Menelik groused to himself in Hanyadi as he was reprimanded- AGAIN- for showing initiative. That grousing had a few choice words in it that not many people on this ship would recognize or understand even if he were broadcasting. That went on for a few seconds, before Menelik calmed himself down and thought about the situation instead of letting his reflexes control things- leave the reflexes to handle the actual fighting, and let the brain get him to the fight.
That got him thinking about doctrine, what he could do, and the situation. The Rangers had the initiative for now, which would let them choose when and where to attack. The Cats he was with seemed fine with letting them come at them and engaging the unpowered infantry in a firefight. The rangers had to be in that direction, and would generally be relying on their own senses, maybe a few drones. And their mobility was limited to huffing it on foot, which would limit what they could carry.
In comparison, he thought about what his own training said to do in this situation, his competent mind digging up training manuals and harsh armor drills. to his recollection, Marine doctrine in this situation was simple: take the initiative from the enemy, then take the fight to them using vigor and grit. So he did that, instead. He just had to do a few things first.
"All Wolf points, this is Berhane- Prepare for active comms jamming, Sorry about this, Boss-heisho, but ah'll be takin' tha initiative from 'em!" One of the nice things about having a full suit of power armor was all the options it gave you. Too many options for Menelik to consciously control, but the Slayer had workarounds.
Set Black Veil AI Control. Electromagnetic and Subspace ECM to full power, activate on go code RADIATE. Cyberwarfare suite to AI control, set to Active Mode on go code RADIATE. Active Defense Suite, set to AI auto response; reserve IR Decoy and Smoke Grenade to manual, activate on go code RADIATE. The mental and subvocal commands to spool up the electronic warfare suite took about four seconds, but were worth it.
Set Shield Drones to auto-slave. Barrier shield mode, Drones 1-3 to shield the frontal arc. Drones 4-6, the right. The extra protection in the form of the Mistral's shield drones definitely helped too, for what he was planning.
It wasn't even a parcitularly smart or cunning plan. Actually the opposite, the kind of meatheaded plan one would expect from a Marine. Switching to a direct laser line to his subordinates, Menelik gave the subvocal go code before snapping out orders to them.
RADIATE.
Menelik's Slayer became a bright source of cacophonous noise to anyone who could see or hear in the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum across which it sent out jamming. Then it became a source of a similar noise, the monstrous roar of its engines spinning to life with enough power to lift the armorsuit a few inches off the ground. The single baleful monoeye on the helmet glowed, and traced left to right for a brief second before focusing forwards.
"Kol, Kenji; form on me, echelon left, 5 meter seperation. Keep up, and fire on anyone or anything that takes a pop shot on me." His orders were terse and straight to the point again, his aim obvious as the roar of the engines grew louder yet again, and the Slayer dashed forth into the simulated jungle, not directly at where he thought the rangers were, but intending to flank them on their right. And he did it at speed. Below its achievable ground speed of 130 clicks an hour, but 40 kilometers is still pretty fast when moving through a jungle. As the heavy armor moved out, followed on its left by a pair of Daisy's, the roar of the engines were replaced.
Replaced with the sounds of jazz being played so loudly that no-one would be able to not hear it.
