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"I can't believe this is it, Asterix," Lucie wistfully droned to her robotic companion.

It seemed like it was years since she, along with an assortment of nomads across the globe, first encountered the robotic nemesis known as Oh-One. By chance, she was at the ground zero of one of the worst terrorist attacks in human history; the carnage she experienced first-hand in Rio [i]still[/i] haunted her to this day. She, along with her drone, Asterix, vowed to bring the robot to justice that day.

Finally, that day came today. Through the work between MAVERICK intelligence, spearheaded by the group of nomads Lucie embedded themselves in, the true location of Oh-One's headquarters were discovered. Nestled in a remote area in the freezing desert of Antarctica, it was a heavily fortified compound, protected in all directions by an extensive network of laser batteries. Sending in one squad of nomads, by themselves, was ruled by the UN to be suicide. The final job to take out Oh-One would be done by MAVERICK.

Of course, Lucie wouldn't be excluded by this policy. From what she could tell, she was the [i]first[/i] MAVERICK agent assigned to this Antarctica raid. And thusly, she was in the cargo hold of the plane, talking to her best friend in the world, even if everyone else in the organization believed it was simply cargo.

"You excited for this?" Lucie beamed to her drone.

The CV-47 Heinlein drone wordlessly stared at her, or at the very least, what Lucie [i]interpreted[/i] as the drone staring at her. Sure, Asterix wasn't capable of speech itself, or really much more than basic combat protocols that were already programmed into him, but that didn't mean the two weren't the fire-forged friends who constantly protected one another in mission after mission. She was proud to call Asterix her partner, and she had no doubt in her mind that the two of them would come out of this ordeal alive.

"I know I am, Asterix! We're finally going to be heroes!"

Even despite all the good that Lucie has done across the globe, all the people she helped along the way, something inside was burning at her, that she was a phony. After all, Oh-One still rampaged, killing more people in his mad quest to assimilate all life into his mad project. She was never going to be that hero, until Oh-One was finally stopped. And she had just the Tesla Grenade in mind to shove up-

"What the hell are you doing here? And who are you talking to?"

Lucie instantly jerked into attention. Spinning around, she saw a man in full power armor, obviously someone much higher than her on the chain of command. Although Lucie couldn't see his facial expressions underneath his helmet, Lucie could tell that he was incredulous at what he saw.

"Watching over the cargo with my partner, and giving him a motivational speech, respectively," Lucie replied matter-of-factly.

"Your partner?"

Lucie pointed directly at Asterix, "He's right there, sir."

Lucie was confused by how long it took the other MAVERICK agent to respond to her comment. She could feel the tension that was in the room, but she didn't feel like she said anything [i]wrong[/i]. It was the truth!

"I... uh... see..." the power armor-laden MAVERICK agent said, before resuming what Lucie presumed was his patrol. 

Lucie simply shrugged and went back to Asterix, who at this point was aimlessly moving around on his tracks. She gave him a thumbs up, almost more to reassure herself than the autonomous drone. So what if the other agents didn't get her relationship with her partner? She still got her missions done, she still got the enemy tangos down, and-

"WE GOT INTRUDERS!"

Lucie's head perked up as she distantly heard a MAVERICK agent call for backup elsewhere in the cargo hold. FAMAS in hand, Lucie dashed towards the voice, her drone rolling in behind her. Did Oh-One infiltrate the planes before departure? It would have been an ingenious trap to destroy the morale of the assault before it even began.

The Frenchwoman reflexively joined in on the makeshift firing line of MAVERICK agents, her Clarion joining in on the international symphony of assault rifles of every type. It took a very tense second for her to realize just exactly [i]who[/i] she was pointing her gun at, however. It wasn't some infiltrator sent by Oh-One, it was Justin and Oh-Seven! What the hell were they doing on this plane, and how the hell did they get themselves into a tussle with the rest of MAVERICK?

Lucie was about to interject herself into the stand-off, but was interrupted by a glowing red light coming out of the window. Suddenly, there was massive turbulence as Lucie heard a massive explosion in the distance. [i]This[/i] was more likely Oh-One's bidding, as another plane filled with MAVERICK soldiers was simply swatted out of the air. 

Only a few seconds later, the remains of the plane crashed into the very one that Lucie and Justin and Oh-Seven were all in! A whole wing was clipped off, and Lucie struggled to remain in the plane as the plane's air pressure normalized with the surrounding air. Lucie could see her comrades, her fellow agents of MAVERICK, sucked out into their doom, as Justin and Oh-Seven made their semi-clean getaway (cargo box notwithstanding).

The plane was rapidly losing altitude, and Lucie knew that if she wanted any chance of survival, she needed to get the hell off of this thing before the whole thing fell apart. The smart thing to do, even if it was a gamble, was to just try to brace for impact; most plane crashes were survivable if safety precautions were taken. However, most plane crashes weren't caused by enemy AA fire, and who knows if the laser battery was spiteful enough to shoot down an already falling plane. She needed to get off [i]now[/i].

Lucie could try to find a parachute, but frankly, that might even take too long. If the plane drops below a certain altitude, which it was rapidly doing so, there might not be enough time to put it on and deploy it. Besides, there was something else she could use, something that, on paper, seemed absolutely ridiculous, because it [i]was[/i]. But it was faster, and it meant getting off the plane now.

Taking the helmet off of a dead trooper's body, Lucie put it on herself. What she was going to do was going to involve a rough landing, and having some head protection was going to be vital for survival. She then grabbed Asterix, and kicked a dislodged piece of sheet metal that had come loose off of the plane, jumping after it immediately afterwards. With one hand gripping her drone, she used her other free hand to grab the sheet metal, and pulled it as tightly towards the stomach as possible, and prayed to God she wasn't going to hit flat land.

Suspended in a free-fall, in what felt like an eternity, Lucie's makeshift toboggan made her feel exposed to the cruel environment. Shrapnel from the downed planes was falling everywhere, and there was nothing Lucie could do to avoid getting hit except to be lucky. She couldn't even open her eyes due to the whiplash of the wind, and it took all of her strength not to let go of Asterix. They were into this together; she wasn't going to abandon him to his fate.

Suddenly, Lucie's world violently shook. She made impact onto the ground, and her [i]everything[/i] hurt. But she held on to dear life on the piece of sheet metal, and she could feel it sliding down a hill. Her plan, despite the odds, worked. The snow broke enough of the fall, for the rest of the kinetic energy to be transferred into sliding down the slope. Still, Lucie was moving fast, and the pain made it harder and harder to keep control of the damn thing.

She hit a bank, and it was over after that. She couldn't keep control anymore, and she felt herself flung from the sheet metal. Lucie was very happy she did stop to take the helmet, as she slammed into the ground again. However, her gun, her box of grenades, even Asterix... they all fell around her as she faceplanted into the snow. The equipment, much like her, was [i]fine[/i], even as Asterix fell into the snow gunfirst, its tracks being suspended in the air and unable to move.

Lucie groaned as she started to get up, taking off the stolen helmet and throwing it to the ground. If her eyes weren't failing her, there was a group of nomads near her? She was way to dissorinted to tell who they were, at least at the present moment.