Bell deploys the airbrake and turns around on the tail of the Drones. She fires two seekers at Drone-6 and moves in to finish off Drone-4 by lining up a shot with her autocannon.
Drone-6 is destroyed, and Drone-4 continues its attempts to evade. Drone 5 continues to fly in a straight path, its maneuvering systems apparently shot out entirely.
Gus's eyes widen as he sees the two contacts breaking through the clouds and thundering towards him. "I've got two Sabres coming in hot. I hope you've handled those drones because I'm bringing the party to you." Gus throws the stick right and rolls over, using the lift fan to aid in pointing his nose back towards the squad as fast as possible. As he rounds out the turn he slams afterburners. For their trouble, he fires an HSM at Sabre-1.
Sabre-1 jinks hard upwards and to the left, deploying a packet of flares to evade the missiles. This distraction allows you to disengage without eating a dozen missiles, but the hostile plane is hot on your tail as you leave, lighting up the sky around you as it attempts to zero in on you with its pulse lasers. Your plane takes a hit, though no systems are impaired. Furthermore, you have led him close enough to the rest of the fight that he is no longer hidden from radar.
Faw axes firing off the salvo at the last minute, and instead approaches Sabre-2 from the side, keeping as great a distance away from Sabre-1 while moving on Sabre-2. He locks on with the MMS, RGM, and HSM, and fires all three from close range.
At close range, the Sabre is easily able to evade the RGM, and two packets of flares dispose of the MMS. It is unable to evade nor provide countermeasures against the HSM, however, and takes a hit, abandoning its pursuit of Tempest and instead bringing its attention towards you.
The shutters open and the waiting pilots feel their planes shudder as they get blasted with 180+ mile per hour wind. Then, the catapults fire off in rapid succession, sending the planes airborne.

: [Look! The enemy is launching reinforcements!]

: [Understood, firing up jammer.]
Right as the reinforcement pilots are able to get their bearings, the Imperial jamming system takes effect,
flooding every available communication channel with an Aesthian metal band and making verbal communications completely impossible. The large contact on long range radar appears to split into multiple smaller ones (albeit with one still much larger than the rest), which appear to be heading for the carrier. Making matters worse, a second wave of drones emerge from the clouds ahead of the carrier, opening fire on the fresh meat. Shortsword, Sabre, and Gladiator may be able to recognize the implications of this situation.
