[b]Rishun and Max[/b]
[@Esailia]

[quote=@Silverwind Blade]
Spotting the pair of unmanned GEARs, the hostile jogged across the cleared space, and turned to face the only intact cabin, covering the doorway with its weaponry. The PA system crackled to life as the pilot spoke. 
"Come out of the cabin and throw down your weapons!" 
[/quote]

Rishun kept working, strangely calm. She was focused on her task of hacking the console, but she did spare a glance back at Max, commenting "Big eye was closed, I guess."

Max looked to Rishun in annoyance, then down at the cat again, who had a wry smile. How the fuck his UAV hadn’t pinged he didn’t know, but right now, he didn’t want to think on that. They had company. A serious deal out there, and well, the cat had something to say about it.

“Not so cocky are you now, eh? You better do what he says, eh?” Elias remarked, Max looking to Rishun and cursing, not physically reacting as the lion looked deep in thought.

“Well, we’ve been caught with our pants down. I’ve got a plan, but it’s really stupid. There’s only one GEAR out there..or else he’d have breached already or blown us apart. That and ...your friend wouldn’t allow you to be blown apart, Elias. Like he knew you’d be here, on your lonesome. Looks like you scumbags are actually more honourable than I thought.” Max said to both of the other occupants of the cabin, shaking his head as he saw the cat squirm to the door, Max pushing him down onto the wall and aiming his rifle squarely at Elias’s forehead.

"GOT IT!" The otter yelped to no one in particular, unplugging her gear with practiced ease, packing up quickly and efficiently. Who ever said hardwire was outdated? Rishun locked her small toolkit closed and latched it securely to her belt before she hopped over to Max, calling "Scrap! Qyii'radey!" The lion saw the otter hop over, excited as ever but remained focussed directly on the cat.

“Not so fast, Elias. Make another move, and I won’t hesitate to dump your leverage. I’m fucking crazy, remember. RIshun, keep a gun to his head…..I’ve got something in mind. We’re gonna need to face the music with our feline friend...just follow my lead. Reckon you’ve got a ball in our court?” The lion asked, checking a few things on his carrier vest, forming a wry smile of his own. He saw her unplug her equipment, the excited otter now inside their system.

Rishun followed orders as Scrap scurried over to slip into his home pod, locking his own hatch closed. The Otter tugged her pistol from its holster, grabbing Elias by wrapping her arm around his neck.  The cat squirmed a bit, but given Max was still there with his rifle in the vague direction, he made a mental note not to push too hard, especially given the lion was especially unpredictable. Even with the odds in the cat’s favour, he was scared, and didn’t want to push his captors, not when there might be an outcome where everyone might live. The lion on the other hand, didn’t really see that being a situation where himself and Rishun would be able to continue their mission. 

After all, this was a shitty idea. Max had done what he was thinking just once before, only once. And that ended with about two months in hospital and Max’s CO struggling to even buy the story. Staring down a GEAR with no weapons at point blank range, you were sure as hell dead, and running from a fight from this range wasn’t going to work when something like that had an arsenal at its disposal- even on an improvised platform. But Max guessed it was likely poor in tech just like the other IFV- the sound of  it was something he could tell was much older, more civilian in operation than a military-type GEAR. So he would take his chances. And hoped, just hoped Rishun had something up her sleeve to go with his mark.

Moving outside, Max held his rifle up over his head, walking outside and placing it down gently in front of him.The GEAR was about six feet away from the cabin, armed up with a pair of MMGs and a single 40 mil grenade launcher. Well, it was packing heat, but it wasn’t crazily armed. His suspicions that it was improvised were confirmed, as he saw the operator half-exposed in the bloody thing. If that cabin had windows, he might have tried his luck to shoot him out with his rifle, but well, that was just too risky now they were in the open. So it was Plan A as per usual. Max kept his hands raised, looking back at Rishun who was standing just at the door holding Elias in front of her, then up at the GEAR. 

“Not so fast! We’ve got one of yours ...let's all slow down, shall we?” Max said, the GEAR operator a little shocked at what he saw, hands up again.

“Get on the ground, now! Elias, get over here!” The militant GEAR operator yelled, as Max looked at Rishun sternly. She gave the slightest nod to him as they made eye contact. She tightened her grip around the tiger's neck, causing him to wheeze.

“Oh no you don’t! He’s not going anywhere until you get out of that thing and we talk like gentlemen!” Max replied, knowing just what he was doing, and how absolutely stupid this was gonna sound to everyone there. The GEAR operator got frustrated, moving closer, weapons raised at Max, clearly angry as he spoke through his PA. 

“I wasn’t asking I was telling, all of you, get on the ground, or else I’ll turn you inside out! I’m serious! ” The operator yelled, Max seeing one of his MMGs now a little more up close. It was like staring down a tank, but if that tank was 12 feet tall and could easily stamp on you rather than run you over. That said..Max felt his odds of success were going up, as he eyeballed it. Yeah, this pan could work. Max looked up, still confident as ever, yelling back in the direction of the GEAR. 

“That isn’t very gentlemanly of you then! Alright ...we'll get on the floor. You gonna sit there and point guns at us till your friends come to restrain us? What about Elias...he’s not very military, you’ll get his uniform dirty!” Max said rather chirpily, the lion looking on with a gleeful look. Way, way more confident than he ever should have been when facing down someone with a piece of equipment like this.

“Silence! Shut the fuck up….I’ll blow you apart, you hear!?” The GEAR operator yelled, Max taking the GEAR yelling to use his helmet’s mic, set to a more sensitive setting than beforehand. As he had checked his plate carrier earlier, it was one of the very few things he’d done- setting it from a loud setting to a whisper, the mic now highly sensitive yet catching Max’s quieter tone.

“Rishun, in about ten seconds, seal your eyes shut and bury your head. Just watch Elias. Trust me on this.” Max said, taking a knee, as he knew this was it. Go time. There was no reply from his partner, but behind him Rishun hunkered down a little more, preparing for the next fifteen seconds of hell about to engulf the little area. Scared, but the Solernia military doesn't train incompetent soldiers…

The other thing the lion had checked his plate carrier for, Max reminded himself in this moment, and the reason he always carried it, was a flashbang, a couple of explosive charges and his UAV’s recall tag. And right now, Max knew the former was about to get used in a way he’d never planned it to. The optical package of the GEAR was good, but not good enough to either see it masked and hanging by the pin on the back of Max’s left gloved hand, nor was it flash-resistant. The optics were built with civilian construction use in mind, not refocussing to intense explosives or bright light. Even then, Max knew it wouldn’t be long- maybe a few seconds at most, and that would be barely enough to close the distance, plant and run. As for the UAV? Well, that was an additional treat.

But it was something. And right now, Max had run out of any other ideas.
As Max put himself from his knees and onto the floor, the buzz of a UAV could be heard, Max’s UAV, the quadrotor suddenly coming into sight a few feet to the left hand side of the trio in the mud, the GEAR refocussing his attention. And it was just enough, literally just enough for Max to toss the flashbang off his hand and right beneath the GEAR’s front. In the brow of it’s optical eye, in fact. Just as the operator focussed his sight on Max once again, the lion had buried his eyes into the mud, Rishun tucking her head and hiding her eyes behind Elias' shoulder, and the seconds turned to eternity.

One, two, THREE!

The noise was deafening, it was ringing and horrid, because Max, Rishun and Elias had been a few feet away from the flashbang’s final resting place, the flash grenade going off nine times in a second and filling the immediate area with noise and light. If anyone was seeing it directly from this distance they would have been blind for at least a good minute, and damaged of hearing for at least ten. Unlike a stun grenade it wouldn’t disorient you, but being suddenly blind and deaf would make it a bit more tricky to figure out which way is up. Nevertheless, the wider impacts of hearing damage weren't on Max’s mind, as he didn’t even care if the GEAR had been okay or not, his mind focussed as the adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream, knowing there was minimal time to fuck this up. There was only time to get this right.

The lion charged, sprinting at full pelt from a prone position and taking in oxygen at an athlete’s pace, sliding on the mud beneath the GEAR that had miraculously been knocked back, weapon facing slightly offset to where they were from the blinding flash. His M23 was in his left hand, picked up as he ran, the lion maybe stupid enough to miss the ping of his UAV but not to forget his service weapon. The GEAR hadn’t fired, which meant at the very least, he understood if a 40mm was fired this close it’d do damage to everyone, or something worse. It wasn’t to be analysed, Max mused, as he slid behind and planted the charges, the sticky composition binding the GEAR’s upper leg chassis, the crotch of the mech, in fact. And now the GEAR was coming back to his senses, he had to just run, run, run, past it and towards his own....

“Rishun, GET DOWN!” Max yelled, ripping the clacker off his plate carrier and into his hands, as he didn’t care about how far he was, what direction the GEAR was facing, or what was going on. Maybe Rishun had bought him some time, maybe he was about to die, maybe it was all gonna end with that GEAR putting a lot of lead into him.

The otter had kept her pistol on Elias, despite wanting so badly to offer her crazy companion fire support, and yanked herself back into the building with her prisoner, knowing full well the details of what shrapnel could do to a head.

Maxwell Bastion, fully aware of that fact, pulled the lever tight and hoped whatever deity there was might spare him today. If not for him, at the very least, for the otter that he wanted to keep alive more than anyone right now because of his fucking stupidity.

The militia GEAR erupted, the underside legs first falling apart as the fuel cell caught light and detonated spectacularly, throwing Max off his feet and at least a good 10 feet away, the force of the hydrogen cell going up at this range incredible. The GEAR collapsed entirely, a burning wreck with the charges lit and molten metal now dripping off it’s sides. There was no way anyone could survive that if they were piloting it, no doubt.

The few seconds between the initial explosion and after all the bigger chunks of metal hit the ground were the worst for Rishun. She was fighting her own fear of making a mistake while keeping a now dazed and just as scared prisoner under control "Damn you, want a bullet?! Keep struggling and it might go off by mistake, Now MOVE!"

Elias did as he was told, the cat not covering his eyes and squirming but ultimately not choosing to run given Rishun was still there and the lion could be about.

“Alright, alright!” He yelled in an off tone, his hands still bound so he wasn’t going to go anywhere with Rishun keeping a gun to his head. This hadn’t gone to plan...so right now, he wasn’t gonna try and run, given the fact his only help had just gone up in flames.

The otter forced Elias out the door and shoved him in the direction of the GEARs, the distance looking like thirty miles instead of thirty yards. Hopefully the explosion knocked out or outright killed all of the enemy infantry, and she wasn't about to get shot in the back, ending this little shred of insanity that was Max's plan…

[i]Stop thinking, focus on running![/i]

The lion brushed the mud off his eyes and face, Max hearing the noise of infantry in the distance, beyond the ringing in his ears. He felt like he’d just been in a bar fight, the worst bar fight ever. He wiggled his toes and fingers, looking down his torso at any immediate signs of injury, impalement, the worst injuries basically. Nothing in particular, apart from a lump of what looked like armour plate had barely missed his head by a meter, and a few bits of what looked like loose scrap had buried its way into his chest rig. Nothing had pierced it entirely but some of it had scraped him badly, he could tell that much, even with the adrenaline flowing- the lion had just been ridiculously lucky not to die, let alone not suffer a serious injury. Some cuts to his arms, legs and core from small shrapnel was pretty much a miracle. 

Sitting up, he took his M23, clearing the filthy mag out of it, tapping his head. There was a significant crack across his visor, so he took it out entirely, his helmet scratched and covered in a shower of mud, small particulate shrapnel and other bits. He looked over seeing a few more infantry come over the hill, and pulled himself along to a more prone position, the holographic on his M23 still live as he slid a magazine back in, clearing the bolt.

“Rishun…..are you still breathing? Please tell me you’re alright…that was insane.” Max said, no longer seeing the sight of Elias nor Rishun by the cabin, which had been mostly shielded from GEAR’s explosion. 
Max showed a genuine concern, beyond just a professional care in this line of work for the otter who had been brought into this. He felt regret, he just felt so stupid….being bold was all well and good, but right now, he’d risked his partner and brought her headfirst into his world, and into the very worst of it. Rishun was a tech, not someone who’d been in the line of special forces work to his style, which to most wasn’t exactly ordinary. She didn’t have that mindset he did, she had a warmth, playfulness and not ...what Max had been demonstrating. She had a soul, and going through that kind of hell that was instant intensity and risk in a warzone was never anything Max wanted anyone to experience. But he just had to hope she’d get clear, that at least would make what he just did worth something. He felt guilt, but right now, had to push that down, keep it suppressed. This wasn’t a time to think, it was just a time to survive this, and ask questions later.

"Yes I am still alive!" Rishun called over her radio, her ears still ringing from the explosion, trying her best to avoid tripping over her prisoner "Elias is good too, heading for our GEARs!"

“Thank fuck….I’m relieved to hear that, Rishun! Get yourself inside your GEAR, and get ready to defend. We’ve got infantry inbound, about five militants or so ...I'll try and pick them off with my rifle from my position, it’s too risky for me to get to my GEAR from here straight away. I’ve got some shrapnel wounds too...nothing serious though. I can still fight, don’t you worry.” Max added, scanning and looking for Rishun, whilst watching the infantry coming in. They were at a distance on their left hand flank, and Max knew the two of them would ordinarily be able to clean this up. Max knew however, their current situation wasn’t very ordinary. He took his M23 into both hands and calmed his breathing, his rifle low and his overall profile flat lying down, ready to start defending. It was beginning to hurt a bit more now, his armour shredded but at least it had done its job and stopped anything more.

""Copy that! I'll give you cover once I have secured the prisoner!" Rishun kept shoving the tiger in front of her, and an eternity of sprinting through mud they reached the leg of her GEAR. Panting hard, she shoved Elias down onto his knees, ordering "Stay here and you stay alive." Before holstering her pistol and grabbing at the ladder rungs to climb up the leg, getting the hatch open in short work and slipping inside.

Max nodded, even though he knew Rishun wouldn’t have seen it at all. He moved his hand back and rolled a little through the mud, hiding his silhouette a little more in the outpost’s hilltop. The militants looked confused, but on high alert, looking and searching for everything.

“Understood, Rishun….we haven’t got a lot of time though. They’re getting very close.” He replied, his comms back to hyper-sensitive as he chatted quietly, so as to not catch the attention of the soldiers. One of them had an AT launcher on his back, and as such, was Max’s first target, the second of the scattered group in the sights of his canted holographic. Breathing in, the lion took a gulp of oxygen and pulled his finger on the exhale.

“Clink!” The rifle seemed to exclaim, the silenced M23 finding its mark in the militant’s skull, knocking him down quick. Max readjusted his aim on the second man, taking the last of his exhalation and double-tapped, aiming for centre mass and guessing it would be enough to down the labrador with the shots. He took another breather, looking for the others, the lion’s mind still running on the surge of adrenaline from what he’d done to the improvised GEAR. The other three were getting closer, and Max knew it’d be risky to take another one of them out from here, or at least without getting fired on himself now.

The GEAR responded to Rishun's return, purring to life from idle mode as the engines revved up. The otter quickly threw aside a multitude of virtual screens to clear a wider area of view for her external cameras, punching in her key code to lock in her security clearance at the same time. Nothing compared to an adrenaline rush to speed up your words per minute. Rishun grabbed her joysticks and yanked hard, unceremoniously scooping up Elias in one massive left hand while the other gripped her rifle. This wasing going to be pretty, and Z'awwkh was going to be LIVID about the damage the right hand was going to take from what she was about to do. She pulled the Aqua Goddess around and barreled towards Max's position, using her thermals to count up the infantry advancing on her partner. While he had gotten two, there were a trio rounding a corner off to his left.

"MAX DOWN!" Rishun yelled, and with a maneuver that would probably get her written up for endangering a friendly, kicked her wheels out and slid while leaning back onto her GEAR's ass, just as she was bringing up her rifle to steady it on her left forearm, tight against the shield. The mech stopped just a few feet from Max's left, putting herself between the lion and the enemy soldiers. Rishun didn't bother to aim manually, letting the computer make micro adjustments to her arm's position "Cover ears!" 

Max’s already ringing ears rang out even more, as she heard Rishun’s GEAR slide, rifle rested and fired from an incredibly improper position. He buried his head down, even with the tactical ear protection that his helmet provided, getting close to a high-caliber rifle firing was always gonna hurt as he knew she would get the others with her aquatic rifle. The hostiles in front quickly were blasted apart, as Max watched Rishun’s GEAR tear them asunder, leaving small craters where they’d been in front. It had worked, somehow. Not very accurately, but the fire had at the very least dissipated them, and cleared them out. 

The lion looked back up at Rishun’s GEAR as he stood up from his prone position, giving a thumbs up. If Rishun would look closely, he’d see that Max was covered head to toe in mud, from his wild mane to his boots, definitely not looking like the usual suave self he had been. He seemed to look a little weaker, as he was very winded and hurting now, Max seeing the sight of Elias in the Aqua Goddess’s hand and the rifle in the other.

“Much appreciated! That was a hell of a maneuver you pulled there! Looks like we’re clear, for now at least. All hostiles eliminated it looks like.” The lion chirped, as he reloaded his magazine, and looked ahead, before looking back at the Aqua Goddess. As for himself...he’s probably pull through. Get some painkillers, and get back to the Lion Rampant.

Rishun was panting inside the mech, but as the smoke cleared from her firing line, all that remained of the trio were faintly glowing chunks of things Rishun no longer wanted to look at. She turned the torso and leg it flop onto it's back for a moment, her rifle resting at an angle on her leg "Yeah...but it will be worth the write up if you get to see me cleaning the engineers' tools for a week.."

She lifted her right hand, and Max could see the palm's metal plates were dented inward in the shape of the rifle grip, and even a few pistons were ruptured. She had held it in such a way that the butt of the rifle had been away from her shoulder. So the hand had taken all the recoil.

Max chuckled, hearing her reply, shrugging.

“I think we should just keep what happened between us, yeah? I mean ...you'll get a write up for that, what I just did might get me a fast-track out of the service and into a brig. I won’t tell if you don’t!” Max replied wittily, knowing that yes, it would be likely kept between them but hey, it was probably for the best. 

Almost forgotten in Rishun's left hand, Elias was limp, unconscious from being so close to a firing mech rifle. The otter sat up slowly to look him over as she answered "Problem is most of that was caught by external cameras, Max. Also this guy will not be happy when he wakes up…"

She got up, her right arm creaking audibly to Max, and retracted her wheels before facing her partner in crime "Let's get you back in one piece."

Max nodded, as he gently started to hobble, moving across the muddy and wrecked remains of the comms post towards his own GEAR, the Lion Rampant standing tall as usual. 

“Yup….let’s get back to Silverwind, pronto. I’ll live...cheers, Rishun. We’ll deal with the fallout from this later. I’m sure he’ll understand we did what we had to. He seems to think like me. I think so, at least.” Max replied on their private comms, stern but aware that well, the two of them had nearly both died and needed to get the fuck out of here.

Putting his M23 and equipment back into his GEAR’s weapons compartment, he took his first aid kit from the left leg, sealing both compartments before clambering into the pilot’s seat once more. He popped a few more painkillers and took off his plate carrier, leaning back into the seat with a painful sigh. He jabbed the syringe of the IFAK into his wrist, and looked a little closer at the wound, knowing he wasn’t gonna be able to fiddle with any of this himself. Oh, Vonys was gonna have a field day with him, right after what they talked about on the corvette. Brilliant. 

The lion fired up his GEAR, the Lion Rampant whirring into life, the 30mm loaded and prepped to go. He exhaled, wheeling it over on the mud, but stopping to take heavier stomps towards the Aqua Goddess’s side.

“Same for you I suppose with getting your GEAR home, Rishun- let’s make sure you don’t do any more damage to it. That hand mechanism doesn’t sound healthy. If we run into any more contacts, I can take point- you’ve got my drone and other systems on your tab so feel free to prioritise those. Apart from that, my stuff seem to be all good...apart from me lacking my visor, it’s ship-shape here. With Elias, I suppose just make sure he stays out- we’ll give him to Silverwind and the rest of the forces joining us here later on, and they can deal with him as appropriate..” Max added, looking down the hillside and towards the sight of the airfield, shaking his head. The state of him wasn’t great, but hey, at the very least, his GEAR was intact.. 

Without his visor he had a little less combat awareness and had to rely upon his GEAR’s display systems inside the cockpit, but he could make that work for him, configuring his thermal imagery and UAV to link up once again. With a gentle swipe, the UAV was sent ahead and high up, buzzing off from the landing it had taken near the comms post, as the Lion Rampant stood tall in position, rifle ready and sheltering the injured lion. He seemed ready to move out, and now the adrenaline was dropping away, he was gonna have to hope the painkillers picked up their role and got him through this operation.

"Agreed. Yours has more firepower anyway. We are just lucky I haven't needed to take on anything big." Rishun pulled up a system health overview, and winced. She had burned out the two out of five pistons in her palm, rendering her index finger and thumb inoperable. The only thing holding the rifle in the hand was the metal bent around the grip and the index finger stuck inside the trigger. She quickly set their prisoner down and slowly extracted the rifle grip from her right hand, locking it onto its back hip handprint and picking Elias up again.

“Hunter Actual, this is Recon...we’ve secured our prisoner and eliminated all hostile threats at the comms centre. We got jumped on by some reinforcements but it's ...uhh, well....it’s a story to tell over a beer, Captain. I’ve got no direct line of sight to the runway from this position...need us to reposition and get a bead on that aircraft?” Max asked through the group comms, knowing that while they were a far distance out, getting a shot on with his 30mm might take down an engine or a wing. 

It might be enough to stop it, even if they were too slow to get down to the airfield, to at least stop it when it got airborne. The GEAR’s weapons systems weren’t exactly designed for AA, but when you’ve got a 30mm rifle questions like that become more of a marksman’s, rather than an analyst, as the Lion Rampant and Aqua Goddess were ready to move.