#14 by Carnifex

Carnifex dodged left, then right, the Outcast fighter bearing down on him with a speed that could not have been safe in a planet’s atmosphere. His shields flashed brightly under the weight of the fighter’s concentrated weapons and then dropped just as the ship shot past in a blur. Carnifex acted quickly, using some shield batteries to bring his shields back up and hitting his engine kill as he put it into a spin. He felt the ship stop pushing against him and become a dead weight as it slowly spun around and slowed down, the ever thinning air outside barely a whisper as the ship came to a halt for a frighteningly long second and then started falling nose first like a stone. Below him Carnifex could see the Outcast still fighting his momentum to bring himself around.
Just then he saw another fighter that had been obscured by the gleam of the system’s two suns off the planet’s ocean shoot in from the side and blast away at the Outcast’s shields. The Outcast seemed unphased by this and completed its turn toward Carnifex just as Carni came within range and opened up on the hostile. He dropped the Outcast’s shields, launched a mine and then dodged to the side just as the first volley connected with his shield. The mine fell toward the ship and exploded with a resounding crackling noise as pieces of metal and equipment were sheared off by the amplified force of the mine. The other fighter that had helped Carni had pulled into a vertical loop after its pass and was now upside down and just below the attacker. The Outcast used shield batteries but could not manoeuvre well while fighting the planet’s gravity and took heavy damage, it started to burn and pour out thick black smoke as it turned back toward the planet. Falling now toward Carni from above it looked like a demon from hell on a suicide mission. It closed to range and fired and then either the weapons themselves or a short circuit somewhere on the damaged ship, Carni had no way of knowing which, ignited the pure hydrogen fuel used by the fighter. It exploded in a weak flash followed by a roaring shockwave that knocked the nearby ships about and debris trailing red flame down toward the planet.

Carni checked his systems, the artificial gravity keeping everyone in his cargo hold from being bug paste on the hull was still working. His sensors picked up two more fighters rising from the planet and he was a little surprised when one was the little interceptor that had saved him earlier and the other was a bounty hunter he knew personaly.
“Ignition,” he said over short range coms as a smile snuck onto his face, “fancy seeing you around here.”
“I picked up your signal while I was seeing what was going on, came by in case you needed help,” he replied, “this guy here was taking on two multirole fighters on his own so once I saw you had help I ducked in and distracted them to give him a better chance. He’s tough too, took out their thrusters with precise fire and sent them tumbling to the deck,” he commented in an impressed tone.
All the fighters were now converging in the same area near the edge of space.
“There’s no time for medals now, all of us need to get out of here, the Outcasts won’t let the chaos in orbit continue for long and once they put a stop to it there’ll be no getting off this planet.” Addressing Thoren he said, “Thank you for your help pilot, you’ve got good timing that’s for sure. I suggest you come with us, we’re more likely to make it out of here in a group if we hurry.”
"We should head for the Tau systems as fast as possible," said the mystery pilot in the interceptor, "I'm in the Bretonian SAS and once we're close to Bretonia I can get us some escort."