RP: Setareh Wing [Four] Take On Me

Whaizat Jungle

"Smiles and days, Irfan is here to play~!"

As the RAEVRs pushed ahead, her mighty warmachine hefted back with airbrakes running. It was enough to bring her into the proper rear position of the formation, letting her abort course to run and put the RAEVR group to the flank. At this point, it meant she was nice and in position... and made a show of it by readying both arms and tuning Lucidity for an all-out barrage if necessary.

"They're sneaky~... but if you flank them, then I don't need to worry, right? Even in battle, one can slip through the cracks. And when they do, they'll bite it."

Jungle

"Moving position." announced Shaanti, who also fell back beside Irfan in a smooth motion. Unlike her, he readied his sniper-cannon, and began effortlessly drawing a bead on one of the drones in the rear. Irfan's barrage would no doubt slag the first wave. Better if he began picking off foes in the rear.

"I am ready."

Whaizat Jungle

The trainees tasked with shooting the drones in the dense forest marked and aimed, but two of the three they were to shoot went as if unhindered past the line of trainees, straight for Setareh. The other blew into bits like what had happened to the third.

Meanwhile, the two that had originally been plowing towards Setareh made for Altair and Irfan, zooming to their positions while throwing out a barrage of shots with their light artillery guns. Then they switched to linear autocannons when closer and began assaulting those around Irfan and Altair with those weapons while their other guns shot out.

Whaizat Jungle

Karuah followed after Zoren, Saeid still in bipedal mode, flight control in the atmosphere was harder, and though the estimations said that there would be no dramatic loss in performance while in ARMS mode, the pilot was not too confident in her precision with in gravity maneuvers.

As she flew she tried to lead the drones into the make shift kill box as instructed, but her biggest concern was on the status of those labeled as a mechanist, she wanted to know how they responded to her instruction so she kept a part of her thoughts on watching them.

Jungle

Shaanti began to steady his breathing, and thus his heart rate. It was a difficult task whilst adrenaline was pumping through his veins, but the technique had been drilled into them constantly in sniper school. All he had to do was wait for the drones to enter the kill zone.

ZAP!

Shaanti let loose with the sniper cannon, aiming for Irfan's drone. He was sure she could handle it, but he attacked regardless, due to the off chance that she might find herself stumbling into a parked car. There was a complete absence of parked cars in the jungle, but one could never be too careful.

Yeah, he was probably never going to forget about that.

His position compromised, Shaanti dropped back and prepared his other weapons systems for close engagement, but someone else would no doubt finish the last drone.

Whaizat Jungle

Zoren ran forward still in his bipedal mode and ran around the drones. "Incoming Doc." Enigma said as several drones spotted him.

"Roger..." He replied as he dodged and weaved through the trees, leading the drones into the kill box. Just as they reached the killzone, Zoren dove out of the way and rolled onto one knee and fired at the drones from the side of the formation.

Whaizat Jungle

While the others showed finesse and her wingmate seemingly stole first blood, the eccentric Eyr Ranr was not pleased. Having fun was her agenda, and the lost-tally in a drill was infuriating just on the idea.

Then the wounded drone was smashed in an unholy hail of explosive mortars, shattering and splintering many trees. The other drones within the formation's closing noose felt the sting next, well-placed lances of her Haidan's long-range weapons tearing chunks through armor or electrically buzzing systems into melting down. Malfunctions, even if not complete kills, ensured she was producing all the aggro. Lucidity was beaming in the rush, riding a growing high as the ace pushed her machine into groove of one of the most deadly machines in the entirety of the Astral Commonwealth.

"Taste my skill, you tiny-raft scraps! Heeeeee~!"

She smiled bigger than ever as she enjoyed her job. The car-flop was already a meaningless shadow to this now-beaming pilot. Irfan was on a different planet compared to the rest of the wing.

Whaizat Jungle


Altair dodged the drone's inaccurate shots and slipped into the treetops, bursting out in ARMS mode right below them and spraying them with fire from his weapons before transforming in midair above them and circling and firing again.

"Drive them towards our heavies!"

Whaizat Jungle

"...is, is she alright?"

Mox couldn't help but ask a somewhat irrelevant question as Irfan took into the fray. By the sound of their voice, Mox was a little bit unsettled just now. A little bit. But they held steady in their newly christened VANDR, waiting at the very end of the anvil. There were rangers enough racing into the fray to score kills. Mox was here to hold the line. (They'd be legends - but the records are sealed!) No weapons fire yet, no indication of their location beneath the mask of Sonatine's shroud.

The VT fangs remained primed, Mox' attention on tracking the trajectories of the drones as they came.

If any broke for the end of the echelon, if any sought to break away from the anvil, they were poised to strike. Until then, their best position was running rearguard.

Whaizat Jungle

The drones the Raevr's attacked eventually fell to pieces as the team opened up weapons fire on them. Shaanti's sniper fire had met its mark just in time for Irfan to begin her decimation of enemy targets. Irfan knocked and smashed and tore apart drones as she flew through the jungle, untouchable, it seemed, until a squad of ten drones showed up on their sensors directly behind them. They approached fast towards Mox and Shaanti's positions.

Naak looked eagerly at her readouts and smiled inside of Victory's prajna-filled pod. They had their work cut out for them. She also watched as one of the pilots to her right and behind was splattered with paint only milliseconds before tumbling into a tree, pounding through it and another before finally losing so much momentum that the Raevr they piloted knocked into a third wide trunked tree and dented it greatly before it slid down to the base of it, laying prone against the jungle floor.

"Mechanists, remember what to do?" Naak asked as she darted between trees, checking the pilot's life signs as she did, which were stable and unhindered. She keyed into Karuah's comms. "I know you do. Help them out." Already, several mechanists had popped into Saeid's comms, asking several questions.

"Should we drop shroud to help them?"

"We use repair kits, but what tools exactly for this kind of damage?"

"Have you ever dealt with damage like this on Setareh Wing?"

Their best position was rearguard, and of a sudden, rearguard was profoundly essential. Mox, and Sonatine, came about swiftly as new enemy readouts came up from behind.

"Mind your flanks! Covering you, Ekata, can you give me some light?"

...and indeed, Mox came about hard to intersect themselves between Shaanti and Archer and the (many) oncoming drones, their first intention being to draw and contain as much fire as they possibly could. Shroud dropped, ATA forward, Mox extended the defensive shield's barrier to provide greater cover to Shaanti and the others behind them, doing their damnedest to keep the angles of attack past them minimal and low-percentage.

At last, the twelve Phantoma Needles broke free from their docks as Mox waited - waited - waited for the drones to close in on their position. The VT fangs, as much as the shield, were deployed defensively. Anything that came close felt the swarming of the tiny blades, but Mox was careful, as ever, not to over-extend.

Whaizat Jungle

The damage that the squad received overall was not too big, but one of the pilots did crash rather spectacularly into several trees. Before anyone even said anything she spoke up. "Saeid, I want to see his vitals."

In mere moments a display showing the pilot's vitals was on the screen and Karuah could see that he was in no immediate danger. She continued her flight pattern for a bit and waited for her instructions.

After Naak's words she could have given precise instructions and walked the rookies through every step, but they wouldn't learn that way so when she finally spoke, she channeled as much of her old boss Abbas Tawfik as she could.

"First check his vitals and his machine's condition, determine the urgency of the situation and then coordinate with your team on getting a safe approach. This is a training exercise, so even though the urgency isn't high you're going to get in the practice."

The purple haired Iroma let out a sigh and then scanned the area to find a good area. "Only two of you will be needed for the work, the rest provide cover and get the frame out of the immediate combat zone. Then get to work, this is a field repair, you won't get it back to pre-launch condition, get it to a condition where it can fight if that's not possible get him out of the combat area." She intentionally avoided explicit directions on the repair to see how far their training would take them.

Whaizat Jungle

"Bapbapbap!"

Irfan's playful demeanor boomed inside her personal cockpit, not thumbing her enjoyment of the combat to her wingmates. Three more bursts ripped through nature like a blast from the awesome future, providing the cover for the mechanist without any need to ask. Irfan's machine dived in and out from the tree cover, paint splattering and decking the various trees as she pushed the machine harder and harder. Her orders were to draw fire and give it. The drones that were pressuring their front weren't going to startle the pilot, rushing forward and diving beneath Mox's shielding front. Lower and lower, the machine darted side-to-side faster with slight bumps and skims of its shields as it bumped the barks. Lucidity still wasn't taking a break from its consistent barrage, but as the mortars thumped up and into the belly of another drone, Irfan had one of her most infamous of incidents.

She pushed too hard.

One hard throttle to the left, now beneath the drones as she shot almost straight up into their lower flank, and Irfan slammed the Haidan into a tree hard. The shields rummed to their max, throwing her away to prevent further damage, before slamming into another. And then another. She was repeating the downfall that had occurred to one of their fellow pilots in the training exercise, but unlike them she was simply breaking the golden rule that had always made her unpredictable for any of the talent she had in her body. And Lucidity was practically screaming surly insults as it tried to voice the type of damage it was impending to suffer... before Irfan finally caught some of a break. Her machine caught itself hard enough that its shields didn't simply bounce it away but slammed through the bark, flickering out in time for her to slam the tree. Her cockpit shook, she was rocked severely, and warning signals began blaring... but it gave her the chance to finally curse as she fought just to keep it from giving out and falling to the ground.

"Come on, Lucy, don't you dare stop! I was just getting going! I wanna show the formation what I can do!"

"Lucy, noooo~!"

And then there was a thunk, the pilot's machine slamming to the ground in her own neck of the forest, the Haidan's arms trying to desperately claw it back upward. It had suffered thruster failure of some kind, the machine's combat-loving spirit and pilot simply not enough to defy its inability to fly.

Whaizat Jungle

Zoren cursed as a new batch of drones flanked their firing line from behind. "Spread out and find some cover." He ordered to wing. He began skirting around the formation like he had done the first time, until Irfan fell...

Zoren cursed again. "Setareh Wing, give me covering fire!" He said as he sprinted out to the fallen VANDR. As he reached her, he grabbed Irfan's VANDR under the arm and hauled her upright. "On your feet. The rookies don't need a lesson in what not to do. Show then why you are here in the first place." He said firing at the drones. "Alright! Pincer formation! Split into two teams and flank the drones!" He ordered, smacking Irfan's shoulder to tell her to follow him.

Whaizat Jungle

Altair groaned as Irfan and Lucidity took a tumble. "Great..." He murmured to Hawk, "We're down a pilot now..." He followed his orders and covered Zoren by distracting the drones. He flew in front of them and through their formation, guns blazing as they tore into his enemies. The drones responded in kind, chipping away rapidly at his own shields.

"Stupid drones... Stupid Irfan..." Altair mumbled as Hawk alerted him to the status of his shields.

Jungle

"Contact rear." Shaanti said, just as a round slammed into his shields. Turning around, he found that Mox was attempting to shield the group from the new horde. Just then, Zoren ordered what was left of the formation to split and flank. Difficult, considering the circumstances, but not impossible.

"Mox," said the curdatl, raising his hands and opening his missile pods. "When I launch this volley, I will go left. You go right."

Shaanti launched a volley of star adders over Mox's shield, then focused his shields to the front in anticipation of the flanking maneuver.

Whaizat Jungle

Five drones got past Mox and Shaanti and Naak began bellowing orders to the trainees to form up and take the five that had gotten through out, but before they could, one was targeting the tumbling VANDR. Naak instinctively set her weapons systems' sights on the aggressive drone, then powered them down, sighing and turning her attention away to train the recruits.

As Zoren smacked Irfan's shoulder, the drone splattered the Haidan with a full spectrum of colors. Some of the paint bounced off of Lucidity and hit the Raevr next to her that Zoren was piloting.

Mox's needles would be able to prick the drone closest to them, which was hot on their tail.

Shaanti's volley found one of the five drones behind them, spreading its entrails across the forest with the direct hits.

Altair's shields were fine, but he had been doused with paint from the drones that were still capable of surviving.

Karuah's mechanists provided fire and together, two of them were able to take down one of the five that had gotten through. The VANDR was moved out of the combat zone and the two working on it worked meticulously and silently, only speaking when they had to borrow a tool or work in unison. The organic machine was back to a status in which it could move of its own volition and two mechanists spoke up.

"Now should we help your wing-member, Vaybalri?"

"Should we escort this frame back to the fort?"

Whaizat Jungle

"I'm trying, okay? Lucy isn't wanting to go up~!"

The pilot was glad to be off her back, at least, but the paint splattering her craft led her to audibly gasp over the comms. The Haidan pilot lost her footing again, stumbling back as the drone had delivered a brutal, colorful end to her glorious moment. Lucidity had suffered damage from its crash, leading the pilot to be grounded just long enough to be finished off. It was a moment that struck true to everyone, but the bubbly pilot had never thought it would happen to here. Or maybe she had, but she figured that everyone would protect her so she could be the ace she thought herself to be.

Now a sticky mix of paint, the Haidan aimed upward and she almost fired... but instead chose to let her machine lay back against a tree.

"The Saints will watch me now... get going, boss. I am... defeated! Bleh~... and I'll just follow along and wait for a mechanist to fix me up so I can get off the ground. Stupid... Lucy... not wanting to keep going. I need a VANDR that can handle me."

Whaizat Jungle

The Doctor swore under his breath as Irfan went down once more, and he took splash damage. "Damn it..." He swore again, turning and diving behind cover. He poked his head out again to fire off a few pot shots at the drones while he collected himself.

He sneered as he fired another salvo, rolling out of cover again and sprinting off behind the drones, attempting to draw their fire. "Now's your chance Setareh! Attack!"

Whaizat Jungle

So much happened all at once, Karuah's HUD was filled with information and she had to sort through it all in real time while piloting to keep up with what happened to the battlefield. Things became more and more difficult, but she did not let herself fall behind. First she spoke with the mechanics while she lined up a good attack vector. "No, you bothered to repair them, have them fall back and provide support fire. If they can't do that they can get back on their own if they're careful. Only if they are under fire should you take someone off the field to escort them. Also next time, communicate while doing repairs, keep those around you aware of what you're doing and how much time they need to buy you."

With some careful flying Karuah had gotten herself in good position, having finally entered standard combat range to help draw fire. Her first target were the drones that Zoren tried to get the attention of. She aimed her Shocksting cannons carefully and then unloaded several small burst of shots, trying to send a few shots each drones way to quickly eliminate them from behind.