"Pilot error's a helluva thing, ain't it?" The suit asked, laughing. It wasn't a happy laugh, but it wasn't bitter either-- it was the kind of laugh a person who enjoyed a challenge might have. She turned to the man, towering over him in the massive powered armor. The orange ocular bulbs locked onto him. "So, who're you?" The suit didn't seem angry or suspicious, just flatly curious. In fact, she didn't care who he was; she just wanted to know what to call him if she had to. If she could have avoided the conversation she probably would have, but the planet was unmapped and possibly hostile. 

Inside the machine, Nyula Reeve peered hard at the image offered by her enhanced optics. A battle-hardened woman even before her arrest, Nyula hadn't been surprised when she had been asked to join the Marines. The decision hadn't been hard either-- join up or rot in a cryo-cell for the rest of her natural life (which would have been about a month, since she was scheduled for execution). With shocking white hair and canny orange eyes, Nyula didn't pass for a harmless female. The board that had reviewed her had been lucky on that account. If they hadn't secured her well enough, she would have escaped, and quite possibly torched the whole facility as a good-bye present. Even so she had enjoyed the vaguely uncomfortable looks the reviewers had given her as they read her files and questioned her about her skill set. One of the men had even motioned a guard to stand nearer to him, in case Nyula got frisky. 

She agreed to their terms and was fitted with a suit the next morning. It monitored her pulse, brainwaves, blood pressure, oxygenation; it took a whole panel of physical readings every five minutes, some more often. Her communications network was linked directly to the prison system's dispatchers so she could be directed as they saw fit. Basically, they said shoot, Nyula shot. 

That had been four years ago, and Nyula had been on her way to her second term as a Marine. If she completed three, her sentence was reduced to time served-- another stipulation of the deal. She knew most Marines didn't survive their first term, but she figured she'd cut her loses and give it a shot. Anything was better than hanging around waiting for the bureaucrats to put a needle in her arm. At the thought, Nyula's pulse fluctuated and she flinched. She didn't take kindly to death. No matter what happened, Nyula Reeve would survive. She would [i]live[/i].