Zadot’s POV:
As I left the Aratrum's bridge, I heard a large explosion. I glanced out the window and saw that the Prophet's fighters were beginning to attack the ship. Knowing this, I rushed to the hangar. Most of the pilots had already arrived and were loaded into their respective fighters, and bombers. Around us, the ship was being shaken by several explosions, hitting the side of the ship. Although the shields were still up, the prophets must have found some way to get past that. I climbed into, my fighter, and activated it, the hangar door started to open. Outside, we could see hundreds of fighters already flying past. We were still too far up to see anything of the ground, however, so we started working to correct that mistake.
Pushing my thrusters forward, I flew straight out of the hangar. Three fighters had spun around and started firing at us. I activated my guns, and fired at them, destroying one of the ships, before speeding through the others, and turning my ship down towards the ground. The bombers had already taken out one of the turrets positioned atop a nearby mountain but were struggling with another one placed further down, in a ravine which had already destroyed three of them. I put my thrusters up to Max, and sped down to it, flanked by two of my best pilots. I smirked. This was going to be fun.
The turrets turned up towards us and started firing. My shield was holding, but only barely. Seeing no other options, I started firing. The shots hit the turret but they didn't seem to do any damage. I saw one of my pilots, Zorch getting destroyed behind me. Cursing, I switched my ship's main weapons to My proton torpedoes. Although the bombers carried similar weapons, those on the regular starfighter are much less powerful, as they have share power usage with the regular gunners. I fired off two proton torpedoes, damaging the gun enough to allow the remaining bombers to fly in and finish the job.
At that point, there were still hundreds of fighters attacking the Aratrum, and any transport that would attempt to leave it, so I quickly sent the entire fighter squadron up there to help defend. I flew around the ship, quickly taking out most of the attacking fighters. As I flew past the bridge, I saw that it was mostly blown open, with many people still evacuating. I destroyed one of the fighters, who was attempting to destroy what remains of the bridge, before returning my attention to the main compound. The fighter problem had lessened, as I could already see much of the compound, and all of its hangars being bombed out of existence.
The Aratrum, now free of attack began moving further up, so it could begin making repairs to itself. Me and the rest of the squadron began moving for a final assault on the compound, as we waited for the land troops to start coming down in their transports. There were hundreds of ant air replacement around the compound, which was beginning to make the attacks difficult, and I saw at least right bombers getting taken down. Besides this, more fighters were starting to come out of hidden hangar bases. This is not going to be fun.
Tragnor’s POV:
From what I could see, the battle had moved over to the compound, meaning that we should be able to get down there pretty soon. I was getting more and more stressed out, as time went in. Deoxmatis was still down there somewhere, and I needed to help him, mas fast as possible. Eventually, I got the call that the hangar had at least mostly been repaired, and it was time to get moving. When I came back to the secondary bridge, I was told that the number of troopers down there, as confirmed by our scanners, was about 6,000. Piece of cake.
I made my way down to the hangar quickly, after that. I was loaded into one of the transports, and we shot down to the planet's surface. With me in my transport, was about 100 of the Flashtroopers we had brought down with us, weapons at the ready. The transport shook a bit, as we landed. Presumably, getting hit by some anti-air replacement around the compound. We landed with a thump, spent a few tense minutes hearing gears turning, and whirring before the door slammed open, and we all rushed out into battle.
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