[i]5 months ago[/i]

"Nishizumi. We need to talk about what happened earlier." Tori came to look for Maki as she sulked alone in a quiet corner of the hangar, watching the technicians repair the severely damaged Hellcat. For a machine that wasn't very well armoured, it seemed to have taken a beating that would have killed her ten times over.

[color=00a651]"Come to lecture me on being suicidal?"[/color] Maki droned, having heard said lecture from different members of the team already. Tori just chuckled and shook her head. She probably knew that job was taken care of.

"No, I came to thank you for saving those idiots. Someone had to do it. We get a lot of suicide missions but it's not our job to die doing them." Tori replied. That was unexpected. Maki expected commiseration, sympathy. Hell, even a counselling session, but not gratitude. "But you know, that goes for you as well. Don't get yourself killed. You're good, but you're not immortal. Trust the rest to take care of themselves. Your job is just to fight with them, not for them."

[i]Present Day[/i]

Maki heard the alarms blaring in her cockpit and cursed. Nothing ever went their way. For once, she'd like to have a day where nothing went wrong and everything just went smoothly as planned. If she continued trying to drag Trapp back out of his fall, they'd be hit by... what the hell was that thing? A missile made from plasma?

Well, a normal missile would have killed two of them, maybe one if they got lucky. That thing was definitely going to get them both. She didn't really have time to dodge it even if she let Trapp go. Dealing with four Coalition machines even with Alice for back up, was a risky bet with the Hellcat wounded. So it meant she had to take option two.

[color=00a651]"Trapp, you owe me a fucking drink after this. I'm always covering your ass."[/color] Maki grumbled into the comms as she cut power to her thrusters and let Trapp's Sentinel drag her along into the atmosphere. The missile missed, obviously not accounting that the pilots would willing enter freefall with a wounded machine rather than fight back. [color=00a651]"Hunter to Lincoln, coming under heavy fire and unable to recover. We're making planetfall."[/color]

[color=00a651]"Alice, I'm going to need your help. The Sentry's too heavy, once we enter the atmosphere I won't be able to slow this damn thing down."[/color]

Alice's mind raced as she suddenly spotted a projectile on a trajectory set for Maki's hellcat. She had never seen such a weapon before: some kind of missile incorporated with plasma. Could it be a new form of EKP weapon? Whatever it was, in the meanwhile, the weapon itself wasn't as important as the damage it could inflict on her teammate. For a moment, she considered moving into it's path and taking the blow for her, as one of her primary functions would require of her. But her already diminished shields couldn't take such a hit, and if she even survived, she would have to return to Santoro and Beil with a wrecked Eagle. One choice would end in certain deresolution, the other with dead teammates and a failed function.

Thankfully, she didn't have to make the choice. At the last moment, Maki cut off her thrusters, letting her fall with Trapp into Jehan's atmosphere and the plasma missile flash past her. But while they avoided that danger, Maki and Trapp were still left tumbling down into the atmosphere, and hostile territory. As fast as she could, Alice blasted towards them and grabbed the tow cable connecting their machines.

[color=7ea7d8]"Don't worry, Hunter! You didn't think I'd let you explore a research colony without me, did you?"[/color]

She felt a tinge of guilt at leaving the rest of the team behind, but Trapp's Sentry was disabled, and Maki might not be able to hold off the Coalition forces by herself on Jehan's surface. No, they would need an advanced MAS piloting AI on their side for. Besides, the rest of the team had each other. Hell, she was probably more worried that she wouldn't be there to dissect the new white MAS, if the others would even be able to capture it.

With the three beginning to enter Jehan's atmosphere, Alice pulled Maki's and Trapp's machines close and out of the way of her thrusters before diverting as much power as she could to them. Her Eagle wasn't as fast as the Astelion, but she could come damn close, and hopefully could decelerate their entry enough to soften the blow upon impact. Indeed, she slowly began to slow down their fall, but they still plummeted at a dangerous rate, at least for organics. 

The ground eventually became visible as they broke the clouds, and while Alice might live when they crashed, Trapp and Nishizumi were still flesh and bones, and likely would be crushed inside their MAS's from the force of the impact. Their shadow became visible on the ground, and she rerouted just a little more power to her thrusters. A few of her systems started to shut down when their power was transferred to the thrusters, but thankfully the rate of their fall continued to slow.

[color=7ea7d8]"Trapp! Nishizumi! Brace for impact!"[/color]

[color=00a651]"That's the understatement of the century."[/color] Maki deadpanned as she put power to her thrusters as well. The Hellcat had a lot of grunt in her mobility, but that wasn't meant for decelerating in the atmosphere with a deadweight MAS in tow. The best she could do was to find a soft landing spot. Hopefully Jehan had deserts or lakes somewhere in their trajectory.

[color=00a651]"Okay, we might risk bogging ourselves down for the enemy, but there's a lake right there that shouldn't hurt too much."[/color] Maki cried out, desperately trying to ignore all the warning sirens going off in her cockpit. The console was very helpfully reminding her that the Hellcat was descending too fast, too quickly, and to cut the cables. The machine was trying to save its pilot. The pilot was trying to save someone else. [/i][color=00a651]"Worst case scenario, we'll punch out of the cockpit before impact and hope the debris doesn't hit us."[/color] She wondered for a moment if it might have been better to just let Trapp fall on his own and get hit by the missile. It was probably a less messy way to die than being crushed by her own machine. At least the recovery crew wouldn't have a mess to clean up then.

[color=7ea7d8]"I don't think we have much of a choice at this point. It's worth a try!"[/color] With that, Alice tilted herself to somewhat try and aim the trio towards the lake Nishizumi indicated. While they still had the advantage of altitude, Alice scanned the horizon, taking note of the terrain surrounding the lake and searching for any Coalition activity in the area. When they landed, they would need to plan what to do next, and understanding the lay of the land would help considerably in that endeavor. 

The blaring of the sentry’s siren as the reactor slowly reached critical rose Trap from G-LOC. Body feeling entirely numb and buzzing like a swarm of bees as blood began to rush back to its facilities. He had half expected to be dead by now or at least close to dead but apparently he wasn't so lucky. Out the view screen he could see a mixture of metal, green, and blue as Jehan was slowly getting larger and larger. Though he had not expected to see the Hellcat and Eagle coming down with him for the ride. What were they doing? Trying to save him?

Trapp cursed under his breath for that was the most idiotic thing he had ever heard. Risking two highly experienced pilots and their very expensive toys to save one more? What are they thinking? Flipping a series of switches he waited as static came through and eventually the backup communications array made a low whistle as it came to life. Voices filled his helmet as he checked the Sentry’s condition. All main systems were down making the sentry the equivalent of a very large and expensive falling brick. Reactor integrity was at 20% and falling fast. Alice seemed to be directing them towards a lake which may just actually save their hides if they could cool it down.

[color=lightgreen]”First of all let me say you two are showing blatant disregard towards 101st basic operating procedures. Secondly thank you even though you two are crazy. Thirdly not to put any more pressure on us or anything but the Sentry’s reactor is about to go critical. So we have about three minutes to hit water before we all are consumed in a small nuclear explosion.”[/color] He explained checking to make sure he brought his service pistol still strapped to the side of his chair as the lake began to take up more and more of the view in front of them.