with the massive donut that it looked like there was no way she was going
to get through…but the sizing was deceptive, and what looked to be an unending
net of plasma fire actually had huge holes in it, enough for her to shoot her
skeet and drones through to one of the big ring’s docking bays just ahead of
the ‘donut hole’ coming up from underneath and beginning to slide into