It didn't take long for everyone's HUDs to light up with the input from the Full Echo suite. A diorama of the battlefield pinged into existence, the outline of MAS units, cruisers, warships and debris expertly carved out of light. As Abigail fiddled with the controls a small object was brightened and highlighted; its path of trajectory into Cerol's orbit calculated and adjusted piece by piece for accuracy with each passing moment that the system was locked onto its target. The two MAS units designated KOLIBRI and KRAKONO were adjusting their course to not follow, but cut into the path of orbit at a steeper angle so they could catch up with the escape pod and land as close to it as they could. With its thrusters disabled the Kolibri clung onto the Krakono with one hand whilst the other kept its autocannon rifle trained on any encroaching targets, but there just weren't any nearby; the combination of whatever turrets that still worked on Horizon Point and the fleet were occupying the bulk of the Coalition forces as a slew of debris was slowly sucked into the weak gravitational pull of Cerol, gaining speed and traction as it fell. With the size of the Krakono the glow of its thrusters was masked; what care would one give to two MASes similarly plummeting towards the planet amongst the wreckage? "I don't even have both landing struts," Abigail lamented. "Ingram just did the MAS equivalent of ordering an amputee to do a backflip." “He knows we can do it.” he paused. “No complaints now.” "You're right. There might be Coalitionists down there. They could end up capturing her, or worse - turn her into a capitalist." Abigail took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “This isn’t right. Space here is no place for her.” The Krakono gradually adjusted its course to the data input from the Full Echo Suite on the Kolibri. The HUDs of the seventh start to show a longer trail of the escape pod's descent - but slowly, pixel by pixel. "The devious schemes of the ISS are so secret that even [I]they[/I] don't know what they're doing," Abigail spoke with mock solemnity, "but rest assured that whatever it was, before it got horrifically fucked up, it was probably - really clever." The way she spoke started to get affected as they continued their re-entry. “Their minds are running thin. Hell knows what this was for.” The black of space slowly turned purple, then a dirty pink. Neither pilot saw this from the darkness of their cockpits. The air resistance made the Kolibri start to shiver long before the Krakono would be affected. A little warning light flashed against her symbol on the seventh's HUDs as it reached very high temperatures. "Starting to get a bit toasty in here. Not that I can tell in the suit but the computers are mad at me," Abigail pointed out. She adjusted the Kolibri's grip; it was a little tin can flush against the gargantuan bulk of the Krakono. “It’s going to start getting worse.” "It'll hold. For now." The Comms were quiet, save for the increasingly laboured, painfully controlled breathing of the pilots. "I think Ferryman's dead. The way he broadcast that message. I think he's gone." Abigail thought for a moment. "Sunray's lost her Jakunta." “Yeah. He is dead. It happens.” he briefly replied. "You know that, and I know that. I don't think she knew that. Not really." A deep breath and an exhale. "Here's hoping it doesn't mess with her too badly." “It is not our job to play counsellor.” "That kind of thinking got you far in the TLF, but out here in civilised society it's not as easy. If she puts a bullet through her own helmet, we can't exactly call it friendly fire and wash our hands of the whole thing." Another slight adjustment, a steepening of the curve as the two pilots aligned their landing with the scrap of a bent line that marked the escape pod's route. "I don't know Sunray but I get where she's coming from. And besides... always easier to follow instructions when they're coming from a friendly face in an emergency like this. You play soldier; I'll be the contingency plan for any, emotional disturbance, that prevents us from carrying out our orders." Abigail wasn't just rambling for the sake of it. The deceleration was putting an immense strain on them both; it felt like their heads were swelling with blood. It thumped in their ears and squeezed their eyeballs, blurring the screens slightly. The pain was tolerable - but tolerable didn't mean it was pleasant. And though Abigail's suit was deliberately made to withstand alternating positive and negative g forces, the Krakono seldom saw such impressive speeds and the flight suit wasn't built for such a thing. "Not seeing red yet, I hope?" Abigail spoke tersely as she fought her own circulatory system. "See you can just pass out when you touch down, what's the Krakono gonna do. Bounce. No way. Meanwhile I've got to break off, accelerate, decelerate some more and land on a busted strut. Cerol's full of trees." "Everything clear. We’re falling far, the trees are the last of our worries." His eyes were glued ahead on his readings. "Let's shoot for the meteor tactic. If any of my sensors aren't fried before touchdown we'll just point you at the nearest guerilla Coalition hideout." Abigail tried to giggle but managed a breathy hiss and a pained groan. "Speaking of…" Just as suddenly as it appeared, the layout was abruptly cut off; instead the last known descent path of Abigail, Jakunta and the escape pod remained. The little warning light against the Kolibri had started reaching severe levels of overheating; next was 'critical', then 'fatal'. It hadn't gotten that bad yet. "Not even Ingram expects us to have fully operational MASes after tearing ass through an entire atmosphere," Abigail spoke through gritted teeth. Her optimism came out strained. Everything was strained. "You [I]know[/I] what we're here for. Tracking beacons with guns. An idea - of where the fuck she landed." Her fingers, now leaden, punched in something letter by letter into a keypad. "Cerol. S'got breathable atmosphere, hodunk...colonies of some sort. Most of it, it's jungle, and water. Very wet. We won't hit any water." Each sentence was broken with a ragged breath. Aleksanderin's screen pinged with a message. A_HARLOW: wheeeeeee A_DANIELSSON: what the fuck The Krakono was starting to rumble with turbulence now as well. Unable to multitask any further, the two pilots conveyed their continued consciousness through various quiet grunts and noises of pain. An alarm started to blare in Abigail's cockpit. "Detaching from your chassis," she growled. "Prepare for landing." The deceleration was already ruthless but having to press the thrusters even harder for a few seconds worsened the long, tumultuous descent. Jakunta yelled through a clenched jaw as everything - blood, organs, muscle, bone, [I]everything[/I] - seemed to push upward into his skull. The pressure and the pain breached the threshold into intolerable levels. Trees bent like twigs under the Krakono's weight and the HUD blurred and his vision went red then there was a resounding crash and everything sloshed back into place and Jakunta slumped back into then through his seat as he plunged into absolute darkness. The emergency lighting was on when Jakunta came to, with various alarms pinging and beeping to let him know that the Krakono was overheating. His arms, legs, head, hands and feet felt heavy and difficult to move. The HUD was still online but flickering; it displayed the position of the Kolibri at around a hundred metres from his location. The camera feed into Abigail's cockpit was full of fuzz and static - he couldn't make out her figure in the seat. It was empty. Jakunta tiredly reached out to confront Abigail through her comms. “You with us? Hey.” before collapsing back into his seat. He waited patiently, trying to recover some sense into his limbs to get himself up properly and exit his MAS. "Haaaghghraauuughgh." Abigail clearly wasn't attempting anything more complex than an indication that she wasn't dead. Jakunta nodded to himself, he let himself recover for one more minute before finally gathering the strength to start fiddling with the controls of his mech. There weren't any damages - not that he'd expected any - but the more delicate components such as the HUD and the Comms were patchy and flickering as they kept trying to turn off to cool down and switch back on again because the MAS was still in use. Control input was sluggish at best. He tried to aim his cannon and, whilst it would move, it would only move a fraction of an inch before he had to input the coordinates again. There was no way around it; until the Krakono had cooled somewhat, it wasn't going anywhere fast. Jakunta reached back out to Abigail. “Stay where you are, I'll come find you. I’m going to take a look outside.” he stood himself up and shakily made himself to the hatch of his MAS. "Aaarghuugugugh." Initially Cerol looked like a hazy rainforest but once Jakunta made it out of the Krakono he saw the MAS steaming as the humidity in the air sizzled off the armour plates. The jungle was dense and thick and had been only slightly blown back by their sudden arrival, to the point that only a brief gap in the canopy had formed. It wasn't that hard to find the Kolibri as Abigail must have aimed for the gap during her own landing...but it wasn't as flawlessly executed as he'd have liked. It was slumped over on its knees, leaning against one of the knotted tree trunks and also emanating clouds of steam high into the jungle. The cockpit was only partially ajar. Jakunta dove back down the hatch, he equipped some light combat gear and grabbed a sidearm before clambering back up the hatch and safely down his large MAS. He carefully trudged towards the Kolibri- eyes scanning the foliage around them and the dirt beneath him. He arrived at the cockpit, trying to peer inside before voicing out: “I’m outside. It’s me.” as a forewarning. When he didn't hear an answer he pushed his way into the cockpit; in the gloom Abigail was lying face first on the ground in her EVA suit. “You look like you just fell from orbit.” Jakunta remarked before looking at the interior of her MAS, checking to see if there were even sparks to indicate the machine's functionality. Everything was switched off and a few preliminary clicks didn't turn anything back on again. Abigail slowly rolled onto her side, wrenched her helmet off, sucked in a few lungfuls of air then instinctively lurched onto her hands and knees as she threw up a splash of watery fuschia liquid. "Waste of a d-damn good FroO-" Abigail retched and threw up again. She groaned. "I've got the Dizzies." “Same can’t be said about your MAS. It’s fucked. Come on- come back to the Krakono. It’s systems are still working I just can’t move it. We can see about finding the location of the escape pod there and… recover while we do so. Grab your personals. We might have to blow it.” "Kolibri's not [I]fucked[/I], she's just resting. I didn't even reach critical. But she's delicate and prissy - same sort of temperament you'd get out of Aleks when you use up all his good shampoo." Abigail wiped her mouth and sat up. Her whole body was swaying. "I switched it all off so we can get the Full Echo up and running, your MAS doesn't even have smart targeting. Alright give me room." Jakunta stepped back, standing by the ajar cockpit to observe with a faint grin on his face. It was an increasingly common sight; Abigail planted her hands on the floor, shut her eyes and steadied her breathing. Then she stood up sharply and began gathering her combat gear. The problem was that her balance, after prolonged aerial manoeuvres in space and a rushed re-entry, was utterly disrupted for the time being. Yet she carried herself with a [i]chaotic grace[/i] like a young sailor on a storm-tossed ship, with the practice and haggard ease of someone who’s clearly trained, and trained, and trained to handle herself in these states. She staggered from one end to the other, her movements deliberate, controlled, unstable, erratic all at once. Once she had her combat gear she tugged her helmet loosely over her head, pulled her elbows in and flung herself out of the cockpit. Jakunta watched her bounce off the Kolibri's chassis and land in the dirt then followed her down. Offering an elbow for the young woman to hold onto, the two pilots made their way back to the Krakono. It took Abigail a moment to get to the hatch. Once inside, Jakunta sealed the entry and Abigail pulled her helmet off, burped then gingerly lowered herself onto the floor so she was lying on her back. “No signal from the escape pod. Is good and bad.” he murmured. “We need to wait for the others to land, hopefully they aren’t getting minced up there.” he let out a deep breath. “In the meantime, see if we can figure out her trajectory from the debris. At least give us a direction to turn to once the others arrive.” "Would a pod have any debris?" Abigail asked. "It's risky - all the space crap from that fight is also getting sucked into orbit. I'm willing to bet we'll start seeing burning chunks of MASes, cruisers and Horizon Point soon." “If she emits some kind of signal we can more accurately find her- so can the enemy though.” "Krakono's on its emergency lights and I'm letting Kolibri cool off," Abigail retorted. She rolled her head to look at Jakunta and clearly regretted doing so. "Sorry if I sound like a negative Nancy here - but she's also a fully trained pilot and we're in the middle of nowhere. As much as I want to find her, I feel we're not going to be able to do much except make it harder for the Roanoke to find [I]us[/I]." "And besides." Abigail gingerly turned to look back up at the ceiling. "If she's dead and we stay here, our orders were to drop and we followed procedure by providing as much information as we could and remaining where we landed so the Full Echo could be used and the Roanoke could locate us. If she's dead and we chase her...then we weren't fast enough, right?" “You talk a fuck ton for a someone that should be shutting up and making sure she doesn’t vomit.” Jakunta interrupted. "If I couldn't do my job whilst under the effects of violent vertigo I wouldn't be here," Abigail forced a grin. "My job is to annoy pilots." She went quiet for a bit. "I do feel like crap though." “Let me say correctly: You’re talking too much.” he nodded, getting to work on assisting the Krakono with temporary shutdown. "Does this mean I can sleep off the Dizzies?" She lifted her head and regretted it more. "Military mandated naptime?" “Yes. I’m going to shut MAS down. So enemies don’t catch any machinery.” "Since you don't have double vision and can aim a gun I think you should be on the lookout for now." With great delicacy, Abigail lifted herself and grabbed Jakunta's jacket from the back of his chair. She bundled it up into a pillow as she lay back down, shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Wake me up when you spot the princess," she murmured. Jakunta didn’t respond. He climbed up the hatch again, gun in hand to keep a physical lookout. As he stood watch he cycled through the various radio channels but only heard static. He leant back a little and looked down at Abigail. The pilot was fast asleep already - if not, she was lying as still as possible with her mouth open as she tried to recover what little balance she could before anything developed. He sighed and went back to his ‘post’, gazing out across the gargantuan, heavy branches. The crystalline lake glimmered in the distance and the breeze rolling across its surface tousled his hair.