RP: Setareh Wing [Four] Take On Me

[Ametheliana]

Hlarai
Whaizat Jungle
Fort Tapir
Ghaliya 14, 942
10:00, Commonwealth Standard Time

Naak was dressed in a dark blue sleeveless mesh shirt, white short shorts with dark blue trim, and issued reinforced boots with gold accents— the standard issue workout clothes of the Astral Vanguard, plus the boots of the standard uniform. She walked into the VANDR bay of the base and then climbed up to the top of her Erla II and stood atop it while looking down on the group of youngsters not yet out of training. Her shining silvery hair that ended in thick black strands spun in the wind of the open-air bay as she propped her hands on her waist.

While she waited, she looked out at the jungle that spread in the distance, seeing the large fanning leaves and draping vines and wondering how her wing and the recruits would fair today. She peeled her eyes away from the jungle to those assembled and then towards both entrances of the bay. All that she needed now was to wait for her wing and the Solan Starworks technician, Thao, to join them. They all had been notified to come as quickly as possible and she had no doubts it would only be a matter of time until they were underway.

 

[Blizzard]

Fort Tapir- VANDR Bay

Ever one for punctuality, Shaanti was one of the first to arrive. Archer slowly glided into the space and gracefully touched down next to Victory. There were a couple of seconds as the frame powered down before the cockpit opened to reveal the wing's new sniper.

The new patch on his desert jacket still made him stare in disbelief. His family had been elated at the news. With a neutral expression that hid his giddiness, Shaanti slid out of the cockpit and stood at parade-rest with his hands behind his back, dressed to the nines in his standard desert uniform. Inside his cockpit, his rifle could be seen, pristine as the day it came off the assembly line, having been stripped apart meticulously and searched for any imperfection. No matter the circumstances, it would never be far from Shaanti's grasp.

"Good morning, Lanranr." greeted the curdatl, staring out at the "fresh meat", as if he were making mental profiles of them based solely on their body language and appearance.

 

[Ametheliana]

Fort Tapir- VANDR Bay

"Good to see you, Vayshirin Shaanti Ekata!" Naak bellowed, happy to see a friendly —at least to her— face. "Quite a nice day for a grilling, don't you think?" Her mind was obviously thinking about the fresh meat, as well. It was as juicy and tender as a zoloat and the Lanranr was more than ready to get going with the trials and tribulations she had planned for them.

 

[Orion]

Fort Tapir

Mox was next: uncertain as a newborn chile, but utterly intent upon not showing it. No, Mox certainly was not going to be late for their maiden assignment. Entirely unacceptable, even to consider the possibility.

...their hair was less meticulously neat than it had been at first reporting, though. More of an incoherent mop, with a token effort to tie it back out of their eyes. Their uniform, too, was just a little bit less perfectly placed. As though Mox' standard outlook was just a little bit disheveled, perhaps, and no amount of effort could keep that from being the case for long. For whatever it mattered, Mox meant to make up for that with pure pluck and youthful enthusiasm.

"Good morning, Laranr!" Mox called in greeting, from far below, with a sharp and earnest salute. "Vayshirin Ketlalli, reporting."

Were they getting a VANDR assigned today? A for really real one? Oh, the great joy and also nested layers of millions of reasons to panic!

 

[Blizzard]

Fort Tapir - VANDR Bay

Shaanti scanned over the mass. A few seemed sheepish at being in the presence of actual, combat-tested frame-runners. Understandable, given that they weren't yet out of training. Yet, there were a few that stood taller than the rest, and even displayed outright bravado to their fellow trainees.

A small grin formed on Shaanti's face. Some bravado was a good thing. But to have so much despite not actually doing anything, well...

He would have fun knocking them down a few pegs. No greenhorn ever thought about the possibility of snipers in the combat zone. They never expected to see one of their comrades instantly slagged by a SCPA cannon, without warning, only to have mere seconds to find cover before the ghost-warrior lined up another shot and fired.

"Indeed, though we must be careful of 'overcooking', lest we spoil the meat." replied Shaanti. A good lesson in humility could be applied here, so long as the trainees all learned something valuable from the experience, but they couldn't be too hard on them. Otherwise, the younglings would begin continually question their training, and lose valuable confidence which would be crucial to keeping them alive in the battles to come.

 

[Syaoran]

Fort Tapir- VANDR Bay

At the sounds of voices echoing through the bay, a head poked out from behind the well-maintained frame labeled as Saeid. It was the violet haired pilot, who looked just a little confused. "Are we starting already?" She muttered to herself as she came out from behind the machine. She was once again still in her mechanics clothes, spotted more frequently like this than in her actual uniform. She had been busy doing adjustments for atmospheric operations and lost track of time, only having realized their presence by their voices.

Karuah made her way over towards the others, wiping the grease off her hands with a cloth. "Vaybalri Dhawa, reporting."

 

[Gunhand4171]

Fort Tapir- VANDR Bay

Zoren was next to arrive it the bay. "Good morning Boss." The NCO said as he walked up to his VANDR Enigma. He climbed up and stood in the open cockpit. "So what's the plan for today?" He asked as he went through his pre checklist.

He was actually a tad excited to help train newbies. Time to show them how the SOF operate.

 

[Alex Hart]

Fort Tapir - VANDR Bay

Altair had arrived quietly, with few taking notice of him. He strode over to his VANDR and looked it over before he began to humto himself as he ran the checks on Soaring Hawk.

He snapped off a salute to Naak when he saw her, and waved to everyone else before walking over to where people seemed to be congregating l.

 

[Ametheliana]

Fort Tapir - VANDR Bay

Naak looked to the wing members that were either on or inside one of their respective organic machines or congregated as a group on the paved ground of the VANDR Bay. Unlike a starship VANDR bay, this one did not have a GB System to make the entirety of the bay a floor. Instead, there were racks on two walls with a launching system where the semi-organic mesh would extend and wrap around the VANDR that was launching and deploy it.

Naak looked to Mox, then pointed to an Erla II for the pastel-haired Ivuori to utilize.

"This is the Setareh Wing," Naak said loudly, sweeping an arm to her left to those VANDR in a line next to her own. "And today you will be training with them." She looked to those assembled, then to her team. "The first phase will find us scouting the jungle for threats. These threats will be in the form of MACD-like enemies. We'll just call them drones. There are some negligible differences, but the major one is that no harm will come to your vehicle when their weapon fire hits, but it will spray you with a colorful paint-like organic substance when you are hit by them. The second phase will find us in the air tactically fighting as two separate teams aiming to attain the same goal. And phase three will be a cool-down phase. We'll go over those two when we're done with the phases before them, respectively."

Naak went on to say, "Please, get into your assigned VANDR and we will begin."

Once everyone was inside of their immersion control pods, Naak spoke out to them while relaying information to everyone's visuals. She was showing them the order they would go in and the way in which they were to proceed.

"I want everyone to practice working as a team to do what I just did while we're in the jungle and in the air," Naak said. "Send your allies targeting information, positioning arrangements, tactical analysis, what have you. Stay in constant communication."

Everyone would be able to see that the Lanranr would be going first with the trainees second, then the Setareh Wing last with the engineering consultant and embedded war correspondent bringing up the rear.

When she was sure everyone had gone over the information, Naak deployed. She was slung into the air and made a vertical drop almost instantly and plummeted down towards Hlarai before evening out at the last minute and flew into the jungle just next to the VANDR bay of Fort Tapir. The trainees exited with much less grace and soon, were in the jungle, too.

Naak ordered, "Spread out," as she rocketed past the drones, not aiming nor firing on them, but also not being shot at by them, either. She was the sole one of those going out for training that would not be targeted by the drones today.

To Setareh Wing, only, when it was their turn to launch, she said, "Show them how it's done, dreamers."

 

[Blizzard]

VANDR Bay

Shaanti once again climbed into Archer.

Systems operational. Ready for deployment. Said the AI without needing to be prompted. It had been slowly learning from its operator. Keep unnecessary chatter to a minimum, and stay ready for action.

As for the drones, Shaanti quietly ordered the VANDR to prep for stealth. Once he was out of the bay, he intended to cloak in order to evade the drones. An opponent was exceptionally dangerous when one didn't know they were there.

Shaanti looked over to his wing mates and waited for them.

 

[Syaoran]

Fort Tapir - VANDR Bay

Karuah climbed back into Saeid and prepared it for flight as she spoke. "I didn't get to finish all the adjustments so how is our operating efficiency right now?"

The VANDR replied quickly and clearly like always to make sure it's pilot was well informed. "On land, a 7% drop in performance is to be expected, 15% in the air while in standard combat form. ARMS form has no expected loss of performance from typical in gravity performance levels."

Karuah smiled as she changed into her Link suit in the cockpit now that most of the start-up was handled by the ONI. "Saeid, switch information distribution to tactical settings."

Another quick reply "Basic information will be relayed to the whole team, complex position tracking will be sent to the Wing Command as well as those close enough to be drawn into the battle. Is this acceptable?"

The pilot nodded and then smiled "Yes, prioritize rapid updates of information."

"Understood"

With all the preflight checks done Karuah waited for her time to launch and then did smoothly, immediately activating stealth systems on her Raevr.

 

[Orion]

...oh, the great joy and millions of nested reasons to panic!

Mox gave their sharpest salute to Naak. This was going to be best. Best. Nothing was going to go horribly wrong, necessitating brazen and risky heroics that invariably left exactly seventy-three dead and nine-hundred-and-eight wounded. The entire extended structure of worst-case scenarios unfolding within their overactive meat brain was clearly ridiculous, and Mox simply needed to not worry about it. Which, of course, was far easier said than done, but no time to worry about how hard it was not to worry about things: they had a VANDR assignment, for really real, and that meant -

- that naturally they tripped on their first step towards the Erla II, their face met the floor unceremoniously, and they had to rapidly scramble back to feet and brush themselves off as though nothing at all had happened. They climbed into the cockpit of this shiny new machine, face flushed with some mix of excitement and embarrassment, and nigh-melted into the link.

"Hello."

...everything looked good. Felt good. Preflight, zero hour, and high as a kite.

"Standing by..." Communication was tantamount here. Right? And Mox was junior-most runner in the wing. They were absolutely going to defer to everyone. "...what's our approach?"

 

[Gunhand4171]

Fort Tapir - VANDR Bay

Zoren nodded at his orders and walked into cockpit, the armor sealing shut as he stepped in. "Enigma, let's get this show on the road. Preflight check." He ordered as he changed into his own link suit.

"Roger that Doc." Enigma would reply. "Status green, final readouts are up for your review." The AI replied.

Zoren would finish changing and settle into the cockpit, the neural connections linking to his ports. "Report analysed. Everything checks out." He said as his Raevr moved into position and deployed.

Enigma activated it's stealth systems as it dropped from the sky as well. "All units spread out and take cover." He ordered.

 

[Alex Hart]

Fort Tapir - VANDR Bay

Altair hopped into Soaring Hawk and let out a whoop. He waited for the go ahead from the rest of the team and launched before answering Mox.

"I dunno. For me It's don't die, have fun and defeat the enemy." He said as he did a few aileron rolls.

 

[Legix]

Fort Tapir - VANDR Bay

Stylishly late, the others could recognize an acknowledgment as Lucidity powered on. Irfan's voice poked out over the comms as the Iroma was settling in and preparing to deploy after the now-rolling Altair.

"Don't worry, the ace is here."

The statement was spoken like Irfan believed it, and of course she did, before the Haidan roared out and into the air behind its compatriot machines. She'd never done checks very in-depth, relying on her connection between her and her crafts to help her out. That was likely why so many had been trashed during her earlier years from pushing them beyond their conditions. But Lucidity was different and fortunate in the same aspect, the VI well-attuned to her habits from the start while being fortunate enough to be after a long-line of VANDR that taught Irfan just how far she could go. The large, clawed machine came roaring at the rear of the formation. She was the hammer. The best hammer.

And within her cockpit, her signature trailing menace of hair was tamed. All that fluttering had been slowing her down recently, so she had done what many could hardly understand after working to acquire her massive ponytail. She had got a haircut, her buzzed head now much more akin to a raggy pixie cut with a shoulder-length ponytail currently. Being where she could run through atmospheres meant she felt wind resistance a lot more. A cold scalp never helped anyone, so it was easy to convince Ki that she needed a nice change.

Lucidity rushed through the formation, beyond the newbie and their rolling fellow Eyr Ranr. It only slowed as it approached Archer's right-rear flank, Irfan's position intending to likely serve as the 'right hook' of the formation as necessary. After all... she needed to be prime to score more kills with her menacing berserker VI's claws or long-range armament. And being in atmospheric conditions gave her a lot more capabilities to push the Haidan arsenal to full-kill.

"Lucidity on Archer, boss lady." Her machine's stealth systems powered on fully, her attention shifting outward. "I always love flying in atmospheric conditions~."

 

[Ametheliana]

Whaizat Jungle

Ferns and flora fluttered as the trainees and wing flew below the trees of the Whaizat Jungle. The Lanranr had to constantly make adjustments with Victory as her aide while flying, dodging trees and logs, vines and brush. But soon, a drone came into view. She called out to the trainees to her left and right to down it and they shot. One missed and one struck, but their positions were known, now. No amount of cloaking could change that. The drone splattered both with two shades of blue paint and the Lanranr shouted.

"Shoot and evade immediately, you two!"

They did so.

"Again!" Naak called. Before they could, a grouping of five drones came powering towards them, two of which got through the line of trainees and were heading for the Setareh Wing.

"Again!" Naak repeated to the two shooting the original drone and they destroyed it. One of the trainees narrowly avoided being knocked out of the air by the ensuring parts and pieces. Naak zoomed ahead and highlighted which trainee was to deal with which drone, then twisted around to look at her wing approaching in a loose echelon formation.

She wondered how they would fare without instructions from her before she regained her focus on the trainees. She wouldn't always be able to direct them in the field and they needed to start polishing their cohesive teamwork.

 

[Syaoran]

Whaizat Jungle

Karuah approached the collective of VANDR frames and nodded "Saeid, highlight those that have training as a Mechanist." She then waited a moment for the results to be pulled up. Once she saw them she spoke up on the comm system.

"Those of you with Mechanist training you need to stay clear of each other and keep yourself aware of the condition of everyone's frame. When you have the chance you might be able to repair. If you use a Raevr model, you can use the VNS system to store some patch supplies."

The pilot's attention then turned to her commander and she blushed at realizing what she had done then quickly sent a private message to Naak "I'm sorry, I spoke out of turn."

 

[Alex Hart]

Whaizat Jungle

Altair spoke openly over the channels in order to allow the trainees to hear how a team communicated.

"Alright everyone, as I see it our best option is to have our heavies stay back in cloak and use our RAEVRs to drive the drones into them. Everyone else should stay back in reserve in case something unexpected happens or one of the other groups needs help."

 

[Gunhand4171]

Whaizat Jungle

Zoren looked around at everyone. As they had stopped receiving orders from Naak, he was the ranking NCO.

"Setareh! Altair has the right of it. All RAEVRs on me. We will spread around the sides of the drones and flank them. Everyone else form a firing line back here and take out any drone you see. Am I understood!" He bellowed to the team.

He then moved forward quickly, maneuvering to flak the drones with the other RAEVR pilots. "Karuah on me. We go left. Altair and Radima go right. Drive the drones toward the firing line."

 

[Orion]

Whaizat Jungle

Orders came. Orders made sense, even if there was a bit of jumbling over the chain-of-command with Naak excising herself from the decision-making.

"Acknowledged. Falling in."

They'd done this a hundred times in drills and simulations and live fire exercises. They'd been exactly the trainees they were now supporting, not so long ago. What Mox had never done was this, in their own frame, as part of an assignment, and this was still terribly exciting. "What do you think? Are we friends yet?" The VANDR they flew, already in the lastmost place of the echelon, slowed and engaged its shroud. (So amazing omg.) ATA deployed before them, VT fangs ready to bite, Mox waited for the hammer to fall...