To his relief, they noticed him, turning towards him as he began to burn away. The giant Bug made to pursue them, but it had a lot of mass to move around, and it struggled to shed its forward momentum. It slid like it was on ice, its lines of thrusters moving independently as they tried to steer its bulk in a new direction.
The alien fighters took up formation beside Jaeger, giving him a closer look at their sleek hulls. Their aerodynamic chassis were lined with what almost looked like heat tiles, painted over with their ocean camouflage, the silver gleam of exposed machinery visible beneath it here and there. The color panels seemed to be made up of individual cells, like rows of computer monitors, and he could even make out what looked like scorch marks on the noses of the craft. Residue from atmospheric flight maybe? Were these vessels also spaceplanes? They couldn't be long-range, where had they been launched from?
He could see something moving around beneath the raised canopy of the nearest fighter, but he couldn't make out much detail, it was blurry and indistinct. These weren't drone ships, there was something piloting them...
Jaeger looked back over his shoulder at the pursuing Bug carrier, the glare of the frigate's engines reflecting off its iridescent carapace. The UNN vessel was still hundreds of miles away, but that was more than close enough for it to fire. As he zoomed in on the approaching ship, he saw a speck rise from its hull on a plume of flame. He couldn't see it at this range, but he knew from experience that one of the many torpedo hatches that were spaced out along the top of the roughly two hundred meter long vessel had opened, a missile the length of a city bus shooting out of the tube.
He tracked it as it sped towards the carrier, gaining velocity as its targeting systems made minute adjustments, crossing the distance alarming quickly. His visor darkened automatically to protect his eyes from the glare as the torpedo slammed into the Bug's midsection, a massive explosion tearing through the giant creature. The shockwave rocked it, the beast seeming to lurch, and then it was blasted into two clean halves. It resembled a lobster that had just been smashed with a hammer, fragments of its colorful shell spreading outwards in an expanding cloud along with charred flesh and torn metal, its many legs twitching and its engines petering out. The midship, if you could call it that, was partially vaporized where the torpedo had struck it. Gore and fluids leaked from its ruined body, the two halves drifting apart to expose what looked like organs and flesh on the inside, wrapped around metal structural beams like vines choking a tree.
Jaeger wanted to celebrate, but there were two pilots missing and every second counted. He opened a channel to the Baskeyfield, static crackling in his ear.
"This is the Baskeyfield, go ahead Bullseye."
"We have two pilots down, one ejected and one is missing inside the asteroid field. You need to scramble rescue boats immediately. We can assist in the search efforts if necessary."
"Copy that Bullseye. We have Scratcher on our scope, his beacon is still active. Life signs are steady. No read on the second beacon, the asteroids might be blocking it."
"Roger that, Baskeyfield, me and Scorch are gonna stay on station and-"
"Contact!" Baker announced.
Something large emerged from superlight nearby, its bulk vomited back into reality along with a cloud of colorful gas, like a technicolor smear on the black canvass of space. Jaeger's instruments lit up, warning him of the impending threat, radar and thermal sensors feeding him data on its mass and energy output. It was larger than the frigate, perhaps three hundred meters in length, the hull composed of various metallic alloys. There was a large nuclear generator inside that was kicking out a lot of heat, no doubt already recharging the jump drive. Where had it come from, and how had it found them?
He looked out of his canopy, the giant ship hanging in space at the edge of the Oort cloud, its white hull reflecting the light from the far off star. It was long and thin, seemingly made up of rounded segments or cylinders that were joined together, clearly not of Bug design. At one end was what resembled a bridge, with windows that looked out into space, and to the rear was a bulky engine module. In the center was a ring, not unlike that of the Pinwheel space station, connected to the main body of the ship via spokes as it slowly rotated. Centrifugal force to simulate gravity, did they not have artificial gravity generators?
The alien fighters left their formation, Jaeger watching them as they broke off, heading towards the strange vessel. It must be their mothership, was this their version of a carrier?
"It's locking onto us," Baker warned.
"Hold your fire, I'm sure they're friendly," Jaeger replied. "They're probably scanning us." He switched channels to the Baskeyfield again, the captain of the ship outranked him. "Baskeyfield this is Bullseye, what are your orders?"
"Captain says hold fast," the operator replied, "we're putting a call through to the Rorke."
"I don't like this, not one bit," Baker muttered. "They might have been friendly so far, but that ship is a lot bigger'n we are, and we have no idea what it's capable of."
"Baskeyfield says hold fast," Jaeger said, relaying the orders. "They're scanning us, so scan them back if it makes you feel any better. Just remember your three Ds, and keep your railgun in your pants."
"Three Ds my ass," he grumbled, but it looked like he was keeping his cool. His weapon ports were closed, and his railgun was stowed. Jaeger did likewise, closing the port on his cannon and retracting his railgun. The alien ships took up position around the larger vessel, docking with it belly-to-hull. Apparently, there was no hangar for them to land in. The more he looked at it, the more primitive this vessel seemed. Their carrier was too small to have a hangar, so they docked externally, the same method used by archaic human spacecraft. They couldn't generate their own gravity, so they had to use a spinning torus to simulate the effects. Unless that big ring served some other purpose, but Jaeger couldn't imagine what.
Either way, they had advanced weaponry and superlight technology, which made them a threat. He kept his sensors fixed on the ship, just in case they decided that the UNN were no more welcome here than the Bugs. The standoff continued for a few more minutes, and then there was another burst of multicolored gas. The Rorke emerged from the tear in reality, the colorful residue spreading in its wake like a ripple on the surface of a lake. Seeing its massive, ocean-grey bulk immediately set Jaeger at ease, it looked like a small moon in comparison to the alien vessel. Its hull bristled with weaponry, not currently targeting the unidentified ship, but it was an admirable show of force.
The rest of the support fleet followed behind it, pulled along in its superlight wake, drifting for a few moments as their crews recovered from the mental and physical shock of jump travel. They had sent the entire fleet, good. It might be interpreted as an aggressive move, but it would hopefully deter any aspirations of violence. There was a crackle as a voice came through on his radio.