Another evasive three-sixty, and another sweep of the dark chaos of the storm, enveloping everything past a bubble of maybe forty meters. The presence of another—a supposed ally—had soothed Gan's nerves by now, but still he stuck to protocol. To routine. To muscle-memory, chiseled into his brain by drills and regimens. Because drilling kept his mind, or at least his eye, off the rookie, who he could swear he had just caught in his peripherals with one leg stuck out, arms flailing, as her metal behemoth threatened to slip out from underneath her and make a new crater in the hill they had mounted. Before he could ask the question (sparing himself from having to hear the answer), Gan slipped into an angle opposite hers, and a position slightly behind her, so that now they had eyes on the whole sector.[hr][table][row][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Fireteam 9, Fireteam 9. I’ve just arrived at RV Beta."[/code]
[color=2e2c2c]___________________________________________________________________________[/color][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/cell][/row][/table][hr]He spoke with clarity, confidence, and purpose, despite anticipating (and receiving) no answer from his comrades; only a quiet, crackling protest from the radio.[hr][table][row][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"... Standing by ..."[/code]
[color=2e2c2c]___________________________________________________________________________[/color][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/cell][/row][/table][hr]And now, to embrace the inevitable: after witnessing her temperament firsthand back on the [i]Artaxerxes,[/i] Gan could only expect something truly asinine to leave his new partner's mouth. Another joke. More elbow-to-ribcage wisecracking from a girl they didn't know, and who had done nothing yet to earn that trust or respect. And yet who put on like they were already best buddies, like she was already a member of their live-and-die troupe. At this rate, Gan was wondering whether she'd get herself killed first or merely court-martialed. And how many of them she'd take down with her, too. And the last thing they'd hear on their radios as they went up in flames? That goddamned singsong voice, parroting their orders back at them with a halfhearted "roger that" or "got it" tacked to the end.

Just what the hell had Commander Streymoy seen in her when he gave her file the green stamp? And——Melger! What, had he not noticed any of the red flags while he was vetting this chick?! Or did he just ignore them and push her through anyway? Gan swore up to heaven and down to hell: if he was about to die because all the blood was in "Druid's" dick instead of his brain on recruitment day ... but before he could finish cursing his enigmatic handler and comms officer, Gan heard a sound which managed to surprise him even then, with all that pessimism pissing hot into his liver. Even as he [i]thought[/i] he'd learned to expect the worst from this girl. A familiar blinking chime let him know that a new unit had just joined the channel. Either she had just turned on her radio, or she was ... Gan didn't know. Surfing for some fucking tunes before she remembered she had a job to do.

He swallowed a mouthful of spit, and with it, a mouthful of words best left unsaid. For now. For now, the seemingly ironically named "Hothead" returned to his usual cold, biting disposition, cloaking himself in its mysteries.[hr][table][row][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/914939690807881798/mowgli_staticky_awkward.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Ah! This is Mowgli! To Hothead! I have also arrived! But, um ... since you're going to be with me, I guess you know that ... um, over."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"... I haven't learned your name yet. What do they call you back home?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Me? My name? (Yes! They want to get to know me better!) M-My name is Rose. Rose Synapse. (Okay, play it cool for now. You can tell them about your figurine collection later.) And ... and you?"[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"... Ganymedes. Gan."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Cool! I mean, yeah, okay ... Well, Gan, I hope we make a great team."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"In the spirit of ... that ... maybe you'll start by briefing me on what else that Talarius can do. Because in all this atmospheric interference, those wrist-lasers won't do us a damn lick of good."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Well, I hear that this mech can go really fast. Dodge any attack that the enemy throws at it. I think it suits me really well, don't you? ... And, and I think it can punch things too? It DOES have hands ..."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"..."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"..."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"..."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"... *cough*"[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"... What about alt comms? Any wire-guided launch systems? TacSat?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Oh, oh! It has an anti-missile system!"[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"*sigh* ... (Thanks, Commander. Thanks a lot.)"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"... I'm, uh, still figuring this mech out. Sorry."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Just ... just gimme a second."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907861453451702292/hothead_Staticky_calm.gif[/img][/cell][/row][/table][hr]He reached, slowly and deliberately, for the neurojack in his neck, plucking it. Underneath and all around him, his mech autopiloted itself into a stabilized idling position. Next he twisted the volume dial to the left until there was a click; a knife-like silence killed the radio, static and all, and the video feed contracted into a pinprick in the center of a now-dead screen. For a moment of his choosing, Gan was alone. He breathed. He opened up a side-console and reached in. First to break, shattered against the far wall and cascading from it in a shower of jagged glass, was an ashtray. Then a box of 12-gauge shells, now clinking against the floor and rolling into the corners. Gan tried to wrestle a cyclic out from its mount, and he punched the battle map screen until the pain pierced his gloves, tingling in his knuckles. He recoiled, and gripped the trembling hand. The straps of his seat hugged him too tightly to let him get up and walk off his rage, so he tore at them, too, and his helmet, and everything else that restrained him to this chair-shaped coffin and this cockpit-sized grave. But by the time he was free, Gan didn't want to go anywhere; what he saw was too vivid, too paralyzing. It was Scyto's face. In turns it curled and blackened as it went up in flames; it crumpled between jaws of buckled steel, and bled under the gentle kiss of broken glass; his beautiful, boyish eyes popped in the vacuum of space; he choked in the technicolor gases of Jupiter, of a nebula. Gan had to shove this face away by replacing it with others. The crow's-feet and the crinkle in Yrma's nose as she laughed. Ana pouting as Strauss teased her, always like children when they were together. Even the moody, stoic, quietly strong Ketherin Voldova, who watched her brood from afar. Which of them was Rose Synapse going to kill with her naivety?

But worst of all was not knowing who to blame. Who to be angry at. Was it Rose's fault, or was it Streymoy's and Melger's, who let her in? Or was it Gan's fault? Out in the corridors, in the mess hall, he could have chastised her for the wrinkles in her flight suit and the bangs hanging down into her eyes. He could've gotten her assigned to swab duty while the rest of them completed the mission. Hell, he could've challenged her to a sim match and learned all of this sooner! But he'd been too busy moping and being aloof, and now here they were. Trapped on this backwater moon with too little atmosphere and too many questions. With a teammate who was barely learning how to walk, never mind how to lessen the impact of a missile with a well-timed shoulder roll, or slice the pie on an unsecured corner.

These same questions already haunted the five teammates who remained from that first fateful day. Questions they all held close to them but dared not ask. Who could have done something differently that day. Whose fault it really was. They weren't ready for the answer. Not really.

No. No, not now. The others needed him to pull his shit together. Because he [i]could[/i] shoulder-roll and slice the pie and more when it mattered. The others needed him to [i]keep[/i] it together long enough to secure the hostages, save the base, and get back to the ship for beers and billiards. Anger and grief be damned, Gan had a job to do.

So he ripped open an MRE and wiped his face down with the provided towelette. He steadied his breathing. He centered his thoughts. He strapped himself back down into his chair, his helmet. He jacked back into the Basilisk. And he breathed one more time, shakily, before steeling his countenance and twisting the dial on the radio, reviving the whole array.[hr][table][row][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Okay. You're the liaison between points Alpha and Beta. That much is clear. But I don’t think the Commander meant for you to be so defenseless en route."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Uh huh. Hey, you were out for a second there. Did something go wrong?"[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Worry about yourself, because here's your next task. If you meet any charlies on your way to the others, abandon your orders and COME BACK. You'll bait them right to me. My particle cannon is out-of-action, too, but these twin coilguns use good old-fashioned projectiles. They'll put the fear of God into anything that could be chasing you."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"... Alright. Cool."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"And I'll take the fall if it comes to that. So don't worry about how the Commander will react and just trust what I'm telling you."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Leave the court-martial to you. Good plan."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Do you always repeat what people say to you?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907864596981903390/mowgli_staticky_calm.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Not always. It helps me remember things, though. If someone asks me to get, uh ... tomatoes, for example, from the store, I'd repeat what they say. That way I can play it back in my head once I'm at the store. You know?"[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"So you forget easily, do you, Ms. Synapse?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/914939690807881798/mowgli_staticky_awkward.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Not always! It's just really helpf——eep!"[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Let me be more pointed: once you've walked back to Voldova and the others, are you gonna forget ME out here?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/914939690807881798/mowgli_staticky_awkward.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"N-n-nuh-no, sir! Of course not!"[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Don't call me 'sir.' We're equals; at least according to our papers. As for you not going through your flight check; the chummy way that you talk; practically stumbling and tripping in your mech ... I'm starting to get a clearer picture. You've never piloted one before. Have you?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856748361162783/mowgli_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"... No."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"So you don't have a military record. Or if you do, you were an ass in a chair."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856748361162783/mowgli_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"... I don't have one."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][/table][hr][i]No use losing it again. You're already stuck out here.[/i]

The only thing left to do was to fucking do it.[hr][table][row][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"I'll keep this to myself for now. At least until we're out of this shit-mess. Until then, I've got only one question: if I get into trouble, are you writing me off and turning tail? Or is there a germ of soldiery somewhere in that civvie heart of yours?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856748361162783/mowgli_staticky_stoic.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/right][/cell][cell][code]"I'm not abandoning you. Or anyone."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"..."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Okay. Let's say I believe you. Which way are you heading now?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856748361162783/mowgli_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"North-northeast, about thirty degrees."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"The map isn't set to true north, but I get your meaning. Alright. Starboard-side it is. And if you won't get caught, and won't lose your nerve, tagging a few charlies on the way wouldn't hurt our chances any. They're probably closer to the wall."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856748361162783/mowgli_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"Fine. If the opportunity presents itself."[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Good enough. But seriously; not even a LAN cable for short-band?"[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][row][cell][right][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856748361162783/mowgli_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/right][/cell][cell][code]"What does 'LAN' mean?"[/code][/cell][cell][/cell][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"...... Never mind. Get moving."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img][/cell][/row][/table][hr]Those questions and doubts were buried deep now. The soldier had taken over. Gan overrode a few map parameters and gave himself waypoint permissions. As he guided his steel lizard to the northernmost side of the hill's crest, overlooking and guarding a crater-pocked plain, he drew a thirty-degree line, starting at the hill's base (the bottom of a sheer rock face) and spanning far into the distance, well past the supposed latitude of the quarry. If Rose couldn't follow a straight line, then ... well, then he didn't know how else to try and help her.

He reached over for the opened MRE, a Scandinavian medley of crackers, [i]pâtés,[/i] and jams, and began assembling himself a spread. It'd be a while until Rose could run into trouble, and even longer until she made contact with Alpha team. If she made contact. The sniper's most familiar foe had struck again. The waiting game had begun.[hr][table][row][/row][row][cell][/cell][cell][right][code]"Oh. and if it turns out you alerted the enemy by walking past the base with your broadcaster turned on, I'll kill you myself. Out."[/code][/right][/cell][cell][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/907856750651260938/hothead_staticky_stoic.gif[/img]
[color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][/cell][/row][/table][hr]