To the point then, Rodriguez thought, noting the pilot's straightforward dialogue while he stared at the monitor displaying the flying wing that was Lungfirst's aircraft being integrated with the rest of the formation. The process of including the Long-Dive into his private data communications network was going off without a hitch. Same as the two other craft around him. The miniature scans updated and applied an IFF to the Long-Dive, allowing Pandora's ECM to recognize friend from foe and differentiate their assets. Typically useful if a hostile missile were to enter get near either of their aircraft while in the large sphere of influence emitted by Rodriguez's plane. With a small ping, he got his confirmation that Long-Dive was now fully integrated.

Rodriguez nearly believed that the formation flight would remain unopposed for at least for a few hours. Turns out he was wrong. Roland apparently was the first to take notice of the activity crawling beneath them. However, his report came almost abruptly and nearly caught Rodriguez off-guard, challenging him to achieve a visual on the vehicles being referred to. Seconds later, he found them as well; an armored convoy. Sensing imminent combat approaching and with the current order to maintain his position, he awakened the ground sensors and cameras at the nose and belly of his aircraft. Soon, visual images poured into one of the other monitors. The convoy belonged to the Lone Star State, as announced by the flags and insignias worn by the vehicles.

"Pandora acknowledges. Maneuvering to attack run; after you, lead," he radioed.

With the attack order given, Rodriguez hit the throttle of his plane, prompting Pandora's airframe to increase in speed before he peeled into dive. Despite its original purpose being overwritten to include a larger number of responsibilities, the plane was still capable of performing its original duty as an attack aircraft. Through his descent, he ensured his kept the Pandora's nose aimed at the grouped vehicles, still performing the necessary scans of his targets until the sensors achieved the lock he was looking for. The HUD integrated into his windshield lit up, revealing a number of vectors originating from the ground beginning to rotate within the center of this obvious circles. The highlighted lines, upon further inspection, represented the calculated traveling paths of the artillery cannons scrambling to take aim at them. As per his efforts earlier, he ensured this information was shared with his squadron mates.

Falling in roughly five-hundred feet behind the Iron Jackson, Pandora prepared to line up its own strafing run, coordinating with the lead aircraft and prepared to engage once Roland peeled away from his completed attack.

Jimmy Web: The Jonestown Runner

The call was startling, but expected given the landscape. While Jimmy was hoping to get into some dogfighting, a few trucks on the ground would suffice. When Roland went low to get a good look, Jimmy made a note of the other aircraft and their maneuvers. The Scanner was looking to gear up directly for a fight, while the monstrosity behind him appeared to be gaining a higher altitude. Not exactly the most coordinated effort, but Jimmy trusted that the others knew what they were doing. He hoped that courtesy would be shared.

The Runner pushed forward the throttle, gunning forward and making his way over the convoy as fast as possible. His instruments were perfectly fine, and Jimmy was at a high enough altitude to pull off his usual antics. Once some distance in front of the convoy, the Roger Dodger began to pitch towards the ground while rolling right. Jimmy pulled back on the throttle as he was lowering intensely, helping to minimize the turning radius on his 180 degree Wingover before temporarily rising back into the sky. At the last moment, he pitched the craft towards the ground again to perform his run.

By the time Jimmy was in position, Rodriguez had completed his run. It was fairly textbook, and Jimmy was looking to replicate. His two miniguns began to light the ground ablaze with bullets as the Rabbit performed the simple strafing run. Once over the convoy again, Jimmy performed a more simple turn to get back into a relative formation, practically returning to his starting position before gauging his next move and assessing whether he took any hits.

Roland didn't have a specific attack formation in mind, he just yawed to the left and hit the air-brake, making sure his speed was low enough to get a good long squirt of fire on the trucks. The other 3 had peppered the trucks with at least 5 of them going up in fireballs. Roland himself managed to destroy one and severely damage another, there was little thrill in shooting ground targets but eliminating the Texan war machine made him feel whole. The ground tanks were blazing thier cannons at the 4 planes but because of the high speed and angle of shooting from the ground, the shots were wildly inaccurate apart from a few rounds catching Ryan's wing for almost no damage. After the initial run Roland banked his Iron Jackson into a wide U-Turn to go again right before seeing a blip on his radar.....

BOOOOMSSH

A rocket had just blown up one of the artillery tanks, Roland had to double check that he didn't fire it himself. Only to peer into his window and see 4 flying figures in the distance.



They were all Biplanes, and all fairly quick too, entering the airspace like agile missiles. The crackle of Roland's radio almost mad him jump, they must have had radar jammers, because he didn't notice them until the last minute.

Who are you? And why are you shooting at our bounty? Did the guild send you ahead?

There were Bounty Hunters, Roland didn't know whether to feel relieved or not.
He had to answer, so he decided to be honest.

They are part of Texan military. I'm a Canadian national. We are cleared for unconditional engagement...but I'm not after any bounty, claim it as your own, we are just passing through.

There was brief silence before another explosion of the 2nd Artillery tank rattled through the air.

Canadian huh? We'll we are from Jersey we have no quarrel with either side of that war. I guess we just go our separate way....hang on, scanning profile complete....you're Roland Shaw?!

Roland cursed hard under his breath, and hit the throttle on his plane and began to climb, he didn't even bother responding to the last message, he instead patched through to his 3 wingmates.

First Encounter

Jimmy, Rod, Ryan, split and prepare for a fight, they seem to have upgraded engines and unguided rockets, be careful team!

Roland Fucking Shaw!? you have a 5 Million Credit Bounty on your head! We are fuckin, rich boys! Try not to tear his plane to absolute shreds, we can probably sell some of it to collectors. We are retiring tonight!

The 4 Biplanes had now all began to split off and look for targets, the fight was on.

Once he was lined up without friendlies in his path, he squeezed the trigger, letting loose with Pandora's 20mm cannons. Rodriguez could feel each thump of the two cannons vibrating throughout the craft as is screamed though the convoy. Zigging tracers zipped through the air and arched into the scorched earth and artificial metal alike, sending exploding plumes of dirt and spectacles of flaming sparks skyward. While his own attack only lasted mere seconds, Rodriguez caught a glimpse of one of the vehicles within his cone of fire erupting into an inferno just as he quickly pulled up and peeled away.

Rodriguez kept the plane in a stable climb while making the proper adjustments in his flight path, noting the firing vectors from the artillery below still illuminating in his HUD. By now however, the black splotches exploding in the sky became less concentrated, likely due to the gunners' aim being directed to the other craft completing their own attack runs and pulling away from the pummeled convoy. After achieving a safer altitude, Pandora came to a neutral path while Rodriguez peered through the aircraft's canopy and gazed at the smoking mess they had created. At least six of the vehicle they had successfully strafed now stood as burning wrecks, victims of their swift assault.

Just has he steadily angled his craft into another dive, Pandora's long-range radar started going off with new contacts emerging into the screen. Rodriguez aborted and quickly turned to the monitor noting the four blips quickly advancing onto their earlier attack vector. Heading right toward the convoy. In the course of a few seconds, another vehicle exploded due to a rocket that had not come from his craft and neither from any of this other planes his squadron. Instead, it originating from the interloping biplanes.

It didn't take long until the intruder's radioed and demanded the reasoning for their presence here. Rodriguez patiently listened as Roland explained himself and behalf of the planes under his command before ending with an offer to vacate the local airspace. Given the rowdiness of the new group, Rodriguez was in agreement with the notion to avoid getting into further trouble than they were already. All seemed fine until it became apparent that trouble already had Roland's number. Some scanner with the group had ID'd Roland and the surprising bounty on their leader's head. Five million credits, huh? Rodriguez's adoptive mercenary line of thinking piqued with premature interest. With that kind of money, he could be living it big with the most souped up and untouchable aircraft to ever fly over the States. And all he had to do was dive into a pursuit right on top of Roland and...

No, his consciousness quickly stamped out the opportunistic thought for greedy fame. He mentally reiterated the job he had agreed to and he was intent of seeing it through. Phasing out of the millisecond of plotting, Rodriguez refocused his attention to the biplane now shifting their attention to his group. Per Roland's new orders to engage, he maneuvered his craft into a wide observing turn around the attackers, ensuring that he held less than a kilometer distance from the attackers. Having seen the maneuverability of the enemy planes, he knew that he could not compete in a honest dogfight with the more nimbler planes climbing to meet them. Pandora was simply not as agile and his only method of attacking and killing a wily opponent was with an unsuspecting strike above them. Before he could pull that off, he needed to know how the aggressing craft flew. Like before with Ryan's earlier approach, Rodriguez once more fired up his scanning equipment and angled the array to toward the craft.

"Pandora acknowledging," he radioed through the channel, "beginning scan of engaging bandits."

There was no response from the Iron Jackson and the Long-Dive continued its climb as the newest uninvited party guests exchanged words with Lungfirst’s boss. They apparently decided that it was a good day for them to die. He continued his climb as he already had quite a bit of altitude on the rest of the planes by the time the bounty hunters broke formation. They were also right in the center of his optimal targeting zone for his rear AA missile launcher. Even better, if any of them tried to line up a rocket with him they’d have to get on his six and that would put them squarely in the sights of his rear rocket launcher as well.

Upgraded engines or not, it’s always been a pain to dodge during a rapid climb. Though, they did have one advantage over the Long-Dive. They could dogfight. He could not. He made a mental note to not sacrifice his altitude advantage next time, even if he was ordered to. But, for the present moment, he called Pandora over the data link with a simple text message.

“Tag any special targets – Long-Dive.”

If the enemy planes had a scanner or any other dedicated equipment on one plane or another then he would target those as priority marks for missile strikes. Until they picked their targets and became predictable he would hold off on targeting them. Missile lock alarms can get almost anyone’s attention and he needed more altitude before he actively attracted attention. In the meantime, he held his climb, watched, waited, and kept track of the Iron Jackson’s flight path. He knew that it would look like he was running away. That was part of his plan. Hopefully it would work. If they headed for the Iron Jackson's six o'clock then he could easily adjust his angle of ascent to free up some Air-Ground missiles. They might not be well suited for hitting air targets but they would be about as fast as rockets and explode with twice the area of effect if the hunters failed to react in time.

@ShiningSector@Dynamo Frokane

Jimmy Web: The Jonestown Runner

The sight of hostiles sent a shiver down Jimmy's spine, but he wasn't one to back out of a challenge. Once the others broke formation, Jimmy gunned the throttle and shot forward. He knew the Roger Dodger was built for two things: Speed and Agility. It wasn't well armored, wasn't well armed... but boy did Jimmy know how to make it dance. He trusted the legendary pilot leading them to pick off those who would come after him.

Jimmy lowered his altitude, seeming to dive directly for the ground, but pulled up at nearly the last second as he flew only about 50 yards above the fairly level field. Once behind the other bounty hunters, a hard pull on the stick and a few twists and turns saw the Roger Dodger attempt to being dogfighting as he squeezed down the trigger as his Vulcans spit out bullets. The goal wasn't to take down the fighter he was chasing... the goal was to get their attention. He kept his wits about him, his head on a swivel as the Jonestown Runner said hello in this unusually aggressive manner. "Iron Jackson, keep an eye on my ass. Something tells me these sharks wanna bite!"