Re: Chapter 1: Heat Lightning
ON: Aoi's Advance
"
Mendokusai!" Takeo barked when Takamori engaged his thrusters and burst off. Without looking back, she scrambled up the ridge's lip and engaged her Daisy's own thrusters to go after him. "Suriyama-hei! Yamashiro-hei!
Go!" she tagged before disappearing into the canopy after the idiot ittô hei that was giving away the entire squad's position.
Here we go again, Aoi thought taking a few steps forward and breaking to the far right with a boost of her thrusters. She'd have to find a good view on the objective, and when she did: boom! Aoi had always known she hated getting shot at (who didn't?) but she loved to cause things to explode. She had a morbid fascination with the way things were destroyed by military hardware. So she bolted with a half-grin, when she got the order to move.
Aoi's burst took her past SeonJi's grenade crater and closer toward the objective. But after a moment, she'd realize that relying too much on the Daisy's propulsion system was the last thing she should be doing outside of an emergency. After all, that seemed to be the reason Takeo was so infuriated with Takamori. She kept going on foot, bounding through trees and over rotted-out logs, vines snapping as she passed through them.
Somehow, though, her rightward course brought her closer to the front line again. The Geshrin spotter from Legion I found herself amidst friendly Star Army personnel once again and her path obstructed by fighting. It made sense once she got a grasp on what was happening — the allies she saw were coming her way and crossing her path — and heard a tinny chirp in her comms.
"You!
Hei!" the voice came. "Get your ass down, we've got a formation of
Flayers incoming![/i]
"Oh!" Aoi dived low, and scrambled behind the nearest tree. The retreating Yamataians coming at her did the same, ducking in natural ditches and behind the concealment of foliage. In the distance, Suriyama-hei could hear mechanical movement and what sounded like the crunching of entire trees exploding under the might of something more powerful as thick-beamed shots began flying through the forest around her.
Then her grin got wider.
"Hey, we don't have anyone near those kani
, right?" She asked over the same frequency. Aoi forced herself to imagine the glorified walking crabs moving in tight formation ─ perfect for lasing for an orbital strike.
"Don't think anyone's comin' that's not already here,
hei," came the same gruff Nepleslian voice as an identifier blipped into Aoi's HUD. It identified the man talking to her as Ittô Juni Archie Delacroix and if she peered right, she could see him taking similar cover not 20 feet parallel from her. The built-up armored collar that all Daisies had was painted with a little symbol on his armor: A small red dot backed by two crossed katanas with stylized sun beams sat where most soldiers had nothing. Delacroix-juni had been awarded the Order of the Blazing Sun, Yamatai's highest combat honor.
"So you're not gonna be able ta get back and save anybody if you're thinkin' of playing hero," he said in a commanding way. "Don't need any heroes tha'll get themselves killed!"
"Hero? Me? I'm just making sure no one gets in the way of my fun, Delacroix-juni. I'm gonna call in an orbital strike..."
The combat veteran grinned inside his armor. Aoi, indeed, must seem like a gift from the
kami themselves. "Alright, get to't then! Call down the flash!"
"
Hai!" Aoi answered gleefully.
Consent granted, Aoi pulled out her tiny lasing device then leaned out to begin drawing a bead on the tankettes. She then pinged her "spotter" frequency, wondering if anyone was out there to receive he strike call.
When the Geshrin spotter rounded the tree and peeked out to see the coming onslaught, she could spy five of them. Five machines painted in green camouflage stomping their way through the wet jungle, each taller than two people combined. They fired big shots of energy from hull-mounted cannon and one of them carried a rocket launcher rigged to its top. Approaching from about 75 yards away, the crablike enemy armor were already too close for comfort. But now would be her last chance.
Static reigned in response to her first tappings on the artillery liaison communications band. After a few moments, a sharp, sweet Yamataian girl's voice chimed through. "YSS
Ghidora, come back, Dagger 2-1. Ready to commence firing when we receive your feed!" she said in a very eager way. "You're the first one to call in! We've been itching for this all day."
"This is Dagger 2-1. Request precision Aether strike on lazed coordinates ─ blues in vicinity,
Ghidora," Aoi called back, shaking her head ruefully. That voice was
too sweet for what was happening on the ground. The disparity between void and ground-pounder forces within the Star Army became that much bigger, in Aoi's mind.
Data streams flowed from Aoi's armor to the battleship above, locking in the targets that appeared in her HUD. Small arms fire skittered through the trees, bursting bark in the spotter's luckily-armored face. "Targets acquired, Dagger 2-1," the Neko gunner up above the planet chirped as an indicator flashed on Aoi's display, showing the synchronized readout from
Ghidora's batteries. "Locked in two-nine-five. Firing in three. Two. One.
"Mark!" the voice squeaked with a weirdly monotone efficiency.
The little readout showing Aoi the space guns' status flashed a bright orange. In the moment between the Neko gunner's mark and the
superheavy turret's impact, all seemed silent. Aoi could count the second of calm in fractions as the NMX tankettes' shots hung in the sky. And then the fleet support came down.
Bright, pink light bathed the forest in an instant as the starship-grade armaments impacted their targets. The power of
Ghidora's guns made SeonJi's grenade work earlier look like a dust devil whirling away on some calm farmland as they rent the jungle in front of Delacroix's squad and Aoi. Aetheric fire engulfed the entire area, washing them all with heat. But the Star Army made its name on precision, and this attack was no different — none of the friendly infantry were harmed. The tankettes, for their part, simply vanished. They didn't have time to explode, vaporizing under fire from weapons meant to take down enemy battleships.
Aoi let out a whoop of victory, and then with a small wave to the Juni, she leapt out of cover and sprinted toward her objective, taking a mental picture of the destruction so she could tell the story perfectly later. She'd have to add three tanks to her kill list, too.
All around her, the Yamataian troops could be heard shouting war cries in celebration with her. They rallied and ran alongside the Geshrin spotter for a time, gunning toward their own objective. Aoi would disappear from view after engaging her active camouflage again. Now well on her way, she'd come upon the others from her squad any minute now.
END
