Even though the dogfights in the air devolved into a crude way of dismantling the fleet, Jin could see that their guests had decided to take the backdoor and the Grey Bears War Maidens were ready to provide the defensive support which they had been briefed to do before this shitshow happened.
The Mecha Armour they had stolen had been quickly redesigned so that they could accommodate the surface to air missiles that Old Fammet had stockpiled over the years. Delicately crafted by him and him alone, they were the pinnacle of customised projectiles. If craftsmen of yore could create arrows made of adamantium or mythril along with properties of fire or water, Old Fammet could do the same as well.
Instead of making the rockets do their job of destroying their target, he knew that heat seeking and modern targeting guidance systems within the missiles would not be sufficient to defeat the anti air capabilities that most modern helicarriers were equipped to. The Grey Bears got lucky when they destroyed the helicarriers before this heated war against Mount Sunn mainly because they had been identified to be of the older models. (Since no one expected that the response force the private corpos had sent out could be annihilated this easily.)
Unlike the old models, these creme la corp helicarriers were packed with sufficient anti air capabilites that they could survive almost anything for the first few minutes of contact. This was already improved drastically in comparison to the older models and had been heralded as the new age of logistics. From flares to anti air interception missiles within their repertoire, the pilots under the service of the private corpo Rocketeers were proud to say that this sneak attack would be the deciding factor against Mount Sunn's attack.
But they all were too complacent considering that they had forgotten that the enemy they were fighting against had years to craft stuff in secrecy and they had zero information on the type of weaponry he possessed. And to make matters worse for the group of helicarriers, they scoffed at the Mecha Armours who had been deployed behind the mountain to reinforce the two SAM sites that had been built previously in Old Fammet's golden age.
Upon seeing the models of the Mecha Armour, the helicarrier pilots identified them as a non threat since they already had data on Diamondz mass produced equipment. They knew that those Mecha Armours were able to be equipped with a few anti air missiles along with some gatling guns which could pose a threat when they were closer but it was nothing to be feared of.
However, the helicarriers were meant to be defensive military transport and not offensive ones. All they had to do was to survive the first portion of the onslaught and they could land. But that did not mean that Rocketeers only provided helicarriers. There were attack helicopters that were accompanying them as well and that was also why their confidence level was high. Those attack helicopters were their offensive strength as the helicarriers absorb the heat from the anti surface missile attacks. So long, as the helicarriers withstood the 'pathetic' anti air defence from Mount Sunn, the attack helicopters could swoop in and destroy that few stolen Mecha Armours the Grey Bears were riding.
To them, it was an assured victory... until shit hits the fan.
The first surface to air missiles that went off was not the automated SAM sites that they thought would go off first. Rather, Nie stopped it and decided to operate them manually since their defence plan relied on Old Fammet's missiles. Yinn and Tellie who were operating the Mecha Armours had their targets on sight and released their missiles first. The helicarrier pilots were so confident that even with their systems blaring at them notifying them that they had been target locked, they decided to move forward, disregarding the amount of Mechanoid and other lives within their transport.
They knew that their systems could overcome the anti air attacks and they did not hesitate to move forward so that they could be the shield for the attack helicopters and also allow the smooth transition of their operation to the next phase.
Unfortunately, that did not happen as the first missile emerging towards their visual display did not divert when the helicarriers deployed flares to counter the attack. It was also too late to deploy air to air interception missiles and all they could do was rely on their latest technology to create a barrier of intense energy around them. It was not the most effective use of its fuel but it should do the job of protecting helicarrier at the very last minute.
But what shocked them was not that the energy barrier did not work.
Instead, they felt a major tremor within the transport which caused the entire helicarrier to shut down. All the systems were not working as intended and buttons were blinking rapidly. All of their flight systems were down and that was when they realised that the missile that hit them was something similar to an electronic magnetic pulse (EMP) attack.
At that moment, the pilots who took the hit lost absolute control of their systems, there was nothing that could assist them in that short period of time with the exception of hoping that their backup generator, which was designed to protect from such EMP attacks would kick back up again.
But even if their backup power supply would kick in, it did not start instantaneously and such scenarios were rarely practised within the pilot's training. It took some time for the pilots to try and shuffle through the controls, in hopes that the power supply would allow it to have control of the helicarrier. But even if they took manual control of their aircraft once more, there was no way their defensive mechanisms would be working.
The only way to ensure their survival was to avoid the next rounds of missiles.
Sadly... That wasn't how reality goes.
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