Ajay's Story 2.0: Ragnarock-n-roll

Ajay's Story 2.0: Ragnarock-n-roll[1]

I am sure everyone knows Galaxy Rangers, but not everyone knows who exactly they are. A secret order of galactic guardians answering to Orillion directly, or something along the lines of political officers appointed among the members of the clans, or both at the same time - I did not really want to know. Of course, my own complicated position is making me not the right person to speak about it.
So when I noticed that one of my pen friends - known by his callsign, AZ09 - was elected as a GR of the Dark Phoenix clan, my reaction was more than my usual "huh". I kept that in mind for quite a while, until I've got a message from him, stating, that he is heading to the Inner Core with his Ragnarok.
I am sure that if any of the readers know Galaxy Rangers, they know the Ragnarok too. Combining the best traits of a Fighter and a Gunboat, Ragnarok is extremely fast and can dish out incredible amounts of damage with its Railgun. Needless to say it's turn rate is so high that "Stranger" looks morbidly obese by comparison.
I got into cockpit and started my ship up, then undocked from the base, which happened to be a Mirtrak battle Station. Well, gotta fly through the hostile space... won't be a problem. Perhaps "Stranger" is not as fast or powerful, but Basilisk-class ships are known for their resilience. In addition I still had my powerful scanner and cloaking device.
The flight to the Inner Core gates didn't really take long, and was rather peaceful (by the Inner Core standarts, mind you). As soon as I've got the message from him, I've jumped to the other side.

-So, where are we going? - I asked.
-Let's go to Weth.
-Weth it is, then - I confirmed and headed to dock with the gate. For me, it mattered little if we were going straight to Weth, dropping by Jormdar or even flying to map all of the repair buoys. All of them. Flak, I was even hoping for the latter.
After we jumped to Venn, I set course to a repair buoy and set off, with AZ following me. As we flew, I kept a close eye on his hull and shield status - since a sudden drop of his shield would usually mean a cruise disruptor impact...
Or a direct asteroid collision. He was flying behind me on his full cruise speed in the red crystal field, twice as high as Stranger's, and thus his Ragnarok had more kinetic energy, lightweight construction apparently didn't make up for it. Even worse, since less mass means less inertia, holding the course was harder. Perhaps the only advantage for this thousand of tons of armor and guns known as Stranger, I thought with a smile.
We passed repair buoy and moved into the direction of the Jormdar gate.
-Seems like my Ragnarok likes "Stranger" - AZ said jokingly. I laughed, and then Warriors decided to drop a Cerebus Syndrome on us. In the shape of three bombers and a gunboat.
-Let's attack them - I said, received confirmation, dropped cruise and went on to the gunboat. Surely I didn't have a railgun, but set of Gatlings and W'ar-sys weren't bad either, especially considering that I rigged a set of controls to ease two-gun rapidfiring. I took out the gunboat's shield when I noticed railgun's shell flying right past it, and broke off for a nearest bomber. Last thing I want is to be on the line of fire of a railgun, especially considering that my shield was almost paper-thin by this point, and incoming friendly fire is still an incoming fire...
I was chasing the bomber down when I noticed by my peripheral vision that the gunboat disappeared from my contact list. Seems like it finally got railed. I made a mental "good work" note and returned to spraying my target with particles.
As soon as we finished with these guys, we regrouped and continued our way to Jormdar. There I plotted the way to the nearest repair buoy - "Stranger" got some new pockmarks on the hull, and when I checked my companion's status after that fight, I noticed his hull was a bit damaged as well.
Seems like Warriors raised their connections to Dom'Nepesh, because we were intercepted by two capship battlegroups in a row.
-After this I'm going to come back and show those cruiser what I think about them. And what my Rag does - AZ commented. I pointed out that there already is a Coalition Battleship on a deep space independent operation whose mission is to do exactly that, and offhandedly mentioned that I did that yesterday.
We flew on, avoiding capships and gunboats, until a wing of Savage Heavy Fighters appeared.
-Murderize them? - I asked, and once I got the confirmation. Savages disappeared... and a wing of Dom'Nepesh light fighters appeared instead.
"It's a trap!"
Well, nobody of us actually quoted Admiral Ackbar. We just dropped cruise, broke formation and charged them. I didn't care if those were Savages or Dom'Nepesh - after all, we could've taken on any of these choices, and while I don't know about AZ, guns for sure didn't matter for me.
Seems like it was a more elaborate trap than we thought. Another Dom'Nepesh wing - with three gunboats - appeared soon after we were done, and a Savage reinforcements - three Medium and one Heavy fighters.
Now this was the situation we weren't certain about, but luckily, we were already cruising and soon the gunboat wing dropped pursuit. But their Savage friends apparently didn't know when to fold 'em, and as soon as gunboats disappeared from the contact list we turned around. We made short work on these guys - with AZ's Ragnarok getting some damage - and jumped into Methper, where we took a Repair Buoy detour.
Upon reaching a repair buoy it turned out they are awful at repairing the Ragnarok. Apparently it treated it like a capital ship. Waiting for some time, we continued our way.
Apparently Warriors have spread something along the lines of "Warning, Ragnarok is on loose", if a full gang of their gunboats showing up was any indication. Unfortunately for them they forgot to include "And Stranger is out there, too", since as the gunboat went for AZ we deployed a tactic I once called "Casanova Protocol" - AZ started drawing their fire and driving their attention while I unleashed my old Basilisk's "fangs". With the last gunboat destroyed, we regrouped and continued our flight... and I checked out my companion status. His hull was somewhere at 15 or 20 percent integrity, then jumped to near 50. Only one thing that could repair him would be nanobots, and there was only one reason why repair wasn't complete. I sent a Small Scale Warp Exchange request, and sent him spare reloaders, then nodded in reply to the following thanks.
The rest of our way was uneventful. In Ryssk, we stopped at Repair Buoy for some time.
-So, you are planning some kind of operation here? - I asked.
-Well, sort of. Not right now - came his reply. - Okay, screw this, let's go.

We landed on Mirtrak Battle Station, and I got my ship parked. Well, that one flight was short, but I'm sure, there will be other opportunities.

Author's Note:
Well, I screwed one thing up big time: no pictures for this chapter. Sorry for that one, didn't expect to write this (also the reason why it's rushed).
Footnotes:
1) Starcraft II reference (may or may not be the reference to the reference).