For Mai, what happened wasn't anything new for her. If anything, it was "trial by fire" all over again from her first division days.

From what she gathered over the erratic comm lines, they had already suffered two possible casualties...the same two cadets she was speaking to before on a private comm line just before deployment.

Harold and Daniel.

But this was also the reason why she was trained the way she was trained...emotions were nothing but trouble during combat. And her "fears" of this unit's "influence" on her seemed to be for naught. After all, she didn't feel anything right now as the sounds of combat raged outside her framework.

But...was that the "true" reason why her sync rate was so low?

Then, her new squad leader came onto the comm line.

[quote]"First I'm ordering all of you to spend as little time a possible in the MISTs range of fire. We don't know when they might fire that thing so be careful. Right Ariin and Zero engage the Cruxi in grid H3, I'll back you two up. Mia engage Cruxi grid H8. If you need to try to lead it towards the PDF base me or Ariin will then back you up. Elora there's a Cruxi in grid F2 do what you can to keep it busy, if you can destroy it by all means do so, but don't push yourself. We'll back you up as soon as we have eliminated our targets."[/quote]

Orders were orders.

"Roger. Seven in the Neo Angel. Mission start", Mai droned on the comm line.

Mai also didn't comment on her name being mispronounced as "Mia" or even Katya using her first name over her callsign "Seven". Right now, the battle is all that matters.

From her current position in G6, Mai uses the Neo Angel's mini-thrusters to gain an additional movement space to position H7. Drawing her two Magnum Pistols, she fires one shot from each one at the tentacled Cruxi in position H8 (Left Pistol ammo: 7/8. Right Pistol ammo: 7/8. Reload clips = 2).

The Cruxi itself was an unknown to her as she quickly approached but considering the sheer number of enemies in Joppa's combat zone already, speed was of the essence here. As much as she wanted to get combat data on this unit, she had to take it down quick then proceed to the next target.