[b]"Damn, sure is good to see you guys!"[/b]

Help arrived in the nick of time: Mike blew a GEAR down, Adrian followed up and took another one down, Kuraiko managed to cut down the flanking initiative the "bandits" had going. It was obvious to Aidan that those six, now four, pilots were no push-overs. While they were indeed good, seasoned fighters, they clearly underestimated 101's numbers and skill; taking down two GEARs would have been easy, but having two more coming in to reinforce caught them off-guard just enough to lose two fighters and even the numbers. It was Aidan's move now and he knew what he was supposed to do.

Having the chance to study the enemy position, coupled with Mike confirming an enemy marksman and Adrian suggesting taking out the missile pods some of the GEARs had on them. Aidan suddenly changed direction, now heading the opposite way and tried to look small, sine most of the enemy attention was drawn to Adrian and the reinforcement duo, giving the dog some space to think and react, maybe do something useful while at it. If he knew his GEAR had more weight, or a better hull and no extra support role, he'd jump right in for the slaughter and flank them so hard they would crap their suits. An all-round was efficient enough, but four GEARs against four others with elevation advantage is still vulnerable enough; after a few moments of being untargeted, Aidan came up with something that would take down a maximum of two more enemies, leaving the rest for his teammates: if these guys set up an explosive booby trap that could have jeopardized the integrity of the mine, it was pretty safe to launch explosives back at them without risking innocent lives. Trying to be precise with his own SMG-like autocannon would turn him into a sitting duck long enough to be hit by that one marksman without doing much damage to the other vehicles. Instead, Aidan quickly released the grip on the left linear glove and brought his arm over his head, feeling for a handle to pull down, while he kept himself on the move. He stopped shooting down the mine as he didn't want to draw fire on him in this crucial moment of the fight, but kept his eyes down there in case someone pulled a smart move to stop the canine's "brilliant" idea. 

[b]"You guys stay out of melee range and keep drawing their fire. Rocket barrage coming up, danger close. They were confident enough to blow a GEAR, I'll showém my fireworks."[/b] He warned L-68, Prowler and Blitzkrieg just as he brought a device down and in front of him consisting of a large, round screen mounted on a bulky frame with knobs, switches, a keyboard and a control stick. Aidan switched his gaze from the main panels to the round screen that quickly adapted to his eyes, a new reticle following his eye movement; he was looking for the sweet spot to unleash the salvo, deciding against locking on a specific target as that would have given away his surprise. While there was cover just about everywhere, he was pretty sure his rockets would turn everything to rubble and potholes, making any form of quick maneuvers difficult to make with an uneven terrain. If he manages to blast one of the guys, maybe even hit a shoulder-mounted missile pod, Aidan could call it a good day. He was still making calculations in his head, thinking of the best place to strike and just how wide he wanted to stretch with the barrage, but under the pressure of losing precious time, the canine decided that his prefect chance would slip away and he'd get back to base with no confirmed kills on his belt and a tail between his legs. He brought Stumpy to a sudden halt and as soon as his GEAR stabilized, Aidan reached for a key that released the safety lock on the control stick and adjusted the angle of the rocket pod until he was sure he hit the sweet spot right between the enemy marksman and the one carrying the ridiculous gattling gun. Civilian GEAR or not, he was sure that if any of them would get hit, they'd explode and melt, they'd need tank-class armor to come out alive and barely scratched. Aidan gritted his teeth and pressed his thumb against the launch button on the stick until he passed the first threshold, he'd only have to squeeze one more time to set hell loose. He had maybe one more fraction of a second until the enemies would realize what he was up to.

[b]"Firing!"[/b] His thumb flexed and pushed harder against the button, passing the second threshold and as soon as he felt the button squeeze against the internals of the stick, the cockpit was filled with rattling noises as the pod released twelve small rockets one by one in a rather tight group. Aidan quickly retreated away from the lip just enough to be safe from enemy fire and still catch a glimpse of his work. He issued a chain command to reload the pods automatically that would take a long period of time and switched the safety lock back on before he'd push the console back up in its place. A bright flash quickly contrasted out by the external cameras confirmed a successful strike on the enemy, the rocket swarm managed to follow the grouped trajectory, maybe three or four deviated from the projected perimeter; he felt a rush of satisfaction take his anger and tension and slam them against the dusty earth, so much that he nearly missed the grim newsflash Blade delivered through the comms. At first, he simply dismissed the thought, thinking that Aidan might have misheard what Blade communicated; Ken's and Kuraiko's reactions convinced him that it was true: one of their men just died. The dog couldn't believe his ears, someone in his team got fatally wounded and he was completely unaware; he tried to remember if he heard any call for support from him, but he was sure he wasn't contacted. Whatever hit the poor pilot didn't give him the chance to react, but Aidan was not going to leave him for dead, no matter what. Maybe there was some hope, a second chance to life and even if he were to find a mangled, unrecognizable carcass, the medic still had some honors to complete and send the body back home.

Before his thoughts would be clouded with a darkness that would render him inert and unresponsive, Aidan took a U-turn and rolled away from the mining camp, dizzy and incredulous.

[b]"Adrian, Mike, Kuraiko, I'm headed off to the emergency, if and of you blokes get shot I will murder you. Blade, sir, I'm coming as fast as I can to check him and pull him out; I don't know how bad it looks, but believe me, you'd be surprised how long one can live without their frontal lobe. Ken, I'll need your chopper for evac, if his condition is real bad, my GEAR won't be fast enough to get him to safety."[/b] Aidan was preparing himself mentally for the extraction, first aid and evacuation procedures; he was ready for such incidents, but he didn't expect for something bad to happen during the first skirmish with the Roughriders. He'll look pretty bad if he doesn't manage to save the pilot on the first day of active duty, thus, the dog refused to believe there was absolutely nothing that could be done to save the guy. He cleared the distance between the mine and Silver's location in a few minutes, minutes that passed very slowly for the doctor; every second counted to the slimming chances to save Arcade, Aidan was cursing under his breath as it seemed his destination was never in reach. When he did get there, he found a defunct GEAR with its torso split open and charred; Aidan felt his heart sink and his throat choke as he saw the wreck and immediately reached for the PDW and attached it to the sling on his vest and then grabbed for the large kit while making the final approach. Once he brought his GEAR to a full halt, in a kneeling position and he opened the cockpit and left on the auto-defense mode so that Stumpy would provide cover fire if needed. Aidan got out of his seat, swung the large kit on his back and sprung out of the cockpit, landing on the terrain below safely.

He made sure his surroundings were relatively safe before he'd sprint towards the downed vehicle. [b]"This is Sykes, I'm on foot and headed towards Arcade. Ken, get ready for extraction, the coast looks clear enough for an LZ."[/b] The dog reached the GEAR in no time and started to climb on it until he had a clear view down the open torso and he saw there pulled out a muttered [i]crap[/i]; he looked left and right, making sure that there was no enemy in sight before he'd ditch his weapon to the side and put down the kit to start the extraction process.

[b]"Hey, buddy, you with me? Hello! Come on, man, you can't just give up on the first day, stay with me! Focus on my words if you hear 'em: look, I'll open the cockpit up and I'm gonna help you out of here, ok? You stay put, you've done a great job so far, you can rest a little while I patch your fur up, alright? Hang in there!"[/b] While the dog was talking to probably no-one, he stretched his arm into the opening of the cockpit and reached for the emergency hatch release and once he pulled it, the cockpit door unlocked and lifted up only a little. Aidan then tried to pull the door up, but his strength alone was not enough so he had to improvise a car jack out of one of his stretchers and, calculating where he had to place the improvised jack to hold the door up, he managed to open the cockpit wide enough for him to slip in with his kit. The strong smell of charred fur and flesh filled his muzzle and turned his stomach upside down, but he had a job to do. He took a pair of latex gloves from the kit and put them on quickly and, first things first, he checked for pulse, breathing and general responsiveness. Judging by how he looked, Aidan concluded that Arcade ate a damn missile with his teeth, but to his surprise, he managed to find a pulse on his mangled wrist.

[b]"Bloody hell"[/b] he muttered in awe [b]"he's still alive, sir! Condition critical: third degree burns over 70% on his body, shrapnel damage here and there, but he's breathing. I can't tell how much blood he's lost, but I'm starting reanimation procedures now."[/b]

He was nervous and all over the place, the fight for this pilot's survival was mostly in his head: he gently checked for cervical lesions and decided not to risk it, so he slipped a neck holder on him and imobilized the head, he somehow found an intact vein to administer isotonic fluids, hanging the pack on the first thing he found and turned his attention to one shrapnel piece that was about to fall out of its wound. Aidan grabbed the piece carefully with a pair of tweezers while holding a soft pad with some haemosrtatic agents and antispetics; he pulled it out slowly and, as expected, a the wound became a small puddle of blood, Aidan quickly shoved the pad in as a placeholder until he could reach for the gunshot syringe that would do the same job, only much better. He pulled the pad out and injected a handful of miniature sponges that inflated as soon as they came in contact with liquid. He couldn't do much about the large, burnt portions, except for being careful not to burst open the blood-filled blisters. Next step was to mobilize the wounded and get him in the open, so Aidan somehow slipped the extra stretcher under him, releasing the burnt man from the tight straps to carefully drag him on the stretcher. He then covered him with a reflective tinfoil blanket to keep the poor guy warm, losing so much skin meant losing heat and liquids; he secured the patient on the stretcher and awkwardly dragged him out of the death chamber. Once the dog pulled his kit out, he installed a few electrodes here and there to monitor whatever vital sign were left and to no surprise, they were very weak, on the edge of a fatal crash actually. In another display of extraordinary of strength and will, he safely lowered the stretcher to ground level, followed by himself and the kit.

Then the fun started: Arcade's epiglottis fell over the trachea and remained shut, he was getting no oxygen intake. [b]"You've got to be shi- Ken! Where are you? He's almost in hypotensive shock, hypovolemic and his epiglottis just gave up. Crap, I've gotta open his throat."[/b]

He was dizzy, but he knew what to do. While it was a risky procedure, cricothyrotomy was an absolute necessary at this stage; Aidan grabbed the surgical box from the kit and for the cricothyrotomy tubing and placed himself in such a way he'd shield Arcade's body from any dust contamination, with the help of Kitsune Peril too. He managed to localize the cricothyroid membrane and quickly immobilized the thyroid cartilage with his left hand; with his right hand, he started to incise a vertical cut, until he had a clear view over the membrane he had to open. Once he cut it open with another horizontal incision, Aidan enlarged the incision in the membrane with the help of his finger, while holding the larynx with the help of a surgical hook and once he was sure the hole was large enough, he fit in the cricothyrotomy catheter, pulled the hook and the dilator from the tube out and inflated the cuff with some air with the help of a syringe. He secured the catheter in place with some strong adhesive plasters, sewing them would take too much time. Finally, Aidan checked if Arcade was still breathing on his own, but to his dismay, he was forced to pull out a compression bag and attach it to the catheter and provide with air. Now that he had a break to catch his breath, he reassessed the situation and recalculated the pilot's chances of survival: a heart failure was an immediate risk and this man had to get off the field now. The dog took a deep breath in and exhaled long, realizing he was almost sweating, his palms shaky from the intensity of the moment; he felt some satisfaction, though, saving another comrade from imminent death. He had to make sure he'd save him again from the next blow death would try to make.

[b]"Arcade needed a cricothyrotomy and he'll soon enough a defibrillator, but I think he'd might just make it if we get him to a hospital, sir."[/b]