[center][h3]After-Action Report[/h3][/center]

They didn’t get the feeling right. 

Hanging in the void, the infinite nothingness that surrounded the infinitesimally small bubble of safety within which she resided, that was the only thought that persisted within her mind. They didn’t get the feeling back. Rising Star had been inside cockpits like the Valk’s since she was a teen. They had been video games, then, cutting edge simulator games. The tournaments she competed in for the fun, for the challenge. The same tournaments that landed her a position with X Corp. When she stepped into the cockpit of a real HFV for the first time it was like greeting an old friend. [i]Solar Age[/i] had been an accurate simulation down to the minute tactile feedback the machines would give. Simulations, live-fire exercises, they had all been so similar to real combat.

But they couldn’t capture how it felt when the fighting stopped. 

This was the sensation that consumed her being, that which seeped into every corner of her mind as she regarded the scene before her. The Bradley was listless, like a marionette with its strings cut. Shrapnel floated between the two machines along with, she could have sworn, droplets of crimson. An eerie mirror to the ones within her own cockpit. Everything was so still. The battle had been intoxicating, an adrenaline rush the likes of which she had never experienced. The stakes were [i]real[/i], the maneuvers were [i]real[/i], the need to succeed, the necessity of success, couldn’t be higher. Actual lives, her own, her comrades’, her enemies’, rode on the outcome of her choices. It was thrilling in a way she could never describe, on a level far above even the most exhilarating moments in her simulations. It made her feel alive in a visceral way that she would have never imagined.

Sasha had been intoxicated, once. On alcohol, not in the metaphorical sense. The buzz had been fantastic, but the hangover much, much less so. That was the only way she could really describe the complete crash that set in once the adrenaline started to die down. Most of her targets were not intact, their remains atomized by her beams if their entire machine had not consumed themselves in reactor failure to begin with. But the Bradley… The Bradley was intact, and floated before her. With its power core intact, the light behind its visor had yet to die out. The piercing sapphire visor regarded her resentfully, reminding her of what she had done. Knowing she would tow it back to the [i]Jannah[/i], that when she was inspecting it later and marveling over the magnificent machine the thought would remain in the black of her head that the ruined cockpit and the blood upon its seat was upon her hands as well.

They had not managed to harm her, not at all. Even the Valk would need only an hour’s work to repair or replace the rear fin the blue Rook had managed to graze. The droplets floating around her, the pounding in her head, that was all her own doing. Poetic, perhaps, given that the disquietude in her mind was her own fault as well. X Corp hadn’t ordered her to gather field data for the XC|PT-001. She had offered, as the machine’s normal test pilot. It hadn’t seemed right to hand her off to a stranger when she was going out for real. No one had forced her onto the battlefield.

But at the same time, she mused with a deep breath, the outcome might have been very different without her. None of her comrades would have been able to save the Yukine in time, not without great risk to both her pilot and their own safety, nor could a pilot without her experience necessarily have come out alive. The battle had been against a numerically superior foe with machines on par with the present generation. If she had not been there, if she had not acted, lives would still have been lost. And they would not necessarily have been pirates. It would take time to process what had happened, what she had done, but that thought was the best anchor she had; she was not the aggressor, nor was she the villain. She had done what was necessary to safeguard her comrades and the civilians of the region. Wasn’t that worth the weight on her conscience?

That question stayed at the forefront of her mind as, recognizing that she had been still for quite some time, she spurred her machine into motion. The G-Valkyrie took hold of the Bradley and its Messer and began the process of towing them both back towards the [i]Jannah[/i]. She took a circuitous route back so that she could gather reasonably intact examples of the enemy’s equipment for study, pieces that could explain why these Rooks had performed so far above their usual specifications. Such information could be useful later. 

Her cargo made her landing a little more complex, given that she needed to bring the Valk as well as its large trophies safely into the hangar, but not nearly as difficult as combat maneuvers had been. She completed the tasks almost robotically, uttering the proper signals and protocol for returning to the vessel without much enthusiasm. The hangar’s crews took possession of her salvage while the G-Valkyrie stomped to its service bay. It would normally be stored in Waverider form, but the transformation was not advisable in a confined space; she would reorient it later. For now she simply needed to rest.

System shutdown was entirely second nature, her hands bringing about the shutdown of the Valk’s systems of their own accord. She stayed in her cockpit a few moments, listening to the machine’s innards cycle down and quiet. Using the time to try and quiet her own mind, compartmentalize what needed to be pushed aside. Then she triggered the hatch’s release and climbed down carefully, upon which she was greeted instantly by her chief technician.

“Here,” He said as he pushed a bundle she quickly recognized as the clothes she had worn over her pilot suit into her hands. “You can put them back on behind the 001. You need to go to the medbay?”

Somewhat belatedly, Rising Star remembered the flow of crimson from her nose that, now that she was under more normal conditions, actually moved downward. She touched the base of her nose briefly, shaking her head. “No, I’m okay. Are the others back yet?”

Her tech nodded, gesturing with a thumb to the scene behind him. Star got the message immediately, once she glanced where he indicated. She gave only a nod before she ducked behind the Valk’s leg, pulling on her outer technician’s uniform to once again disguise the pilot suit beneath. The mask was the last to come off, and with it Sasha Mackenzie shed Rising Star to be herself again. With Star’s disappearance she pushed her musings down, towards the back of her mind.

Joan was upset. She needed, the whole team needed, the manic pixie. That meant putting on a big grin, bouncing back out there into the hangar and breaking the tension. Raising spirits with a big old hug. That’s what Joan needed. The old man needed a mood boost, and Husam would too. So the chaplain would get the biggest hug of her life, enough to maybe convince herself she was fine too, and the rest’d get some antics to roll their eyes at. She could sort out her own thoughts later. There were cute girls to raise the spirits of.

So Sasha took a deep breath, smiled, and stepped back out into the open. 

The shortest member of Paper Tiger all but bounced her way across the other hangar, refraining from giving Yatogami a look that said what she thought of his consolations (was the ‘he who fights monsters’ line really the best call here?) and [i]did[/i] give the old man a smile that said she’d take it from here before she crouched down next to the priest.

“Heyyy, Joan.” The technician greeted, a little softer than usual, before wrapping an arm tightly around the other woman. “How you doing, sweetie?”