Thanks once more to all reviewing persons. Replies are at the end of the chapter. Sorry it took me so long to get a new chapter up but I've been dealing with writer's block, exams and a number of headaches.

Also, there's an explanation to the one-sided Nomad/Outcast battle which comes later.
Chapter 7: From doom to salvation, and back again.

The twenty fighters emerged from the Missouri, to those who were observing from the windows, the fighter wing looked ridiculously small compared to what the Outcasts undoubtedly had in store on the other side of the jump hole.

No one in the fleet had any lingering hopes of a successful mission. The chances weren't great when there was hope of catching the Outcasts unprepared. The Outcasts were, thanks to cardamine, expert flyers. They also had no shortage of fighters, and they were in their home territory, (which the houses knew next to nothing about).

Now that the Outcasts knew that the fleet were on their way, they could set numerous traps for them in the nebulas and asteroid belts which would kill off most if not all of the fleet's ships. Even if some ships made it through, the planetary defence missiles would finish them off.

And so the only hope was for a small number of pilots to fly behind enemy lines and destroy the Outcast's planetary defence systems and the dozens if not hundreds of Outcast ships that got in their way.

Success was impossible. The only hope anyone had was to stay alive and retreat to friendly space. Which was more then anyone was predicting for the twenty fighters.
The numbers on Mathias' contact list grew larger by the second. The fleet was vanishing fast behind them, and with it, any lingering hope of survival. He never entertained any fantasies in which he survived and the fleet marched forth to victory, he was going to die, he knew this, he'd accepted it, and he'd expected to feel the eerie calm that accompanies the certainty of death. Instead however, all he could feel was despair. Images of Manhattan, friends, family and dozens of other things which had kept him happy during the course of a lifetime kept entering his mind. The memories felt like postcards from another galaxy, brief, sweet reminders of what he'd never see again.

He locked it down.

The plan was to go through the jump hole, see the enemy fleet on the other side, and try to get back through the jump hole and warn the fleet whilst everyone else got shot to pieces. Whoever made it would be rewarded with a few extra seconds of life before an Outcast fighter came through and finished them off.

A flicker of hatred flushed through Mathias at the thought of the Outcasts. It was thanks to them that quarter of Sirius was addicted to a drug that was slowly killing them; it was thanks to them that thousands of innocent lives had been lost, all in the name of piracy. It was thanks to them that Valerie and Nathan were about to meet an untimely end.

"Alright," Juni's voice emerged from the radio and broke his train of thought, "the jump hole I just ahead, me and Trent," there was a recognisable, momentary flash of pain as she said his name, "Will go in first, all remaining liberty ships follow us, then Kusari, then Rhienland, then Bretonnia.

The radio fell silent and Mathias watched as the tri-winged Defender flew slowly towards the jump hole. His gaze then turned to his hull status and after seeing that it had diminished by more then was preferable, he released three nanobots to deal with the problem. When he looked back towards the view screen, Trent's fighter had already gone through.

He increased his acceleration slightly and made his way for the jump hole. His contact list and rear view display showed him that the Liberty fighters were all following him. Inhaling deeply, he flicked the required switches, and watched as his ship was pulled into Omicron-Theta.
It wasn't what she had expected.

Juni's eyes flicked back to the contact list for the fourth time, what she saw was impossible.

The Outcasts had placed a fleet on the other side of the jump hole for the houses' forces. But that fleet now consisted solely of debris and flaming hulks which drifted harmlessly about the vicinity of the jump hole.

"What the Hell happened here?" Trent's voice, which was filled with the same confussion and disbelief that Juni was feeling, asked over the radio.

Similar questions began to circulate among houses' fighters which had come through the jump hole. After the initial shock had subsided however, a strange, unexplainable and probably premature relief flooded through the twenty pilots. For some unexplainable, miraculous reason, the Outcast's ambush had been thwarted.

Maybe.

With the assumption, came the questions. Maybe the Outcasts had planted the debris there to lull the fleet into a false sense of security, and perhaps get them to send more ships into the system. Maybe a different, stronger pirate faction had attacked them.

"Let's get this patrol over with," Juni paused for a few seconds, "And go home."

A small round of cheering met this statement. The destruction of the Outcasts seemed to have reawakened the fighting spirit in many of the pilots. Death still seemed possible, even likely, but no longer certain.
The fighter wing encountered two more Outcast debris fields during the course of their patrol. The possibility that the Outcasts had planted these fields was becoming more and more unlikely. The onboard computers had estimated that the debris came from a total of almost 34 fighters. IT wouldn't make sense for the Outcasts to waste so many, especially when it wasn't necessary.

Another disconcerting thing about the system was how quiet it was. Omicron Theta wasn't the most lively of places, but usually there were Corsairs around who were more then willing to take pot shots at passing freelancers, failing that, there were always Zoners who…

Trent cut himself off in mid thought as something occurred to him. Checking his contact list, he felt an icy chill go through his as his fears were confirmed.

"Juni, Freeport ten is missing."

"Freeport 9?" To the best of the houses knowledge, there were 6 freeports."

"Yes Freeport 9, the Zoners have an outpost in this system and now it's gone."

"Are you sure we're not just outside sensor range?"

"Positive, we should be able to detect it at this range, but we're too far out to detect debris, which tells me that it went the way of the Outcast ships we saw."

A similar icy chill passed through Juni as the realisation set in. Someone, or something, had systematically destroyed every piece of technology in this system.

And then she knew what had caused it.

The Nomad battleship de-cloaked directly in front of her view screen, she didn't need the contact list to tell her that it was there.

She froze in shock for a number of seconds. This was impossible, the Nomads had been sucked through the hyper gate, they were supposed to be neutralised.

Well they're not! Snapped a part of he brain which was thinking more clearly, So pull you're head out of your arse, now!

Years of experience kicked in, and Juni was instantly issuing new orders down to the other ships.
"-gage the Battleship! I repeat, engage the battleship! That thing belongs to the Nomads."

Fear and shock grew within Valerie as her fears were confirmed. All she knew about the Nomads came from rumour, speculation and stories. And now she was staring at the bow of one of their battleships.

In the corner of her eye, she noticed a new group of red names on her contact list.

"Incoming fighters." Von Claussen half-shouted over the radio.

"Trent, Von Claussen and Bretonian fighters, engage the battleship, all other ships, engage the Nomad fighters, keep them off our backs."

The houses' fighters hit their afterburners and sped towards the smattering of purple and blue lights.

Gunfire was exchanged between the two, thin walls of fighters. Most of the shots flew harmlessly off into space before dissipating, others crashed into shielding or hulls.
Ensign Henry Grimes of Bretonnia charged past the fighter engagement and sped towards the battleship. He just needed to get close enough to deploy torpedoes, a task made somewhat simpler by the fact that no one was chasing him.

The figure in the contact list grew smaller at an agonisingly slow rate, this soon fell from Grimes' attention however, as a new contact appeared on his list, very close to him.

The Nomad fighter decloaked and positioned itself behind Grimes. The Bretonian fighter veered to the left, but to no avail. The Nomad fired, and his first few shot tore through the Crusader's shields, and tore off the left wing. The follow up salvo finished Grimes off with contemptuous ease.

Valerie was busy firing into the hull of a Nomad gunboat which had decloaked seconds after the battle began. The vessel was heavily armed; just one shot had taken out half of her shield strength. Fortunately however, the gunboat was hideously slow and slow to turn, which allowed her to use her own superior speed and manoeuvrability to evade the enemy's fire, whilst she slowly beat it to death with her own gunfire, and the occasional missile.

The hull was stronger then scans of previous gunboats during the first Nomad war had revealed. Obviously, the Nomads had found a way to increase hull strength.

Eventually, one blue explosion erupted on the gunboat's hull, this was followed by a second, three seconds later, the gunboat was a distant memory.

"I need some help over here." Mathias' voice was more fearful then usual. Valerie's head snapped instantly to her contact list to try and find her friend in the ever growing list of red contacts. When she found him, she sped off to where the arrow in her view screen was directing her. She soon found herself flying towards Mathias' defender, as well as two Nomad fighters that were slowly tearing it apart.

"Mathias, come about an…"

Valerie cut herself off in mid sentence and stared in sick horror as Mathias Cavallo's fighter exploded.
For Trent, things were going from bad to worse quickly. The Nomads were constantly getting reinforced. The battleship was virtually unscathed, and there wasn't a single pilot who didn't have two or more Nomad fighters firing at them from behind.

"We need to retreat!" Screamed an unknown Rheinland fighter pilot, "We can't hold out against this!"

"We can't retreat!" Juni snapped in response, "They keep hitting us with cruise disruptors."

That was news to Trent; then again, considering the pounding he'd been taking, he wasn't overly surprised he hadn't noticed.

A scream from over the radio informed everyone of another downed pilot. And then another.

Death was, once again, imminent. Trent found the Nomad battleship in his view screen once again and charged at it, not caring about the fighters that were shooting at him or even his own survival, the only thing he was concerned with was destroying the ship before him.

Before he got the chance however, he noticed another ship de-cloaking in his view screen, hope and a renewed bloodlust flooded through him as he recognised it.

The Osiris.

To be continued
Right, I'll try and have a new chapter up sooner next time, for now though, have some replies:

Bob Rijke: As you've probably guessed, anyone who tried to come to the aid of the Outcasts would find nothing but a smattering of charred fighters. I'm not ruling out the inclussion of other pirate factions later down the line though.

Jummeh: Hmm, unfortunately, i seem to have replied to what eveyone said in the author's not at the start of the chapter. Hmm, what was going through the programmer's minds when they dreamed up the monkeys? Anyway, thanks for reviewing.

daredevil2000: Yeah, probably, thanks for reviewing.

I think that's everyone.