[center][h1][color=b0021d]Xander Clarke[/color][/h1][/center]
[hr]

[H2][center]Aral Sea, Kazakhstan [/center][/h2]

[color=b0021d]“Bloody brilliant, Stafford! You just earned yourself one free favor from yours truly!”[/color] Xander jested over the comms as he watched the sharpshooter repaint the cockpit a lovely shade of mech pilot red.

Now it was his time. Xander broke cover into a full sprint from going straight for the mech. He had to get there before anyone else noticed it was free for the taking. Once he had closed enough distance he launched into the air and slammed onto the mech. He grabbed hold of what was left of the pilot and tossed it out of the cockpit and climbed into the now vacant chair. With a simple press of a button, the hatch closed and locked into place. Xander now owned this mech, and he was just instructed to have some fun. 

A terrible storm followed as Xander unleashed hell upon any poor soul Artemis had stationed out there. Bullets and rockets alike scorched the desert as the aussie made use of every second he had in that marvel of technical mayhem. Those who tried to use the ship for cover found their end at the barrel of the dingo, if not another member of Raven. Laughter escaped his lips with every ordinance fired… This was probably going to come up in his next psych evaluation… Oh well. These were terrorists afterall. It was really hard to find any sympathy or even feel remorse for them. Besides, they brought this mech to kill him and his squad. If they weren’t prepared to deal with it turning on them, that was their fault.

–

The carnage continued for a few more minutes until they had confirmed all hostiles were dealt with. The smart ones ran, and their reward was a chance to live as long as they could get out of this desert on foot. The rest were now permanent additions to the barren lands. The objective was secured, the area was clear, all Raven Squad really had left was to wait for evac. The happy hacker drove the mech to the regroup point and popped the hatch.

[color=b0021d]“Good on ya, mates! I think we taught those drongos a lesson they won’t soon forget.”[/color] Xander stated, satisfied with their performance. 

He placed the mech in park and pulled out his tablet. He directly connected it to mech’s interface and started grabbing any and all data he could. It had a lot in there. Most of it was encrypted, which was to be expected, but he was more than happy to download it for now and decrypt it back at base. He had a whole setup for that in his quarters. A top of the line system completely isolated from the main network just in case there was any malicious softwares waiting to spring a trap. For now, he would kick back and take the moment to catch his breath while the download completed. He had just gotten comfortable when Queen started screaming over the comms.

[color=C9C9C9]"Shit! Bomb drone's been hacked, everyone, fucking run and split!"[/color]

[color=b0021d]“What? Ah quit messing, mum. There’s no way anyone was able to break into-”[/color] Xander started to brush off Queen's warning, until he looked into the sky and saw the drone descending: fast. His eyes grew wide behind his helmet as his mind taunted him with his thoughts from before about Artemis not being prepared to deal with tech they brought. [color=b0021d]“Oh bugger.”[/color]

Nothing could ever be simple. He ripped the tablet from the mech and secured it to his arm. Whatever he was currently downloading would have been corrupted by that interruption. Hopefully not all of it, but there wasn't time to check. He had to go [i]now[/i]. He leaped from the mech and kicked his exo into gear. The drone was aiming at the mech, which meant he was starting from ground fucking zero. He pushed his exo to its limits, going as fast as it could even if it was more than his body could handle. A cracked bone would be preferable to death. He could only hope he was far enough out when he heard the bomb make contact. 

[H2][center]FUBAR[/center][/h2]

Everything was dark. A void of nothing consumed Xander as he lay motionless in the sand. Finally, the void was breached by the sound of a high pitched ring. Then, a sliver of light appeared. It grew to encompass the void before manifesting back into his sight. The ringing too faded and morphed back into the sounds around him. It felt like forever, but it was only a few seconds before he returned to his body and Xander found himself laying face first in the ground. The last thing he remembered was the blast. Was he caught in it? Or was it just the shockwave? Didn't really matter at this point. He was breathing. And he could hear Queen in his ear asking for everyone to check in.

[color=C9C9C9]"We all still alive?”[/color]

He tried to reply, but the words wouldn’t come out. His entire body ached, no doubt he was beaten and bruised and bit delirious, but he was conscious and alive. If he couldn’t speak to let everyone know he was still going, then at the very least he had to get up and show them. He placed his right arm down and pushed up without issue, but the moment he moved his left arm and attempted to put weight on it, pain immediately exploded through it as he dropped back to the ground clutching his arm in agony. Rolling to his back, he used his right arm to lift his left into view. There was a thin bloody chunk of metal sticking out his left forearm. Only about 2 cm of it was visible while the rest was embedded pretty deep. Yeah, he was going to need surgery after this one. Fan-fucking-tastic. His tablet was obviously destroyed by this, not like it would do him any good anyway. And as long as the M.2 wasn’t damaged he could salvage whatever data he had downloaded. 

That was stuff to worry about later. Right now, they had hostiles inbound and Queen was trying to rally the team so they could actually survive this. His job was to join Chaos at the weapons cache and move what they could to the remains of the ship and set up a defensive position there.

Okay. He could do this. 

[color=b0021d]“Copy, mum.”[/color] Xan managed to grunt out over the comms. The jolt from the pain and adrenaline must have finally loosened his tongue [color=b0021d]“Just… Give me a moment… Need to… take some medicine.”[/color]. He reached into one of his side pockets and pulled out a syringe filled with… He wanted to say morphine or something? He wasn’t a doctor. All he knew was it was issued to everyone for field use and it made the pain go away. With a deep breath, he plunged the syringe into his shoulder and injected the solution into his veins. Immediately the solution took effect. The pain was still there, but it had faded drastically. 

[color=b0021d]“Oh bloody hell that’s good shit!”[/color] Xan blurted out as he felt relief wash over him. Dropping the empty syringe on the ground, the aussie was at last able to push himself up, though he had to be careful how he moved his arm. It still had a chunk of metal protruding out, and he wasn’t sure if it was better to remove it or not, so he opted to leave it until he was told otherwise. Again; he wasn’t a doctor. 

[color=b0021d]“Alright. One surprise party for Artemis coming right up. Let’s go, Chaos.”[/color] Xander said, nodding his head towards the weapons cache as he staggered to it. [color=b0021d]“I reckon we start with the AT launchers. Make sure we can deal with anything armored, then worry about LMGs. Worst case I still got a gun and a knife and those work pretty well on blokes. Tanks. Not so much.”[/color]

5 minutes is all they had. But even in this condition, it would be enough.