Re: [Phase One: Mission 2] Blind Flight, Fight
>>ON,
Fal Drudis Spaceport, Mazerin
Malakai 1, 935
04: 58, Commonwealth Standard Time
The battle in the skies over the spaceport city of Fal Drudis continued, with the members of Bahram Wing squaring off against mysterious modified Soono units posessing unconventional designs unlike those of the weak frames encountered on their first assignment. Whereas the enemy had previously been easily overwhelmed, these newer versions seemed to have some adaptations to the tactics and abilities of the Erla VANDR. With three members of the Wing out of commission and the remainder fighting under extreme jamming, the situation seemed grim.
----
The Soono that 'Ismat was facing took the hits through its shields, causing light perforation of the armor. The frame, which lacked active shield systems, responded promptly by boosting away and flanking around to avoid the CELB fire. He was caught unaware by her MASC jump, and promptly struck cleanly in the back with the volley of PASD missiles, causing his defenses to drop down significantly on impact.
'Ismat moved in for what would hopefully be a finishing blow after her PASD barrage. Her VANDR charged in at high speed to try and stab the weakened Soono with the katars. "Not so sure you're going to win now, are you?" she taunted. She knew that she needed to hurry up and get back to helping the others, especially Zus and Ninlil.
Rina took a few hits, her shield taking the brunt of the damage. 'Ismat took a MASC jump, in response, to get behind the Soono, in melee range, to whirl around and attempt to deliver a bladed kick from the Divine 'Fist' on Rina's leg. "Hope you don't mind losing either!"
----
Alia launched the liftracer off the landing strip and kept the vehicle as low as she could, hoping that the VANDR would keep the attackers busy enough for her to get a good distance away.
"Copy that, Lanbalri, we already have teams on the perimeter. Confirm if the music is wave or particle?" The tower control NI replied, in a sexually ambiguous synth voice. There was a light tone of alarm, but the controlled emotional range of a mid-level intelligence seemed to make this into more of a nuance than an outright expression of feeling. "Tower over."
"Particle, I repeat, Particle. Canister drop confirmed, point of origin, unknown, my instruments are not geared to cut through this, and visual is near zero." The doctor responded in kind, she was nervous...not merely for her own safety, but the simple fact comrades were fighting, and she currently had no way to get to them beyond the Quodr they were presently in. And that, wouldn't even take a pot shot without careening off into the distance only to explode.
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"You bastard!" Savitar and Shiva's enemy boosted to evade the particle blasts, but was struck in the right shoulder by a grazing beam and had lost most of its shields from the attack. Electrical damage at the point of impact caused the limb attached at that point to fall limp. But it did not stop attacking, even as the ERP pulses disable sensors, and continued to aim using optical sensors in a unaimed spray towards the Curdatl Frame Runner.
Savitar smirked and strafed the spray by making his thrusters shove him violently off to the side while trying to maintain an orbiting manuever. "Yeah I know." He said to himself in response to the enemy and fired another shockbite blast toward the shoulder he'd gotten before. Then complimented that by unleashing a CELB burst to arc around in the opposite direction to try and take out his thrusters. He remembered that Shiva had detected that these Soonos were weakly protected in that area and tried to relay that information to the others over the Squad level comm. "Aim for their thrusters.”
Savitar's attack struck the enemy Soono square in the damaged shoulder, causing the limb to be blown off in a burst of blue particle death, the detonation knocking the enemy away to the side as it was struck. The mecha's rifle was then knocked out of its hand and spun up as it continued to fire, causing it to fire a burst of high caliber rounds into the chest and head of the mecha. It stood there for a few moments, motionless, before tumbling back to the ground.
----
Anik continued to stumble through the light snow-covered landing pad, attempting to check if the downed Nara was still housing a live pilot even as the air began to become increasingly hazardous to her. But every step seemed to hurt immensely, every movement resulted in more blood to pour a little more from her mouth and nose. It was minutes before she came close enough to the cockpit, and merely fell to her knees and rolled over to prop her back against the hatch. A gloved hand tapped against the door, before wiping a little more flowing blood away from a speaking mouth. "Hey... Zalus, right? You still alive in there?"
Zalus had been sitting with his eyes closed not sure if was hurt or not when the knock came on the hatch. it startled him and he looked around quickly at the noise. He couldn't hear what the person on the other side of the hatch had said but they sounded hurt and non hostile. He quickly moved over to the hatch and pushed it open which led to some of the liquid he was breathing spashing onto the ground around Anik. "Saints! You know I was looking forward to the posibility of seeing you again but this isn't the way I though it would be..." Zalus pulled her into the Pod and closed the hatch behind him to keep out the cold. "Well Ma'am what happened to you?
"Nothing much. The air around here is pretty lousy, especially since they started letting terrorists drop their luggage on the platform." Anik replied, with a bit of a pained grin as another bit of red fluid dribbled down her cheek. "It's damn nice of you to take care of me like this, though." She shifted around to lean her head against a nearby panel and support her body better. "How's everyone else doing?"
----
As Reovan flew up to face the closest enemy Soono, she would notice the white and blue VANDR of her Wing Commander, facing an Soono surrounded by small drones toting light arms, which in turn where firing on the Frame Officer. Firing back with his CELBS in short bursts, he had disabled one or two of the drones, but could was not offered any window of opportunity to face the puppetmaster without exposing himself to an all-out attack by his drones. The white VANDR was already covered in small burns and scratches.
"... Mehta, take the drone controller out!"
"Right!" Reovan responded, using her charged MASC jump not to follow Zus as she had planned, but instead Jarita jumped towards the unit in order get in a better position to unleash her missile barrage at the aformentioned drone controller. "Time to put a stop to this nonsense," she said as the weaponry took flight from her VANDR frame.
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"Trying to stay alive." Came Alia's response as she kept her Quodr low enough to stay out of the AA guns sweep range. "You don't sound well Anik, the mountian air not blending well?" Alia remarked, trying to make some light of the situation.
Savitar looked around to look for the next person that might need some aid and went to check on Zalus. "Hey Zal, are you alive there?" he asked him and tried to clear up the optical view to see what was going on.
"Well I'm the third down. The other two didn't do as well as I did however. I killed a few of them but as you can see that only took me so far." Zalus shifted in the cockpit to get into a more comfortable position. "I'm sorry dear for the cramped quarters, but Nara wasn't build to carry two people. Make yourself comfortable though." Zalus motioned around the pod. He then heard the somewhat garbled transmission from Savitar come through the radio. "Well Sav I'm grounded but on the bright side I now get to share Nara's cockpit with a rather lovely woman." Zalus smiled over at Anik.
"Lucky you." Savitar laughed. "wish I had that kind of luck but I'd rather not get mangled to get there." He quipped and backed off some to try using his repulsor in an attempt to get a sensor reading on what was gong on.
----
"Right. Can you pinpoint them for me so I can move in closer to them?" Zus asked, while changing course to head south. She continued to fire as the opportunity came upon her, but mostly focused on running as fast as she could toward the defenses. "These things had better not shoot US down" the Eyr Ranr muttered to Ninlil.
"Just follow my signal, and... well, here's hoping this actually works!" Ninlil replied, remotely sending accessing the local defense network using 'her' old permissions, and bringing the air defenses online. One by one, AA laser batteries sitting sun-capped black towers powered up, and prepared to fire, on them! The enemy Soono was still a minute or so away, and suddenly paused mid-air as it detected the sudden overwhelming firepower coming online. "Oh erm... crap. You might want to start evading, since my authorization codes were let through but I need to make a new line of programming so they don't shoot us down!"
"... Right." With that, Zus charged directly at the AA battery, letting Paralovi start the VANDR on a randomizer, bringing the flight pattern into something the battery would hopefully be unable to track. It was her only chance, and she hoped the batteries weren't stupid enough to fire on one another if she made it behind one. "Make the program fast, I'm not sure how long we can keep up this pattern in atmosphere.."
----
Her volley intercepted, Reovan saw a single damaged drone take the attack and be ripped apart in the conflagration, with another three closing in to fire on her. A few had gotten around the drone controller's guard, and impacted his armor, causing enough electronic damage to throw the enemy runner off for an instant.
This, was long enough for Serhan to react, MASC jumping close enough to place a dual LCPA shot through all three drones and open up the controller to an attack by his subordinate, before he was knocked away by the remainder of the units under the enemy's control and fired upon by the swarm. "Mehta, take him out." He communicated with a cold grunt, keeping both arm vector barriers up as long as he could against an onslaught of autocannon and laser fire.
If she could've moved her muscles, Reovan definitely would've made some sort of dissatisfied expression at the result of her volley. "Alright, I guess up close and personal is how it has to be done," she said as Jarita spun about, dodging the drones as she centered on the controller, this time twirling through the air, attempting to land a bladed foot right through the annoyance.
----
As the Quodr continued its low profile flight, the misshapen form of a once proud VANDR laid, sprawled, damaged, a shell of its former self. Battle damage marred the armor plating, punctured it in areas, sparks flew, twinkling against the backdrop of the snow... Amari had, had her face plastered to the glass of the cockpit, trying to make out anything amongst the snow fall, and particle wake. The Quodr had flown close to Nara, close enough for Amari to see fluids creating a opaque, greyish sheen against the ground, off color from the pristine white, or partially sooty snow. The doctor thought her face would go through the glass if she pushed any harder before she turned about, eyes rather alert from their usual calm, demure appearance.
"Alia, I just saw what looked like a VANDR down, I have to get to it...I saw fluids leaking out, it looked like Prajna...which is bad...very bad." Her final words emphasized as she began to get a little antsy, as well as wary over the situation.
"Ok, hold on." Alia responded as she banked the Quodr wide to sweep back to the fallen VANDR, upon approch, she lowered the landing gear and made as best a snow landing as she could. "Better bundle up, we're going to get really cold soon." Alia said as she reached for a coat.
Amari was already zipping up her thick winter coat, and pulling on warm gloves. "I'm going to get really cold, soon. You're staying with the Quodr. We need someone to monitor comm traffic, and you're the second highest ranking person here." The doctor didn't especially relish cold weather, not like this anyways... it popped into her mind as she grabbed the medical case she”d brought along, pulling it up from the seat, and into her lap. "And I don't know if Khiyai will be alright alone...she's been terribly quiet the whole time. Stay with her, I'll take a radio with me, so if I need you, you'll know."
"..." Khiyai seemed to be bundled up in a jacket, resting soundly against the corner of the cockpit, eyes struck wide open as she stared out at the scene around her. Was this what Malik had been talking about, what she had told him to expect without so much as thinking about how she'd react to being brought here herself. And now Anik was...
Anik chuckled grimly, and reached out a bloody glove to pat Zalus on the head. "Bring me a bottle of something nice if I make it to the hospital. I'll pay you back, I promise." She said a bit dimly, as her eyes began to shut slowly. Her body was in intense pain now, but some of the bleeding had slowed because her exposure to the particles had ceased. Still, she was still bleeding, and with no apparent external wounds, it was fairly obvious what was happening to her. "Damn, don't let me sleep, hun. If I black out, I won't know how bad it is."
Savitar remained where he was, to cover Zalus and the others incase enemies came toward that area again. He didn't know how seriously hurt they were but if someone got to them it'd just get a helluva lot worse. "Dammit I can't see anything through this jamming." he said as he attempted to repulse the particle jamming to get a reading. "Shiva, can you get a reading on the position and condition of the other squad members?" he asked the NI.
Zalus reached out and placed his hand on Anik's shoulder and pulled on her slightly. "Well my dear I know one thing that might make you relax some and keep you awake." Zalus turned her around and started to massage her shoulders. "If you want me to stop I could just bop you on the forehead every time you start to nod off." Zalus joked as he continued his trade. This was one of the ways he would normally flirt with agirl but at this moment that wasn't his intentions.
Amari had grabbed her rifle, looking briefly to Khiyai, her heart going out to the poor thing. Hopefully, Alia merely being there would bring her some measure of comfort. But, rebreather in place, goggles on, and her head tucked into the jacket's hood, secured, she opened the cockpit's hatch. Cold air blasted inside for a brief moment as she jumped out, case, and rifle in hand. Her boots crunched on snow as she closed the cockpit, resealing it. One more look to the occupants, and the good doctor was off, the loud "Crunch Crunch" of boots on hardpacked snow evident as she went at a trot, the mecha looming before her, a VANDR who'd been torn asunder, oozing fluids coagulating, freezing. She knelt briefly, scooping some of the viscous jelly-like gray substance up, knowing it to be Prajna. The symbiotic lifeforms had all but frozen, went into a deep hibernation state, or died.
She then got to her feet, pulling the rifle up, the case slung on it's strap over a shoulder as she made her way slowly to the chest of the ravaged unit. Taking stock of what she saw, the battle it had seen must have been intense... she wondered briefly if it was even salvageable, granted, Alia would give it her all, the thought occupying her mind as she kept walking forward, heading to the base of the neck, and head, where the cockpit/insertion capsule would be located. She had no idea what she would find, let alone the shape of it. But if there was someone alive in there, she had to get to them quickly, or else risk them dying of any injuries sustained, or a cruel death at the icy claw'd hands of nature itself.
----
Beam lasers raked across the sky like pillars of light, coming closer and closer to Paralovi with each sweep. Each volley was only halted when friendly fire between the towers was to occur, but otherwise, the shots were unending. Interestingly, the pursuing Soono, elected to remain further away, perhaps only waiting to see if and when it could claim its prize. "It's finished. Shoot down the main sensor dish atop the central tower and I can slave it to your targeting systems!" Ninlil exlaimed, shaking up Zus' motionless body as she shouted to her through the VANDR's communications system.
"And that would be..There!" Zus communicated, turning her weapons on the dish. She fired on it, and boosted as close to the tower as she could, planning on replacing the dish with Paralovi so she could have the same field of view as the spot's previous occupant.
----
Moving to intercept the surprise back-stab, the Soono swung around with its powered fist with tremendous force. The bladed strike made by Rina cleaved the arm off the enemy's body, but he retaliated by plunging his other arm into her VANDR's torso, placing a shallow hole into the armor as it penetrated shields and the topmost layers of the Aerudirn colonies that coated the mecha's body.
'Ismat cursed, feeling Rina being not-so-happy about being punched. The VANDR raised it's arm to stab the katar into the Soono's remaining one while using CELB fire at point blank. 'Sorry Rina. I'll try to not that happen again,' 'Ismat thought to her VANDR's NI. 'You've been doing great so far though! Just a little bit more and we'll beat this jerk!'
----
"Oh well. I'll die the lived... I died." Anik said in a rather relaxed, if a little incoherent manner. "Got any rations in your storage compartment? I need to get the taste of blood out of my mouth."
Zalus looked over and opening the small compartment. "Lets see... This might me good..." Zalus pulled out a small flask and handed it to her. "I hope this is what I think it is."
Amari had to climb a little ways, lugging the case and rifle awkwardly up along with her as she reached the cockpit exterior hatchway. The doctor pressed a hand to the cold armor plating, wiping away soot, and snow as she took the butt of the rifle, and banged it against the cockpit, the muffled thuds translating through.
PAUSE
