Ether

After twenty kilometers pushing against the winds and snow over jagged and rocky mountains, the Eucharis away team began to reach the outskirts of the combat zone. A frozen river lay between them and the fortified Nerimian-made bunkers and factories.

Hanako was driving the tank while Ramiro was manning the main cannon and Lime was in the commander's position in the turret, looking around with a pair of binoculars trying to see through breaks in the snow.

Mango, dressed in her Mindy, rushed up to a rock near the edge of the river canyon and took a tactical look down. "There is not exactly a ramp down but I think if you start here we can avoid a steep drop and then pass over the ice. The other side is more smooth and the TASHA can winch us up again if needed."

The Taisa decided to give it a shot, and the tank rolled and slid down the ice and pebble covered hill towards the bottom.

Suddenly, behind the group, a small four-legged tank burst out of a snow drift and opened fire on the Troll tank, hitting it in the thick rear door with a violent plasma explosion. Lime was thrown forward against the 35mm machinegun and when her head came back up it was bleeding. "Anngh!"

The TASHA wheeled about and sent a round flying at its smaller counterpart and narrowly missed only because the NMX spider tank was erratically dodging out of the way. Just then, a Shocktrooper emerged from the sky and began shooting at Takeyu and a bunch of NMX nekos took up covered positions around them to take pot shots with particle beam rifles.

Mango immediately locked on to the Shocktrooper and began firing.

"Take down the heavy ones first," Hanako ordered, while the tank sped down the riverbank toward a narrow part. "Focus fire on that tank!"

The howling air was filled with the sounds of gunfire.

When the NMX forces began their assault, Helen let out a sigh of annoyance, this was exactly what she had warned the Taisa about, things were distinctively not in their favor, though she had a job to do and she was going to do it to the best of her abilities, no matter how many 'I told you so' situations were involved.

A flurry of forearm projector fire screamed from her Kylie, spraying the snow covered ground between her position on the TASHA's flank, and the attacking NMX Flayer. Vaporized water swelled into a cloud of rapidly freezing mist, as Helen used that mist as visual cover, while her mini-missile launchers released a pair of warheads which detonated between her position and the Flayer as she quickly skimmed along the frozen snow, moving behind the tank in a position which the ball-turrets of the unit could not rotate. Once in position, she targeted one of the rear leg joints with her railgun, loaded with aether-tapping slugs, and the other leg with her forearm projectors set in beam mode. With targets designated, she opened fire in hopes of taking the tank's legs out from under it.

A huge explosion flashed as the aether slug hit the Flayer tank, sending it off balance as its leg shattered and exploded. The TASHA took advantage of that, hitting the Flayer in the face with its main cannon. Helen's aether cannons finished it off, leaving it badly damaged and smoking. It collapsed into a nearby pit and burned thick black smoke.

Meanwhile, Mango was zapped by the Shocktrooper and stumbled forward with a groan of pain into the base of the cliff.

An NMX Neko sniper tried to shoot Armundo.

Another fired at Helen and hit her armor in the temple, causing her to lose her balance. Luckily, the helmet held strong.

Using the tank's anti-sniper system, Lime aimed at Helen's attacker and opened up with the 35mm gun, though it was unclear if she was able to hit the Neko from her angle.

Hanako carefully began driving across the ice.

Takeyu crouched down, hearing the rattling of fire in the ground around him he looked up and aimed his weapon at the approaching shock-trooper, opening fire with a volley before he brought up forearm shield to protect himself from the remaining fire. He didn't let up, aiming at the shock troopers center of mass and continuing the stream of fire.

He backed off a bit to give the tank some covering fire; and kept his eye on the shocktrooper - intent on taking it out.

An agitated grunt of annoyance left Helen as she felt the impact against the helmet of her armor. She was thankful for whatever engineering genius decided to add locking pins to this Kylie variant. Recovering from her stagger, Helen shifted her attention skyward as she unleashed another volley from her forearm projectors in the direction of the Shock Trooper, aiding in Takeyu's own attempt to neutralize the unit. As she fired, Helen skimmed along the snow once again, moving in the direction of the TASHA to keep their defensive line close.

Armundo saw the flash of movement with his powerful eyes, but his brain was just not fast enough to act on what his eyes saw. The plasma explosion detonated directly behind him, sending him flying from the tank violently. He hit the snow like a sack of potatoes, tumbling head over heels. A audbile snap was drowned out by the sound of gunfire as Armundo's already injured shoulder gave way under the strain.

The sound of gunfire seemed so far away and muffled. His eyes spasmed and flickered in his head wildly, not understanding the muddled signals coming from his brain. Armundo's helmet lay several feet away, the screen cracked and charred from the plasma explosion. Though it had already saved his life once. Even so, the side of Armundo's face was raw ,red and blistered, burned from the momentary exposure to the plasma once his helmet had been ripped off. Armundo groaned as he tried to pick himself up from the snow, but his limbs didn't seem to want to work like they should. He managed to get to his feet, bullets whizzing all around him. He had to take cover somewhere before he was killed. He ran towards the opposite side of the tank, stumbling and only just catching himself. His injured arm hung limply at his side as he rounded the edge of the tank.

However, just as he was about to round the edge of the tank, a round came from nowhere, running right at him. It could've been anything, a gust of wind, a misplaced breath, a wrong pull of the trigger. The bullet slammed into Armundo's other shoulder, throwing him off this feet as a large gaping wound opened where his shoulder muscle used to be. The snow was bathed a splattered crimson red. Armundo fell into the snow which rapidly started to turn red under his body. Luckily, he fell behind the tank which would provide enough protection to keep the sniper from finishing him off.

Armundo's eyes flickered and dimmed as his conscience began to fade out, blood rapidly pouring from his body. If he was not tended to soon, he would bleed out and die in the snow.

With the enemy Flayer gone Ramiro turned his attention to the Shocktrooper. Taking careful aim and pausing a moment until he was sure it wasn't going to have an opportunity to dodge he fired with the main cannon, aiming for the lower torso in the hopes that if the hit didn't destroy the Shocktrooper it would at least disable the use of its legs.

"Lime, are you alright? You got a nasty gash on your head. Here are some bandages if you need them." Without looking back, Ramiro removed a roll on bandages from one of his utility belt pouches and tossed them toward Lime.

Sune had intentionally relegated himself to rear guard when the Away team set out. He was uncertain what a single away team from a wounded gunship would really be able to do. There were sizable forces on the surface fighting, would 10 more really make a difference, he doubted it.

When the ambush struck Sune resisted the impulse to start firing at any NMX. He recalled all to well that the last ground encounter they had with NMX was on HX-13, and that the NMX enjoyed using Snipers.

Sune took cover and started searching for any sign of a sniper. He spotted two, before he could fire at the first the tank fired on that position. He did not like having to wait for his crew mates to be fired upon, but it was the only way he could locate and neutralize any snipers.

As Armundo was struck by the second sniper Sune then fired a three round burst from his Ke-M2-W2905 at the second sniper and watched as the sniper recoiled from the shots.

He then diverted his attention back to where the first sniper had been making sure that the first sniper was not still active.

The tank just barely made it over the cracking ice and Hanako rolled turned it around halfway up the hill so the rear door would not be left facing the Neko snipers. Most of the armor team was still on the other side with the NMX nekos shooting down at them.

All of the combined fire managed to bring down the Shocktrooper's shields for a moment. Rmairo's well-placed cannon round then knocked it form the sky in an explosion of gore from its underside. When it hit the ground, Hanako yelled "finish it!" to the TASHA which fired it main cannon into mortally wounded shocktrooper, then promptly went over and stomped it to death with its legs, making sure to hit the brain.

"Armundo and Mango are hurt! MEDIC!" Lime shouted over the radio.

"I can make it okay," Mango groaned, struggling to get up. Somehow the sniper had blown a hole in her Mindy right in the middle of her lower pelvis. "Argghh!"

When the NMX launched their surprise attack, Reika was standing in an escort position beside the TAISHA's left flank. In those few moments that the guns started firing, the Flayer Tankette made its appearance and the Misshhuvurthyar Shocktrooper descended from the heavens with its weapon blazing, the SAINT operative activated her armors stealth system and active camouflage, significantly reducing the probability that she might be detected by enemy sight and scanners.

Reika took note of enemy positions by tracing the origin of their weapons fire. Her targets sighted, she raised up her rifle and aimed for one of the NMX infantry periodically rising up from behind cover to let loose a volley of particle beams towards the Eucharis away team. As the enemy trooper came up for another attack its armored visage fell beneath her cross-hair. Reika pulled the trigger and three armor-piercing rounds shot across the battlefield to hopefully embed themselves within the enemies skull.

The rest of the Away Team then managed to bring down the Shocktrooper, which went careening towards the ground in a bleeding heap -- its harden carapace punctured all over with energy burns. Reika continued to take aim and let loose short bursts of weapons fire in the attempt to reduce the numbers of their attackers, or at least ward them off.