[h3][center][u][i]AFFS Subaltern Johan Rosales-Eichberg
Rifleman RFL-5D[/i][/u][/center][/h3]

	With one final stomp, the Thunderbolt's pilot had enough, the pirate ejected. A quick series of muffled pops and the cockpit shot up into the sky, parachutes shooting out once the cockpit got to a sufficient altitude. It dawned on Johan that the pilot was a person just piloting a mech, when before his enemy was a furious war machine, 65t heavy and bristling with weaponry, now his enemy was a person floating back down to the ground in a metal tin. Why had that pilot gone so berserk? Johan looked to the fallen Urbanmech, now smoking. The way that Urbanmech left cover to help... Johan looked at Lyris's Griffin. If she were in that much trouble, would he rush in like the Urbanmech? He blinked in thought for a second, they might have been friends, maybe lovers, who knows. Johan marked the drifting cockpit and the fallen Urbanmech as enemy pilots for their support vehicles. Maybe the Urbanmech pilot survived, maybe the pilot was just knocked out. Johan took a few deep breaths to try and calm his heart, still hammering like a drum.

	Then the communications link opened up with battle chatter once more after the few seconds of silence. A group of three fast movers, 20-40 tons, was moving at the northeast. The Harassers? Johan pointed his Rifleman towards the new threat, and just overhead a fusillade of artillery shells and missiles whistled towards the enemies. They burst midair, tossing their payloads of mines across a wide area, now marked as minefields on Johan's battlemap.

	Captain Hart spoke up, [b]"The dropship is powering up. But we have a window to disable it if we can handle this engagement quickly."[/b]
Bjornson replied quickly, offering himself to take point against the dropship, he sounded almost rattled. Johan wouldn't be surprised if everyone but Captain Hart sounded a little rattled at this point. While the patrol was still around, their flank was covered by the newly laid mines. If they ran at speed, maybe they could take out the dropship without even bothering with the group of three enemies. If they took too long fighting that patrol, a dropship could easily be armed with over a hundred LRMs, a multitude of autocannons, whole arrays of lasers and PPCs. They wouldn't have enough firepower to even get close to the dropship. Personally Johan was for attacking the dropship immediately, before they could power up their weapons, but it was up to Captain Hart personally. Johan looked to Lyris's Griffin and sent her a message,
[b]"Are you okay?"[/b] He asked, just barely above a mutter.