Lieutenant Commander Leofric Hroderich, Lord Crystalfield, heir apparent to the County of Crystalfield, was having a bad day. Really, it would be more accurate to say he was having a bad month. And if you wanted to be [i]most[/i] accurate, you might say that he was having a bad five weeks and three days, because that was how long it had been since he had landed on this godforsaken planet. It wasn't as if he had never been "outside"--large natural spaces had been incorporated into the colonies as they were built, and thanks to his birth he'd had more access to them than most--but certainly no planner had ever created a habitat with weather this extreme. [i]Or,[/i] he mused, [i]if they have, it could only be as a method of torture.[/i]

Presently he was doing his best to avoid the heat by parking himself in the little airbase's command hub. It wasn't where he was supposed to be, strictly speaking, but rank had its privileges, and Lord Crystalfield had never been shy about exercising them. Even if he wasn't actually in the cockpit, his Myrmidon was close enough, and the other soldiers assigned to his squad were more than capable of maintaining a patrol in this little slice of nowhere.

[i]After all, if the dirtsiders haven't found us yet, it's because they 
[/i]can't. [i]Just another couple or three weeks of this hell before we break through at the front, and then I'll see about getting reassigned somewhere less... moist.[/i][hr]
The com crackled to life in the cockpit of Marcus's Bumble Sting. [i]"Bumble Sting, permission granted. Repeat, weapons free!"[/i][hr]
Leofric dropped the book he'd been reading as shouted reports came through on his earbud.

[i]"We're under attack! Enemy fire from unknown position! I've sustained significant damage!"[/i]

He scrambled to his feet and rushed over to the door. Leaning out of the climate-controlled building felt like sticking his head in a sauna, but for the first time since he arrived, the climate was distant second in the young man's thoughts. The guard Myrmidon was too far away to see clearly, but even at this distance, he could tell it had taken some kind of damage. 

A different voice--but with the same level of urgency--came through his comm. [i]"Ground radar is picking up inbound!"[/i]

Leofric turned and ran in the opposite direction, slamming the door of the command center closed behind him.[hr]
[b]Marcus[/b] became who he needed to be in that moment: a man shooting a target. The Myrmidon that was in his sights was no longer an enemy, but a bullseye. 

As he pulled the trigger, though, the Sparos in his sights did something very inconsiderate for a bullseye to do and shifted slightly to the side. Not much--just enough to keep its foot from sinking too far into the wet ground, and to keep Bumble Sting's shot from being a kill. Instead of taking out the cockpit, the shot severed the machine's left forearm, which bounced off of the compacted dirt as the mech's head-mounted sensors swept around wildly.

[b]Albert[/b] was the first thing it saw as Daedalus charged into the base's perimeter. Men screamed, falling out of the vehicle as the walker hoist it into the air, and his improvised projectile crunched into the base's communications array. Antennas were broken--sparks flew--and the transport finally stopped, hanging off one side of the bent dish. Albert had broken off the enemy's main line of communications--but in the process he had also broken ranks with his wingmate.

The scattered small arms fire he'd experienced so far was more a panic reaction from soldiers taken by surprise than any sort of real attempt at defense, but that reprieve was now over. An armored vehicle whirred around a temporary barracks, its turret already tracking the huge Myrmidon as it hove into view. The range was too short, and Daedalus was a large, slow target to begin with--the armor held, but there was no doubt that one had hit. The vehicle's autoloader slotted in another explosive shell as the tank zipped off, hoping to avoid retaliation.

[b]Rally[/b] found herself farther behind her squadmate than she would probably prefer--but that vantagepoint and the remove from the action gave her the opportunity to notice two things.

First--the one-armed Sparos was raising its sidearm to aim at Daedalus. Her ally was turned fully away from the threat--but by the same token, the enemy wasn't looking at her, either.

Second--through her audio pickups, she could hear a faint rumbling sound, coming from just behind a nearby hill...

[hider=Profile - AWK-02-1 Sparos]
The [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gundam/images/f/f8/SEM_Front.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110108205954]AWK-02-1 Sparos[/url] is the workhorse of the Athenian Army. It has a reputation for reliability and ease of use, and its Chroma reactor exceeds its normal power draw by a significant margin, enhancing its of speed and maneuverability and allowing it to mount energy-intensive beam weaponry and supplemental thrusters. Its default armament is, however, on the anemic side, and as Myrmidons go, it's comparatively lightly armored.

[i]Image credit: GN-00902 SEM, Mobile Suit Gundam 00V[/i][/hider]