The throbbing sound of the rotor blades beating against the air echoed out across the heat of the junkyard. The pilot deftly guided himself into a valley, caressing it's curves as he flew down its length. With a hard pull on the stick and some rudder, he stopped and turned to face the way he had come. Soon enough his pursuer came around the corner and barrelling towards him. Sliding sideways to avoid a long line of tracers, he answered in kind with a burst of cannon fire from his twin 23 millimetre guns that gun diagonally across the tripod style mech, destroying a leg and damaging its weapons systems. He strafed to the side and raked it with more cannon fire until it exploded with a flash.

"Guard Seven to Sheep, Wolf is down. Resuming orbit."

Inserting his aircraft back into the valley, he returned to his patrol area, defending an ongoing salvage operation from opportunistic raiders that cared little about what they attacked. The down wash dislodged debris from the mounts of trash, triggering avalanches of junk as he passed. Pulling back on the stick again, he rose above a mound of trash, rising thermals buffeting him for the few seconds he was above the peaks as he looked for the telltale dust clouds of moving mechs. Not seeing anything, he dropped back below the level of the ridges and checked his charge level.

"Guard Seven, my shift is done. Say hi to Logan for me when he gets here."

Dipping the nose, he made one more pass low over the salvage team, taking a slightly circuitous route back to his home base, carefully manoeuvring into the mouth of the cave and through the open steel doors of the ancient bunker. The doors slammed behind him as the aircraft touched down and the rotors slowed to a stop.